Doctor’s Best Diets for the New Year

, , , , Health Basics, Healthy Living, Holiday Safety, Lifestyle, Motivation, Nutrition

At the beginning of every new year, it’s customary to make resolutions to improve our lives in some way. Usually near the top of the list of New Year’s resolutions the goal of losing weight. Our primary care concierge doctors in Jupiter certainly applaud that one, because obesity negatively impacts our health in so many areas, from the possibility of type 2 diabetes to heart disease. 

But there are other reasons to adhere to a particular type of diet, which don’t necessarily relate to weight loss. Diet in this sense means a way of eating, whether it’s cultural or just for overall health.

Forbes 2023 Rankings

Forbes Health recently consulted a team of seven nutrition experts to rate 19 diets considering a range of factors, from weight loss to heart health. 

Which one is best for you depends on your reason for trying a new diet. Of the 19 diets reviewed, these made the top 10:

  • Best for overall health: Mediterranean diet, emphasizing fresh fruits, olive oil, nuts, and fish
  • Best non-meat diet: vegetarian, which generally doesn’t allow meat, poultry, or fish
  • Best for heart health: dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) diet, which focuses on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy
  • Best commercial diet: Weight Watchers (now known as WW), emphasizing lower calories, with coaching and group support
  • Best commercial diet runner-up: Noom, an app that ranks food according to calories, with coaching and group support
  • Best non-meat diet runner-up: vegan, which allows no animal products of any kind
  • Best diet for flexibility: pescatarian, a type of vegetarianism that also allows fish and other seafood
  • Best diet for holistic health: Ornish diet, low-fat emphasis allowing no meat, fish, or poultry
  • Best diet for a brain boost: MIND diet, a combination of the Mediterranean and DASH diets
  • Best diet for a nutrient boost: Nordic diet, consisting primarily of fish, berries, and winter vegetables, with a small amount of meat and sweets allowed

Other Views

The annual US News listing of best diets includes most of the above diets, in addition to Jenny Craig, Dr. Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet, the Mayo Clinic diet, volumetrics, the nutritarian diet, the South Beach diet, and the Plantstrong diet.

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on what makes a great diet.

For instance, Dr. Michael Greger told NBC’s TODAY that the worst diet is what he terms the CRAP diet: “calorie-rich and processed foods” that make health problems worse and weight loss impossible.

Instead, he recommends consuming a whole-food, plant-based diet, which is naturally high in fiber and low in calorie density and allows people to eat as much as they want—no calorie counting or portion control needed.

“It’s a diet that minimizes the intake of meat, eggs, dairy, and processed junk, and maximizes the intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes like beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds, mushrooms—basically, real food that grows out of the ground. Those are our healthiest choices,” he told TODAY.

“The strategy is to improve the quality of food rather than restricting the quantity of food,” he added, “so it doesn’t leave you hungry. That’s a diet you can stick with. You get a boost of energy, better digestion, better sleep.”

Skip the Gimmicks

His approach is simple. And in contrast, notice what kinds of diets don’t show up on any of these lists.

The hugely popular keto diet is one example. Studies show that 80 percent of those who try it struggle to stick with it. Why, when it often results in huge and rapid amounts of weight loss?

Because it not only can it cause numerous side effects—body aches, headaches, light-headedness, nausea, fatigue and lethargy, constipation, and brain fog—but because everyone else is eating garlic bread and mashed potatoes (not cauliflower) with gravy and pasta. 

Because, in short, the keto diet is restrictive. It has a long list of very tasty foods that either aren’t allowed or are allowed only in small portions after a certain time.

“When you are on the keto diet, you drastically cut your carbs to only 20 per day. That’s less than one apple!” nutritionist Lisa Drayer, a CNN contributor, told the network.

Bottom Line

Above all, research shows that the most successful diet is the one that you yourself designed because it gives you a sense of control, rather than being at the mercy of a set of restrictive rules.

“You have to have joy and pleasure in food,” Stanford University professor of medicine Christopher Gardner told The Washington Post. He has conducted numerous randomized trials to test the success rate of various diets and found they are essentially the same.

“They agree more than they disagree,” he said. Instead, he counsels, “Limit added sugars and refined grains, and eat more non-starchy vegetables. [I]f you do those two things, you get 90 percent of the benefits.” 

If you enjoy what you eat, you’ll have a much better chance of sticking with it for the rest of your life, he added.

Lightning

Lightning: Deadly But Avoidable

Holiday Safety, Lifestyle

Labor Day is coming up, signaling the unofficial end of summer. Kids will be heading back to school and families will be trying to get as much outdoor fun into the waning days of the season as possible.

But as you go about your last-minute recreation, there’s a rare but deadly danger that our concierge primary care doctors in Jupiter want to warn you about: lightning.

