Fructooligosaccharide — Don’t worry if you can’t pronounce it, just go buy it.

Fructooligosaccharide (FOS) is a natural sweetener (safe for diabetics) found in foods like bananas, onions, chicory root, garlic, asparagus, barley, wheat, jicima, tomatoes and leeks. But the mother-load of FOS is found in the Jerusalem Artichoke, and in something called Yacon (and the “c” should have a little accent mark over it, but I don’t know how to do that in this program). Yacon is a tuberous root, much like a parsnip or a carrot that is grown in Peru, and is evidently very crisp and sweet. In the U.S., you can buy Yacon Syrup and Yacon Tea.

The reason you need to get some is that in a recent study, women were put on a diet rich in soy, another group ate soy and prunes, and still another group ate soy, prunes (er… dried plums) and FOS. They found that:

“Soy protein in combination with the test compounds significantly improved whole-body bone mineral density (BMD). All test compounds in combination with soy protein significantly increased femoral BMD but the combination of soy protein, dried plum and FOS had the most pronounced effect in increasing lumbar BMD. Similarly, all of the test compounds increased ultimate load, indicating improved biomechanical properties. The positive effects of these test compounds on bone may be due to their ability to modulate bone resorption and formation, as shown by suppressed urinary deoxypyridinoline excretion and enhanced alkaline phosphatase activity.“

The gold ol’ Vitamin Shoppe carries the Yacon Syrup, and has a gajillion different kinds of FOS supplements, but there are tons of other places to get both online. Amazon has both Yacon Syrup and Yacon powder. I like sweet tea, so I’m going to give it a try.

What’s going to be a tougher sell for me is soy. I really do not like tofu. But I do like soy milk. Hm. Is putting some soy milk in my Yacon tea enough? Maybe with additional Yacon Syrup to make it like Southern Sweet Tea?

You can read more about the FOS + soy + prune study here. And more about FOS in general here.

Boo hoo hoo! Poor Pfizer.

On Monday, Pfizer lost a lawsuit involving a hormone replacement drug. The price tag? $28 million dollars. Hidden costs? A previous lawsuit in which a woman was awarded $75 million in punitive damages. That lawsuit’s outcome was not made public until Tuesday because Pfizer asked the judge to keep them private, as they felt the results of the first lawsuit might prejudice the jury in the second lawsuit.

Well… given the evidence, I don’t think you had to worry about that, Pfizer. From the New York Times article:

“The jurors heard testimony that Wyeth paid consultants and ghostwriters of medical journal articles to play down concerns about breast cancer, as well as testimony that Pharmacia did not study known risks.“

Well, who wouldn’t play down the risks of cancer? I mean, it’s only cancer. Wyeth and Pharmacia, by the way, are the manufacturers of the two drugs in question, Prempro and Provera. Pfizer purchased the companies: Wyeth in 2003 and Pharmacia in January of this year.

Okay, back up. Did not study the risks? What are women to you creeps? A bunch of lab rats? I hope you get taken for every penny you made off of that drug and then some. (And by the way, my mind is yelling as I’m typing this, so you have to imagine me yelling my head off.)

And yet, my doctor doesn’t know why I don’t trust the bone drugs. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I don’t know why we can’t get it right in this country. My mother-in-law took hormone replacement medication for years, no bad side-effects. The difference? She was living in France. She said the dosage is very, very, very low there. When she moved back to the states, she wanted to continue on HRT here, but they didn’t make her “brand.” So she went on an American version of the drug, and started having all kinds of problems like migraines and spotting (she’d been without a period for about 15 years and suddenly she’s spotting again? So she went off it.

You can read more about all the money Pfizer is going to lose, and laugh over your turkey. Those greedy greedy men.

What’d I tell you?

This from the New York Times, suggesting low-acid eating is beneficial to bones. Ugh. It’s like watching a pendulum swing back and forth; back and forth.

It’ll tell you this — eating veggies and fruits prevents cancer, is good for your skin, hair, brain, maybe bones. There are too many reasons to eat them to consider not eating them.

And you can consume enough protein without eating meat. Anyone ever heard of these crazy little things called beans? And nuts? Jane Brody has redeemed herself and is once again my good graces. She did an article a few weeks back on a new age cure for asthma, which also claims to cure Schizophrenia, deafness and… I forget what all else… 72 ailments in all. Everything about it screams flim-flam-man.  I cry “bupkis!” on Buteyko. I was irked with Ms. Brody after that one. But now, I forgive her.

