Living Low Carb (61 page)

There has been some controversy about how to supplement with omega-3’s. There are basically three omega-3 fatty acids we are interested in: ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), which is found in flaxseeds; and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docasahexaenoic acid), both of which are found in fish. The latter two, EPA and DHA, are the most important, and the body is
supposed
to make them from the first one (ALA). Unfortunately, it doesn’t do this very well: only a very small fraction of ALA eventually winds up as EPA and DHA. This has led many experts to favor supplementing with fish oil, since it contains
ready-made
EPA and DHA. Some, however, argue that even though only a small percentage of the ALA in flaxseed oil actually gets transformed successfully into EPA and DHA, ALA has valuable properties of its own (including anti-inflammatory ones), and for that reason flaxseed oil still deserves a place at the table.

I do agree with the prevailing notion that the most important omega-3’s for the body are EPA and DHA, and that if you had to take
either
flaxseed oil or fish oil, fish oil would be the better choice. For vegans or vegetarians or those who simply cannot stand the idea of fish oil, it’s still possible to get some needed EPA and DHA from flaxseed oil, but you’ll have to take a lot more than a couple of gel caps. If flaxseed oil is your only source of omega-3’s, I strongly suggest
at least
a couple of tablespoons a day. It goes very well on salads and vegetables (fish oil, not so much).

Flaxseeds have benefits beyond their omega-3 content, though. The seeds themselves contain valuable plant chemicals called
lignans
which have some anti-cancer activity, as well as fiber (which none of us get enough of). The flaxseeds do have to be ground, since they’re pretty indigestible as whole seeds. One particularly fine-ground flaxseed product is Barlean’s Forti-Flax, which I personally sprinkle on everything—I even throw a spoonful or two into smoothies.

When I take supplements, I know I’m doing something really good for myself, and that helps me focus on the other things I need to be doing for my health, like eating right and exercising every day. It seems to all go together.

—Maryanne DiC.

I continue to believe that the best recommendation is to take fish oil (as a liquid) or fish-oil supplements (as capsules) on a regular basis, and to add ground flaxseeds to just about everything, including protein shakes. I also use flaxseed oil on salads as well, often mixed in with other dressings or with olive oil. For your EPA and DHA, you could also opt for cod-liver oil, which is an excellent source oil, which is an excellent source of both. There has been some suggestion recently that the ratio of vitamin A to vitamin D in
many
cod-liver-oil products may be too heavily weighted toward vitamin A, and this is a legitimate concern. (You can alleviate some of the imbalance between A and D in many cod-liver-oil products by simply taking more supplemental vitamin D, something I think just about everyone should be doing anyway.)

GLA (Gamma-Linolenic Acid)

If you’re taking omega-3’s, which I hope you are, some GLA (at least 80 milligrams) should be taken daily to balance them. GLA may also help with weight loss. GLA is gamma-linolenic acid, an extremely important omega-6 fatty acid that the body makes in the presence of an enzyme (delta-6-desaturase) that is
inhibited
by insulin as well as by trans-fatty acids. Hence, most people don’t get enough GLA. It’s important to our discussion because it stimulates brown adipose tissue—which translates to less bodyfat accumulation and more fat-burning.
³²
Ann Louise Gittleman has said for years that she has seen clients break weight plateaus just by adding GLA. Robert Atkins reported on one study in which half the overweight people lost weight just by taking 400 milligrams per day of GLA.
³³
While I doubt that GLA by itself will do anything much, I don’t doubt that together with a lower-carb, moderate-calorie diet and a program like those discussed in this book, it will move things along.

For women with PMS, GLA is just about a necessity. It has been used for decades as a treatment for PMS and is an essential part of the “PMS cocktail” I recommend in my practice with great success: GLA, magnesium, B6, and neptune krill oil. Since cravings and carb binges are often part of PMS, improving PMS symptoms becomes a big part of successful weight loss for most women. With the PMS cocktail, you should see results within three menstrual cycles.