Our state is known as the “Lightning Capital of the U.S.” More people die from lightning strikes in Florida every year than in any other state, and the southeastern coast of the state is second only to the Tampa area in reported fatalities.

That’s why we want to remind you that these tragic deaths can be prevented, as long as you know how to avoid them.

Recent deaths

Lightning kills an average of 23 people every year. So far this year, 12 people have been killed by lightning, including a 27-year-old man doing lawn maintenance in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and a soldier on a training exercise at Fort Gordon, Georgia, both in July.

The most recent deaths occurred this month in Washington, D.C., in Lafayette Park just north of the the White House, as the victims huddled under a tree for protection from a sudden severe thunderstorm.

One was a 29-year-old bank vice president in town on business. The others were a Wisconsin couple celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary. All three were killed, while another woman who was also struck remains in critical condition.

They were struck by an unusual six-prong bolt that hit the same place within half a second, creating a ground current.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS), “When lightning strikes a tree or other object, much of the energy travels outward from the strike in and along the ground surface.”

“This is known as ground current. Anyone outside near a lightning strike is potentially a victim of ground current,” the agency adds.

Five potential paths 

A ground current discharge is one of five ways people can by struck by lightning.

The five are:

Direct strike – These most often occur to victims who are in open areas. While the most deadly type, it’s not as common as the other four.

Side flash – Also called a “side splash,” these occur when lightning strikes a taller object near the victim and a portion of the current jumps from the taller object to the victim.

Ground current – This type, mentioned above, causes the most lightning deaths and injuries, including to farm animals. 

Conduction – Lightning can travel long distances in wires or other metal surfaces, because the metal provides a path for the lightning to follow. This type is the way most people are killed indoors during a lightning storm, including when they’re taking showers, washing dishes, or talking on corded phones. 

Streamers – While uncommon, streamers can injure or kill when a side bolt separates or rebounds from the main or leader bolt and discharges.

Lightning safety rules

To stay safe from lightning, the NWS offers these guidelines to avoid being struck by lightning.

  • Appoint someone to watch the skies during your outdoor work or recreation. Check the latest thunderstorm forecast and monitor the NOAA Weather Radio.
  • When lightning is in your vicinity, go quickly inside a completely closed building. Do not consider carports, open garages, covered patios, or pavilions adequate shelter.
  • If no closed building is convenient, get inside a hard-topped, all-metal vehicle and be sure the windows are completely closed.
  • Do not take shelter under a tree, especially if it is tall and isolated.
  • Get out of the water. This includes pools, lakes, rivers, oceans, water rides, and even puddles. And leave the beach immediately if you see or hear a thunderstorm approaching.
  • Put down metal objects such as fishing poles, golf clubs, tennis rackets, tools, etc.
  • Dismount from tractors and heavy construction equipment. Do not seek shelter under the equipment.
  • Move away from metal objects such as metal fences, metal sheds, telephone and power lines, pipelines, etc.

Indoor safety

  • Avoid contact with corded phones.
  • Avoid contact with electrical equipment or cords. If you plan to unplug any electrical equipment, do so before the storm arrives.
  • Avoid contact with plumbing. When thunderstorms are occurring, do not take a shower or bath, wash dishes, or do the laundry.
  • Move away from windows and doors. Do not stay on the porch.

If someone is struck

Call 911 immediately.

  • Determine whether the victim is unconscious. Check to see if they are breathing, and gently roll the victim onto their back.
  • If the victim is not breathing, perform CPR until the paramedics arrive. (A reminder: Mouth-to-mouth breathing is no longer recommended to revive someone; regular chest compressions—between 100 and 120 a minute—are more effective.)
  • Always keep in mind the NWS directive: When thunder roars, go indoors.
omicron variant

Omicron Variant Still Largely a Mystery

, , , , , , Disease, Holiday Safety, Preventative Health, Vaccinations

There’s still much we don’t know about the new COVID-19 omicron variant. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was first detected just over a month ago. Our concierge primary care doctors at MD 2.0 in Jupiter have gotten questions from so many of our patients. We wanted to bring you up to date on what we know at the moment.

Health officials are conducting laboratory tests and reviewing real-world data as the variant spreads. However, it will be several weeks before we know precisely what we’re dealing with. There are some early indications, however, that can allow us to make a few assumptions.

How different is omicron?

The new variant originally caught the world’s attention in South Africa. Researchers there detected as many as 30 mutations on the shell of the coronavirus. 

In the intervening weeks, we’ve learned that omicron is highly contagious, even more so than delta. While delta’s transmissibility has been compared to that of chicken pox, omicron has been spreading much more rapidly.

The World Health Organization (WHO) released an update in mid-December. It noted the omicron variant is spreading faster than any previously detected strain of the coronavirus.

More benign?

There’s some possible good news. So far as real-world data have been able to determine, the omicron variant appears to trigger slightly less severe cases than delta. This information is very preliminary and is based on a study in South Africa where the infection and vaccination rates differ from that in the U.S.