Is Cheese Coming Back On My Diet?

While I was internet surfing last night, I came across an article that mentions osteoporosis study results released in early November of this year. This study was curious as to whether a low acid/high alkaline diet really did prevent calcium from being leached out of the bones in urine. So they gave women phosphate tablets (which is, I guess, the stuff that’s in milk, cheese, meat, etc. that makes it supposedly bad for bones). Then they tested the calcium levels in their urine. They had a control group that ate an alkalizing diet high in fruits and vegetables.

Bad news. They found that eating a diet that was low acid made no discernable difference in calcium urine levels. But — surprise, surprise (seriously — this is a surprise), they found that the group that ate meat and cheese and took phosphorus pills had an improvement in their calcium retention. In fact, the more phosphorus they gave them, the better they did.

They did find, however, that people who drank lots of carbonated sodas (which contains phosphoric acid) had poorer bone health than those who drank milk.

Well, color me confused. Because there’s also been another study on older women who eat meat, and they found that those women lost more calcium, but they were able to neutralize the effect of the meat by giving women extremely high doses of Potassium Citrate.

I don’t know who to believe. I am skeptical that they gave the ladies phosphorus in pill form, rather than having them eat the actual foods that are high in that. Maybe a phosphorus salt doesn’t have the same effect on the body as an actual phosphorus food. Who knows?

Does it mean I’m going to toss out my veggies and go back to eating potato chips and sour cream? No. Does it mean I may indulge in a macaroni and cheese every now and then and not feel like I’m going to die because of it. Oh, definitely.

You can read the full findings of the phosphorus study here. Or you can read the abbreviated version here.

More Good News on Yoga

So we all know that in order to maintain BMD, we’re supposed to exercise thirty minutes a day, five days a week. And if you didn’t know that, you do now. Weight bearing exercises (not to be confused with weight lifting) stimulate the bones to retain calcium and produce more bone mass. Swimming, however, doesn’t do jack for bones, although it can help with joint pain and mobility.

But here’s the problem. If you’ve already started to lose bone mass, then running, or similar pounding exercises can be too stressful for the knees, ankles, and lumbar spine. Plus, yeah your legs, feet, and ankles are getting a work out, but you’re not doing a thing for your wrists, shoulders, upper back, or elbows. And then there’s that annoying little study that says too much aerobic exercise can increase your chances of osteoporosis and other conditions. (I really think this is what happened to me.)

This is where yoga comes in.

In a controlled study, Professor Steven Hawkins from the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at California State University, Los Angeles found that women who did certain yoga postures in class twice a week and practiced on their own three times a week showed notable increases in the bone density of their spine. (This is the same study the woman mentions in that Yoga book I talked about a week or two ago.)

In the U.S., we tend to think of yoga as something you do to “relax” or alleviate stress. And yes, there are parts of the yoga practice that do just that: breathing exercises, meditation, relaxation. But the “asanas” or poses themselves allow bones to be renewed and repaired gradually and naturally, without any pounding.

And you’re thinking (as I used to) well without the pounding, how can it be any good for bones?

The problem with the pound-y types of exercise, evidently, is that it’s “contractive” (i.e., running, weight lifting all involve movements where the muscles contract or get shorter. If you run, you’ll know what I mean when you think of your hamstrings. Very tight.) So yes, you have well developed muscles, but they are short, dry, and hard. The loss of flexibility/mobility of the muscle fibers contributes to bone loss and a lack of bone health.

Yoga, however, expands muscles by somehow drawing more fluid to them. Instead of growing shorter, the muscles lengthen with yoga, giving them increased mobility, which means they can better “pull” on the bones and from a variety of angles, and according to Wollf’s Law, pulling from a lot of different angles is important.

And now you’re thinking, who the heck is this Wollf guy?

Julius Wollf was a surgeon and anatomist in Germany back in the late 1800′s. He found that the architectonic of bone (i.e., it’s system of structural support) follows the lines of force to which the bone is exposed. The more stress you put on a bone, the denser it becomes and in a way that responds directly to whatever stress you’re putting on it. So let’s say you’re hopping straight up and down. The bone will get dense and strong and able to resist breaks with movements that move up and down. But what if you suddenly get hit from the side?