The usual sources for GLA are evening-primrose oil and borage oil, but I much prefer that you get the actual pure GLA supplement. Although there are typically a couple hundred milligrams of GLA in each 1,000-milligram evening-primrose-oil capsule, which is good, the rest of the oil is vegetable oil, which you don’t want or need. So it makes far more sense to simply take straight GLA.

Magnesium

I consider magnesium one of the most important supplements you can take and recommend it to virtually all my clients, especially if there is any chance of blood-sugar problems or insulin resistance. The minimum amount is 400 milligrams daily, and I prefer 800 milligrams.

The connection between magnesium and insulin was pointed out recently in a superb lecture at the annual Boulderfest Nutrition Conference by diabetes expert Dr. Ron Rosedale of the Rosedale Center for Metabolic Medicine.
³⁴
Insulin stores magnesium, and when and if your cells become resistant to insulin, you’re not going to store magnesium very well. Magnesium is also necessary for the
action
of insulin, so the more magnesium you lose, the more insulin-resistant you become. The more insulin-resistant you become, the more magnesium you lose. It’s a nasty little circle. And since, among other things, magnesium relaxes muscles, when you lose it, your blood vessels constrict and you may have higher blood pressure and reduced energy.

Not a good scenario.

The importance of magnesium to heart health and bone health have been written about extensively, so if for some reason you’re not already taking it for those reasons, then take it for its effect on your blood sugar (which in turn influences the amount of insulin your body secretes and therefore impacts weight loss). Magnesium is absolutely essential for managing blood sugar, and magnesium deficiency correlates with insulin resistance.
³⁵
(Even the American Diabetes Association admits “strong associations… between magnesium deficiency and insulin resistance.”) Many nutritionists estimate that as much as 80% of the population doesn’t get enough magnesium (and it could easily be more). As an added benefit, magnesium supplementation can bring down LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and bring up HDL (“good”) cholesterol,
³⁶
not exactly a bad “side effect”!

Alpha-Lipoic Acid

If there is a supplement other than fish oil that I feel safe recommending for just about everyone, it is alpha-lipoic acid. Aside from its impact on blood sugar, insulin sensitivity, and liver health, this superstar nutrient does “double whammy” magic by acting as a powerful antioxidant on its own and by protecting other antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, making it a powerful anti-aging nutrient. While alpha-lipoic acid is not specifically a nutrient for weight loss, it can help with two areas that can stall your weight-loss progress. The first is insulin resistance. Alpha-lipoic acid has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity,
³⁷
and, if for no other reason than that, it belongs in the program of anyone who has a lot of weight to lose.

Along those same lines, some of the most impressive research with alpha-lipoic acid has been done on diabetic neuropathy, the peripheral pain most diabetics feel in their extremities. Glucose (sugar)
causes
neuropathy. It does this by a nasty little process called glycation, which is when excess sugar literally sticks to protein in the blood, gumming up the works, impairing signals to nerves, making circulation difficult (especially in the tiny capillaries in the eyes and toes), and creating the aptly named AGES (
a
dvanced
g
lycolated
e
nd-products). (For a full discussion of glycation, see
chapter 2
.) Alpha-lipoic acid is, among other things, an antiglycation agent; hence, we can assume it does good things to elevated levels of blood sugar.

Another way alpha-lipoic acid may help weight loss is with its protective effect on the liver. The liver is the body’s main fat-processing factory, and if there’s a traffic jam there, fat-burning is not going to be optimal. Fatty liver—a condition many very overweight people have—and/or an excess of medications, toxins, pollutants, and the like that have to be detoxified by the liver can definitely slow things up. Alpha-lipoic acid is a powerful liver protector. In one spellbinding report by Dr. Burt Berkson, an emergency treatment with alpha-lipoic acid played a central role in saving the lives of two young patients whose deaths from mushroom poisoning/liver toxicity would have been a virtual certainty. Berkson has also reported on a successful treatment for the serious liver disease hepatitis C that uses alpha-lipoic acid, selenium, and milk thistle.
³⁸

For overall health and protection, I recommend 50 to 100 milligrams of alpha-lipoic acid daily as a supplement; but for effects on blood sugar, insulin, and the liver, I suggest at least 600 milligrams per day. The only “downside” to alpha-lipoic acid is that it is relatively expensive.

