Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: perricone diet weight loss

Question:
Has anyone here tried to follow the Perricone prescription diet weight loss? I bought the book, read it and try to follow it somewhat (olive oil, nuts, fish (its really hard eating all that salmon though). I do notice that if I do stick with it, my skin feels better and I do keep my weight down. Right now I'm eating a huge salad with a scoop of tuna for dinner. I can't say I have been eating lots of salmon, but will try to take in more during the Lent season. If anyone else follows this diet (or a similar one) please give me some suggestions for easy lunch/dinner meals that dont' require too much preparation.

Answer:
This is the only known paper that attempted to associate skin wrinkling with diet; results do not coincide with Perricone's prescription. Fish is better than red meat by far but is probably not as important as other dietary factors: http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/20/1/71 Somehow people are getting the impression from the Perricone plan that if they eat a lot of fish their wrinkles will go away. This is not likely. Some highlights from the JACN paper: positively associated with cutaneous actinic skin damage: full-fat milk (as opposed to skim milk, cheese and yogurt), red meat (especially processed meat), potatoes, soft drinks/cordials, cakes/pastries. Negative associations were found with eggs, yogurt, legumes (especially broad and lima beans), vegetables (especially green leafy/spinach, eggplant, asparagus, celery, onions/leeks, garlic), nuts, olives, cherries, melon, dried fruits/prunes, apples/pears, multigrain bread, jam, tea and water Calorie restriction looks more important than specific type of carbohydrate avoidance.. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubM... More important than food is sun protection, the highest possible, and primary avoidance strategies. Perricone does not rec chemical UV filters although many studies have shown that the highest UVA protection is only possible with multiple chemical UVA filters. One could surmise that his recs are not going to do a whole lot to prevent, minimize, or partially reverse extrinsic aging because UVA exposure is quite likely to be the most important factor. After the highest UVA protection, a prescription retinoid is the best bet. He does recommend presciption retinoids, so I have to say that in this respect he is not totally off base.