This is why yoga and dancing are so great. You’re moving in many different plains of motion, thereby stressing bones from all directions. I read this quote in a Yoga newsletter, and I think it says it very well:

“…a forward bend such as Supta Padangusthasana… pits knee extensors, forearm, elbow and shoulder flexors, shoulder retractors and paraspinal extensors against hip extensors, with the thigh, shin, ankle and just about every bone below the cervical spine receiving stimulating pressure. Muscles are much stronger than the forces of gravity. You need only raise a little finger to convince yourself of that. But with many powerful muscle groups opposing one another, the forces mount up to sizeable multiples of gravitational force. Since yoga has so many unusual positions and stretches, almost every aspect of the bone is strengthened in the variety of safe poses in yoga.“

Recipe Time

Collard Greens pack 450 mg of calcium in a single serving. That’s more than milk. And unlike milk, they don’t make you acidic. Collards are also available in the grocery store year-round. In the south, you could find them in cans and frozen, but in yankee-ville-U.S.A., no such luck. You’ve got to cook them. Here’s a fast and easy recipe. You can leave out the sugar if you like, since sugar is also acid-forming, but collard greens do have a tendency to be a little bitter. Which is why I strongly recommend the barbeque sauce. It can cover up anything. The recipe also calls for bacon fat. I am not a vegetarian, nor do I adhere to a no-meat alkalizing diet. But if you do, you can omit the bacon fat and just use more olive oil.

Collard Greens Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lbs collard greens, tough stems discarded, leaves chopped
• 2 Tbsp medium onion, chopped
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 2 teaspoons bacon fat
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp dark sesame oil (Dynasty or comparable)
• Chili pepper flakes, a pinch
• Salt, a couple pinches
• Sugar, a couple pinches

METHOD

1 Use a large skillet with a tight fitting cover. Melt bacon fat and heat olive oil on medium heat. Sauté onion until transparent, a couple of mintues. Add garlic and and sauté until fragrant, about 20 seconds.

2 Mix in the greens, sesame oil, chili pepper flakes, salt, and sugar. Cover and cook until tender, 8-10 minutes.

Serve with barbecue sauce.

Serves 4.

Well, that was fun.

I’ve been in “retirement” as an actress for the past 6 years. By retirement, I mean I hit those awkward years between ingenue and Ruth Gordon (i.e., hot young thing and crazy old lady). There are not a lot of roles for women in these ‘tween years — at least not for short women. If you’re tall and lucky, you can move into the “leading lady” category. But I am not tall, so it was either wait tables, temp or learn how to do something else.

Now, when I quit acting, aside from sort of being driven out by a lack of suitable parts, I also left because I had become the kind of actress I’d always sworn I’d never be: bitter. I was angry all the time. Twenty years of feeling you have no control over your fate; of being stepped over or brushed aside while someone less…skilled…gets the part instead of you, will do that to a girl. Plus, I hated auditioning. And since an actor spends the bulk of their time auditioning, and since giving terrific auditions is the only way to get work, hating them is probably a huge strike against you. Towards the end of my career I was usually auditioning for people I’d worked with consistently over the previous twenty years, and I really resented having to prove myself again and again and again.

I definitely had an attitude problem. If you walk into an audition looking like you want to bite the artistic director’s head off and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, there’s probably a good chance they’ll hire someone else. Because rehearsals take place (usually) in a windowless room in some dark corner of a theatre basement, and who wants to spend six weeks in a windowless-basement-room with a crazy lady who wants to make your head do things that are physically impossible? And unappetizing. No one.

The kicker for me was my last audition — it was endless. It was for a play called Under the Syringa Tree. It’s a one-woman show set in South Africa. And the director was someone I’d known since 1984. He’d played my father in the first show I’d ever done, and I worked with him at least once a year from 1991 to 2003. Anyway, he gives us the sides (the parts you read for the audition) and they are 21 pages long! 21 pages! Insane! Most sides are about 3-5 pages tops. And because it’s a one-woman show, you’re playing all the parts, and there are all these dialects involved, and different physicalities that need to be created for each character, so people can differentiate. I think within those 21 pages, you had to play like seven different people. Or maybe it was fifteen? I forget. I know there was the girl as a girl, as a woman, her nurse, her brother, an infant, her dad, a minister…

So I do the audition. And when I finish, the casting director and the “reader” (a person who reads the scene with you) were both in tears. The reader stops me on the way to the elevator and talks about how it was the most amazing thing he’s ever seen. He’s practically sobbing. And he keeps saying “You nailed it! You nailed it! There’s no way you’re not getting this part! No one has come close to touching what you just did in there.” And he hugs me, blah, blah, blah he’s so inspired!