Another small study this month by the CDC examined 43 people infected with the omicron variant. Three-quarters of the group received vaccinations, and a third of those also had booster shots. One person from the group was hospitalized for two days. The rest experienced cough, fatigue, congestion, or a runny nose.

While noting the report was “encouraging,” John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Weill Cornell Medical College, told NBC News that, “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“Only four cases [in the study] were aged over 65, while 29 were under 40. Young people generally have milder infections, whatever the variant,” he added. “So we don’t yet know what omicron might do in much older and more vulnerable populations.”

The variant is not benign, however. In the middle of the month, Britain reported its first death from the omicron variant. Since then, reports of possible omicron-related deaths grew.

Omicron now surpassed delta as the dominant variant due its rapid spread.

What about the vaccines?

The question of vaccine effectiveness against omicron is a case of good news/bad news, or perhaps vice versa. The bad news, according to the South African study, the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing illness dropped from around 93 percent to about 30 percent against the omicron variant. It still provided about 70 percent protection against hospitalization, though.

The good news is, the study found that the vaccine still offers as much as 70 percent effectiveness against hospitalization with any current variant of COVID-19, including omicron. Boosters increase this protection.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said recently that boosters will be enough protection against the omicron variant. He didn’t see a need for a new vaccine specifically designed to fight omicron.

“Our booster vaccine regimens work against omicron,” he said at a White House coronavirus briefing. “At this point, there is no need for a variant-specific booster.”

Vaccines necessary

At the same time, he warned those unvaccinated are still at high risk of contracting COVID-19. This includes the delta and omicron variant.

“If you are unvaccinated, you are very vulnerable—not only to the existing delta surge we are experiencing, but also to omicron,” he said.

Vaccines continue to offer the best protection against severe illness and death against any variant of the coronavirus, including omicron.

“[Omicron] may be a more mild variant but we just don’t know yet. It’s too soon,” Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto, told NBC News. For now, “if you’re vaccinated, chances are you’re going to have a milder course,” he added.

Do we still need masks?

One question we often get from our patients is whether they need to keep wearing masks once they’ve been vaccinated.

Here’s what the CDC says: “If you are fully vaccinated, to maximize protection and prevent possibly spreading COVID-19 to others, wear a mask indoors in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission.”

We would add that it’s also a good idea to wear one if you are indoors in a public place where you’re not sure how many there have been vaccinated, especially if few others are wearing masks. Until we know more about the omicron variant, wearing a mask for now offers added protection against breakthrough cases.

safe and healthy thanksgiving

Tips for a Safe and Healthy Thanksgiving Meal

, , , , Holiday Safety, Nutrition

Our concierge primary care doctors at MD 2.0 in Jupiter don’t want to dampen the festive spirit of your first big holiday gathering since the beginning of the pandemic. But taking a few common-sense precautions to ensure a safe and healthy Thanksgiving that can still leave plenty of room for merry-making.

That includes smart plans for healthy eating, along with implementing some common-sense guidelines to keep COVID-19 at bay.

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safely celebrate holidays

How to Celebrate the Holidays Safely

Concierge Medicine, Disease, Healthy Living, Holiday Safety, Lifestyle

As we head into the holidays, our concierge doctors are concerned that pandemic fatigue might tempt people to throw caution to the winds and just celebrate, starting with Thanksgiving.

The fact is, we’re all fed up with the “new normal.” People want more than anything to return to the way our lives were before this scourge attacked the world early this year. Pandemic fatigue is not only real, it’s totally understandable.

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Halloween Safety

Is Trick-or-Treating Safe This Year?

Children, Holiday Safety

From a small Celtic festival in the British isles around 2,000 years ago, Halloween has morphed into an annual tradition of costumes, parties, haunted houses, and, above all, door-to-door trick-or-treating. According to a recent Harris Poll, 80 percent of those surveyed said handing out treats on Halloween is their favorite way to celebrate the holiday.

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new-years resolutions doctors

Easy New Year’s Resolutions for Your Health

Concierge Medicine, Health Basics, Healthy Living, Holiday Safety, Lifestyle, Nutrition

As humans, we look to a new year for a fresh start, especially regarding our health. Toward that end, we make resolutions, which we have every intention of keeping but which are often forgotten by February.

Our concierge doctors in Jupiter, Florida at MD2.0, would like to offer you some ideas on small ways to improve your overall health that we hope you’ll find easier to stick with.

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Fourth of July Safety Tips

Fourth of July Safety Tips

, , , , Holiday Safety

What would the Fourth of July be without a picnic, possibly with a big family-and-friends cookout, topped off at dusk with celebratory fireworks? Your concierge family practice doctors at MD 2.0 in Jupiter, Florida, want you to have a happy holiday. We also want you to be safe, which is why we decided this would be a good time to review firework safety basics.

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