The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Sunday 1 May 2011

Tofu consumption is associated with cognitive impairment and brain atrophy

This post includes a synopsis of a study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition 2000 Apr;19(2):242-55 and a recipe for pulled chicken with guacamole.

Study title and authors
Brain aging and midlife tofu consumption.
White LR, Petrovitch H, Ross GW, Masaki K, Hardman J, Nelson J, Davis D, Markesbery W.
SourceNational Institute on Aging, NIH, USA.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10763906

The Unhealthy Truth: One Mother's Shocking Investigation into the Dangers of America's Food Supply-- and What Every Family Can Do to Protect Itself
Books:
White examined the associations of midlife tofu consumption with brain function and structural changes in late life in 3734 people.

The study revealed:
(a) Poor cognitive test performance and low brain weight were each significantly and independently associated with higher midlife tofu consumption.
(b) A similar association of midlife tofu intake with poor late life cognitive test scores was also observed among wives of the study members (using the husband's answers to food frequency questions as proxy for the wife's consumption).

To conclude: Higher midlife tofu consumption is associated with cognitive impairment and brain atrophy in late life.

More information on this subject: Books : Scientific Studies : Other Websites : Videos : Food Mall


Recipe of the day

Pulled Chicken with Guacamole

Guacamole

Ingredient list:
1 ripe avocado
1 sweet yellow onion, chopped
1 14.5-ounce can of diced and fire roasted tomatoes, especially ones with peppers
Garlic powder
Salt

Directions:
Slice a ripe avocado in half and scoop the flesh into a bowl. Mash the avocado up with a fork. Add a handful of chopped onion to the bowl. Add can of diced tomatoes. Add a generous dusting of garlic powder. Stir ingredients together. Taste and add garlic powder and salt as needed. Pile pulled chicken (see below) on top. Enjoy!

The taste of guacamole improves with a little age. If you can wait, let your guacamole sit in a covered plastic container in the refrigerator for at least an hour before eating. I eat some right away, but I have noticed that I like leftovers in the morning a lot.

Pulled Chicken

Ingredient list:
Kosher.com - Glatt Kosher Whole Chicken Pullet (4 Pack)
Food Mall: Chicken
1 whole young hen
Red chili powder
Garlic powder
Black pepper
Salt

Directions:
Remove chicken from packaging. Remove giblets (package including the heart, liver, and neck) from the body cavity. Freeze the giblets to use in making chicken stock later. Rinse chicken and add the whole bird to pressure cooker (alternate method noted below). Dust generously with salt, garlic powder, red chili powder, and black pepper. Add enough water to almost submerge the chicken. In my case that was about 10 cups. Lock top on pressure cooker. Increase heat to high. After achieving high pressure, reduce heat to the lowest level consistent with maintaining high pressure. Cook under high pressure for 20 minutes. Turn off heat under pressure cooker, use the slow-release method to bring pressure down, and remove top. Remove chicken from pressure cooker with tongs (because it is hot!) and transfer to a large mixing bowl. If the chicken falls apart, remove the pieces as best you can with tongs and scoop the rest out with a slotted spoon. Leave the broth in the pot while you continue. Use a pair of tongs to separate the chicken from the bones and skin and transfer it to another large bowl. Once you have all the chicken separated, pull the chicken apart with a pair of forks.

Discard the bones and skin. Let the broth cool for 30 minutes to an hour and then transfer to plastic containers. Keep what you need for cooking over the next 4-5 days in the refrigerator and freeze the rest.

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