And of course, I didn’t get the part. [Editorial Note: Whenever someone talks about what a great job you did in an audition, it is the kiss of death. You will not get the job. Who knows why?] And when the director called me to talk to me about it (this never happens — usually you have no idea why you didn’t get a part; I assume he called because of our long-term association with one another), he said he didn’t hire me because I was too short.

Excuse me? It’s 2003! We’ve known each other since 1984. What about my height did you NOT know before the audition? Why waste my time like that? And get my hopes up? And besides that… I’m the only person on stage younumbskull! It’s a one-person show! Height is irrelevant!

But you can’t say that to your boss. So I quit. And started writing.

But this past week, my husband had a reading of his new play. And he asked them to cast me in a role. And because the theatre is saving money, I got be in another show as well.

The past two nights of these play readings reminded me of why I loved acting in the first place. Because it’s fun. It really is. So much of it is like being in a perma-state of adolescence. Play, play, play. For me, it engages every part of me: my intellect, my wit, my emotions, my body. It’s just — compared to any other job in the world — when you’re actually working, acting is the BEST. It’s the unemployment that will kill you.

I still don’t want to audition again. Or to have to go back to waiting tables or word processing to pay the bills for the seven months out of twelve that an actor usually is not employed as an actor. (My friend Shelly used to refer to this cycle of acting work/office work as the great hamster wheel of despair.) And I love the lifestyle that my current job affords me (being to travel whenever because all I need is a laptop and a modem to work). But if someone asked me to do a show again, I will not lie — I would leap at the chance because it is so much friggin’ fun.

Nothing makes you feel old like

…having a hearing aide. Seriously. Being deaf destroys the sexy. Pre hearing aid, I felt like this:

Post-hearing aid, I felt like this:

And now that I have osteoporosis, I feel like this:

The annoying thing about having hearing aids is they make your ears stick out. So if you add glasses and hearing aids, your name might as well be Jughead. And I like wearing my hair short (because I’m lazy). So the hearing aids and the jug ears are out in full view for everyone to see.

And then yesterday, I stumbled across these hearing aids that look like this:

Kewl! They look more like some kind of earring stud than a device for people with bad ears. I called my audiologist, all excited, saying as soon as I get some money I’m buying some. I was picking out colors: should I go with the leopard? Or the bright orange? Maybe flowers? But wouldn’t you know it — they didn’t catch on and the company has discontinued the line. How can I get them to bring them back?

Side note: mothers — don’t let your children wear ear-splitting decibel level music devices. If there’s a parental lock on those where you can set the volume, do. Meantime, I’ve heavily invested in hearing aid stock because between the ipods and the deafening car speaker systems they’ve got now, we’re looking forward to a generation of people who have significant hearing loss by the time they hit 30.

Oh K!

There’s a lot of yammering about vitamin K and BMD. The Japanese use vitamin K to treat osteoporosis. But there was a recent study done in the U.S. where they gave 440 postmenopausal women 5 milligrams of vitamin K. They found it did not prevent bone loss, but did prevent fracture and certain types of cancer.

Okay. That’s good. But what about those Japanese? Are they misguided? They did a study, and found that:

“…high does of vitamin K [in] postmenopausal women for 24 and 48 week doses significantly increased bone mass compared to women treated with a placebo.”

And then there’s this study published in 1998:

“it was shown that administration of 1-10 mg of Vitamin K is paralleled by a moderate increase in the serum markers for bone formation (osteocalcin and bone alkaline phosphatase), or by a slight decrease in the urinary hydroxyproline exceretion ( a marker for bone resorption), and by a reduction of uniary calcium loss. Most prominent effects were obtained in fast losers of calcium.“

Sources: Kaspen,JHJ, Hamulyik K, Vermeer, C. The effect of vitamin K supplemtation on circulating ostecalcin (bone GLA-protein) and urinary calcium excretion. Ann. Intern Med 1989; III: 1001-5.  Knapen, MHJ, Jie, K-SG, Hamulyik, K et al. Vitamin K induced changes in markeers forosteoblast activity and urinary calcium loss. Calcif Tissue Int. 1993; 53 81-5.