Chromium

I recommend chromium for anyone I suspect has problems with blood sugar and/or insulin resistance or who is chronically unable to lose weight. Chromium is insulin’s helpmate: it makes insulin do its job of getting sugar out of the bloodstream and into the cells more effectively. We’ve already seen how high levels of insulin contribute to both weight gain and the inability to lose fat. If your body doesn’t need to overproduce insulin, you will have a more favorable and balanced hormonal environment for both health and weight loss.

Indeed, chromium as a supplement has been tested in a number of studies, specifically for its weight-loss and muscle-building properties. The studies are conflicting. By itself, chromium probably does not “cause” you to lose weight. But by having a positive effect on blood sugar via its ability to increase the effectiveness of insulin, it is automatically helping to control one of the biggest obstacles to weight loss. Dr. Harry Preuss, one of the most distinguished and respected chromium researchers in the world, summed it up this way: “If you have a properly functioning glucose and insulin system, the tendency is to lose fat and build muscle.” In fact, one of the most impressive studies of chromium was done by Preuss himself on 28 overweight African-American women. Two groups took part in a modest diet-and-exercise program; one group was given niacin-bound chromium (200 micrograms three times a day), and the other was given a placebo. The women getting the chromium had a significant loss of fat and a sparing of muscle.
³⁹

Other studies have also demonstrated chromium’s positive effects. In one study, 1,000 micrograms a day of chromium given to type 2 diabetics produced a beneficial effect on glucose, insulin, cholesterol, and hemoglobin A1c levels (an important measure for diabetes).
⁴⁰
Another study showed that while chromium supplementation didn’t have an effect on everyone, it had a significant positive effect on fasting insulin levels in those subjects who had high fasting levels to begin with (fasting insulin is measured by a blood test performed when you have not had anything to eat or drink except water for at least eight hours). High fasting insulin levels are a sign that there’s too much insulin in the system and a good indication that there are blood-sugar problems.
⁴¹

But is chromium safe?

Here’s the deal. There has been a lot of media attention recently on the supposed link of chromium picolinate to DNA damage and precancerous conditions. Indeed, a number of somewhat disturbing studies have come out that have raised eyebrows.
⁴²
However, there are two things you should know.

One, the studies are all focused on the possible—I repeat,
possible
—damaging effects of picolinic acid—i.e., the “picolinate” part of chromium picolinate. hese studies do
not
cast any doubt whatsoever on the safety of chromium itself, which has been shown time and again to be one of the safest nutrients you can take.
⁴³
Doses of chromium that are about 300 times the currently recommended daily dietary intake have been found safe in animals.
⁴⁴

Two, not everyone agrees that these studies are meaningful. Shari Lieberman, a certified nutrition specialist and author of
The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book
, calls them “junk science.” She says, “Show me where the amount of picolinate used in those hamster cell studies has any bearing whatsoever on what a human being would consume if they took chromium picolinate in the ranges we’re recommending.” Dr. C. Leigh Broadhurst, who worked with Dr. Richard Anderson on the development of chromium picolinate at the USDA, agrees. Others are more cautious. “I’m about 99.9 percent sure that chromium picolinate is safe,” says Dr. Harry Preuss. “But if there’s even a glimmer of doubt, and it’s something you’re going to be taking for years, why not stick with a form of chromium where there’s no question whatsoever about the safety?”

So, what to do? Should you take chromium if you are struggling with weight, blood-sugar, and insulin-resistance issues?
Absolutely
. And if you want to be absolutely 100% on the safe side, choose a form other than picolinate. Three that come to mind are chromium polynicotinate (niacinbound chromium, available, for example, in a brand called Chrome-Mate), GTF chromium, or chromium arginate.