Grapefruit Diet Blog & not only!

Research shows that 60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. And even though most of us go on diets and lose weight, 95 percent of us gain the weight back. But then is that surprising. The Federal Trade Commission recently stated that 40 percent of all weight loss products contained false or misleading information in their ads. Besides the out right lies, who can spend the rest of their lives on two shakes a day or only eating grapefruit? We live in a real world and we need real world solutions to weight loss. Fortunately, the research shows that making small sustainable changes over time will work.

Grapefruit diet blog news

Grapefruit juice interacts with many prescription drugs, which can cause potentially serious side effects or make some lifesaving drugs less effective.
This interaction is listed on a medication’s “drug-food interaction” label. But many people overlook those labels.
That’s what happened to Lucas King, a 59-year-old retired government auditor. King’s story appeared recently in the American Journal of Nursing. It’s a cautionary tale shared by Amy Karch, MS, RN, an assistant professor of clinical nursing at University of Rochester in New York.

Patient’s Story

At first, King’s health problems had nothing to do with grapefruit juice. Instead, he was facing a high risk of heart disease, like millions of Americans.
King was obese, inactive, and had a family history of heart disease. His LDL “bad” cholesterol level was way too high: 225 mg/dL, even after a month of dieting and exercising.
King’s doctor prescribed Lipitor, along with continued diet and exercise. King obeyed. His Lipitor dose was gradually increased to a high dose of 60 milligrams a day. After four months, he’d brought his LDL cholesterol down to 104. He’d also lost 36 pounds.
Later, King headed to his winter home in Florida. With a grapefruit tree on his patio, he drank two to three daily glasses of fresh grapefruit juice.
But just two months after getting the good news about his cholesterol, King was in a Florida emergency room. His symptoms: muscle pain that had started suddenly, fatigue, and high fever.
King was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a severe muscle reaction that can cause death.
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs such as Lipitor can cause rhabdomyolysis. The possible risk is noted on the drug’s warning labels. In fact, the teaching sheet given to King may have saved his life. The sheet listed signs and symptoms of the condition, advising patients to take them seriously and seek immediate medical attention.
Lipitor was stopped and King was monitored for kidney problems, which rhabdomyolysis can trigger. He said he’d taken the prescribed doses and wasn’t taking any over-the-counter or alternative medicines.
When a nurse asked King if he’d made any changes in diet or exercise, he told her about his grapefruit juice consumption. The nurse looked up Lipitor and found that grapefruit juice slows activity of the liver enzyme that metabolizes Lipitor. This led to high drug levels in King’s body, raising the risk of rhabdomyloysis. (more…)

Eating or drinking grapefruit may help people who are obese to lose weight, a study suggests.

Researchers in the United States say adding grapefruit to people’s diet may also protect them from diabetes.
The findings are based on a study of 100 obese people, who ate or drank grapefruit for 12 weeks.
The researchers are now planning a much larger study to see if the results are the same, according to a report in Chemistry and Industry magazine.

Grapefruit with meals

Ken Fujioka and colleagues at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego California enrolled 100 obese patients with an average weight of 218 pounds in the study.
One group of volunteers ate half a grapefruit before each meal three times a day, while another drank a glass of grapefruit juice before every meal. A third did not include grapefruit in their meals.
After 12 weeks, those eating grapefruit had lost an average of 3.6 pounds, and some shed as much as 10 pounds. The participants drinking grapefruit juice lost an average of 3.3 pounds. But those in the control group who consumed no grapefruit only lost an average of 0.5 pounds. The researchers said the weight loss was probably linked to lowered levels of insulin, which was born out by measurements of glucose levels. Insulin is used to metabolise sugar.
The more efficiently sugar is metabolised, the less likely it is to be stored as fat in the body. Lowering insulin levels also makes people feel less hungry. High levels of the hormone stimulate the brain’s hypothalamus, causing feelings of hunger. They also stimulate the liver to manufacture fat that can constrict arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes.
“Grapefruit is already known to affect the metabolism of some drugs,” said Chemistry and Industry.
“It improves the efficiency of some common oral medications, such as those taken for blood pressure, sedatives, and some immunosuppressant.”
Emma Bunn, diabetes care advisor at the charity Diabetes UK, said: “If grapefruit does significantly lower insulin levels this could be a potentially exciting discovery.
“We know weight loss reduces the body’s resistance to insulin and therefore improves diabetes control, so weight management is important in prevention and treatment of diabetes.
“We will be following any further research in this area closely to establish if grapefruit could provide genuine benefits.”

source BBC News