Well… I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m a fast loser of calcium. So I’m going to try the vitamin K.

Most supplements have vitamin K called phytonadione or phylloquinone (K1). But it is menaquinone that is more potent in preventing bone loss. It evidently shortens the lifespan of osteoclast cells. Menaquinone is also known as MK-4, MK-7, Vitamin K2, or just K2… not to be confused with a mountain in South Asia. Which considering the fact that you have osteoporosis, I don’t recommend you try climbing right now.

Menaquinone combined with vitamin D has been shown to be very effective in preventing bone loss in rats.

Caution: Vitamin K is involved in coagulation of the blood, so if you are on a prescription blood thinner like Wafarin, you should speak to your doctor before adding Vitamin K to your list of supplements. More interesting reading on vitamin K can be found here and here and here.

I found my vitamin K across the street at Vitamin Shoppe for $24.00. It’s called LifeExtension (oh, promises, promises!)(and that’s not a typo, the name is run together like that). It was the only one that contained both vitamin K2 and K1. You can get it at Amazon for $19.00. Caution: it contains nuts. So if you’re allergic, try a different brand. Source Naturals has a vitamin K2, but it comes with vitamin D and calcium in it, and since I’ve already got other supplements for that, it seemed like overkill.

Also, the dosage the Japanese were using was in the 1000 mcg range, not 100 mcg. So check the labels.

A Shout Out to Athleta

I have a hard time finding clothes because I’m so weenie. When I was in my 20s, I could get away with shopping at the kids’ department at The Gap. But you can only wear sequined pony shirts in day-glo colors for so long and get away with it.

So then I started looking for petite clothes (I’m 5’1-3/4″). Frump city. I may be “old,” but I’m not dead yet.

When I was in high school, I seem to remember there being several chic petite clothing lines. But maybe I just think there were chic petite clothing lines because my mother was such an excellent seamstress. Maybe she altered all the store-bought clothes and I just didn’t know it. She made most of my dresses — and let me pick out some pretty wild patterns, too. Well, wild for Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Most of the time I looked as if I was wearing a costume, not clothes.

But I don’t sew.

Exercise clothing is even harder to come by. You have two options: baggy and too long. Or skin tight and somewhat transparent. I don’t know about you, but I’ve reached an age where I don’t want the guys at the gym to know anatomically exactly what kind of junk I’ve got in my trunk when I bend over.

And this is where Athleta comes in. Athleta (to my knowledge) does not have any retail stores, they are strictly online AND they make petite pants that are truly petite (unlike The Gap, who says their jeans are petite, but the jeans have a 31-inch inseam, which means that you have to wear platform shoes — severely platformed shoes — like at least a four inch heel, with a 2-inch platform under the ball of the foot– to not be stepping on your hem.) [Editor's Note: The Gap just purchased Athleta, and they'd better not mess everything up or I'm going to write them a strongly worded letter!]

Athleta’s pants have a 28-inch inseam. They’re cut smaller everywhere — waist, hips, thighs — so that they really, truly fit. And best of all — the fabric is thick enough that no one’s saying howdy to my labia.

Sadly, their clothes do not come cheap. But they have great sales. And the stuff lasts forever. I have a tank top I bought from them in…2004… that I still wear, that has not faded, no seams have come un-sewn, and the elastic/lycra/whatever it is still has it’s snap.

I bought some of their yoga shorts (because it’s hard to do tree pose in slacks. My foot just keeps sliding down the other leg), and while they are short-y-shorts, they do not rise up and become a diaper while I’m working out. Wherever they are when I put them on, that’s where they stay. No wedgies. No tummy rolling out over the waistband (it has a slightly higher waistband than most shorts — it’s not a hip-hugger). They are perfection. $24.00

When I go to a yoga class, however, I’m a little skittish about showing my old lady legs. They just ain’t what they used to be. So I wear the bermuda version of the same short. You would not believe how flattering these are. $29.00

Favorite slacks for winter? Their polar fleece pants. Casual enough for running; dressy enough to pair with a sweater and wear to dinner on a cold, New England night. They do not fade; they do not pill. I treat them like crap, and they always look fantastic. I paid (gulp) $85.00 for mine, but they are now on sale for $49.00. If I had any money right now, I’d buy two more pair. I literally live in these things in winter.