Dr. Aziz made himself available for one-on-one questions through our Facebook page!

Dieters like you got questions answered by the doctor himself. Check out this Q&A roundup below. If you have a question and don't find the answer below, Dr. Aziz will make himself available to our Facebook community again on April 15. Check our Facebook page for the exact time—and become a fan while you're there!

Jennifer LaRue from the Wall Street Journal chatted with Dr. Aziz about looking younger, losing weight, sleeping and sex.

It must have been a great conversation—it generated two stories for LaRue!

Read them here and here!

Yes! It's true!

So far we have reached more than 20,000 people, and we want to celebrate by giving one of you $1,000.

All you have to do is tell your friends and family about your success on your Facebook or Twitter page.

It hit the news big this week as the new health care legislation was passed: calorie information will need to be posted on all menus and drive-through signs as soon as 2011. Chain restaurants in New York City—with more than 15 locations—already must publish nutritional information, and several states are considering or have passed similar legislation.

This is good news for consumers—especially health-conscious consumers. Granted, if you’re going to a typical fast food chain and order a hamburger, you don’t really expect to get a low-calorie, healthy meal. But if you order a salad, you might not expect it to have 1,400 calories, for instance. Now, you’ll know.

Many chain restaurants already publish such information on their Web sites, but having to place it in consumers hands on a menu or keeping it top-of-mind on a drive-through sign may change the way people order food, in a healthier direction. Panera Bread recently became the first nationwide restaurant chain to post calorie information on its menu boards. It will be interesting to see if people still pick up the carrot walnut muffin when the board tells them it has 440 calories.

LA Times journalist Anne Colby writes "There's much that makes sense in Aziz's program," and as to Dr. Aziz's overall diet proposal, "he will find little argument among many nutritionists here."
Of course, we all know the diet makes sense, but now everyone who reads the LA Times will too!

Read the entire review here:

In most parts of the country, spring has sprung (and for the rest, it’s quickly on its way). The first teases of warm weather are a particularly perfect time to whip up fresh vegetables with meals. Our community on Facebook seems to think so as well.

Here are a couple sample recipes from Perfect 10 Diet community members. You can see more recipes and join in diet discussions on our Facebook discussion page.

The saturated fat found mainly in meat and dairy products has a bad reputation, but a recent analysis of published studies finds no clear link between people's intake of saturated fat and their risk of developing heart disease.

Research has shown that saturated fat can raise blood levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, and elevated LDL is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Because of this, experts generally advise people to limit their intake of fatty meat, butter, and full-fat dairy. The American Heart Association (AHA) suggests that adults get no more than 7 percent of their daily calories from fat; for someone who eats 2,000 calories a day, that translates into fewer than 16 grams of saturated fat per day.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in January, 2010, combines the results of 21 previous studies, and shows no clear evidence that higher saturated fat intakes led to higher risks of heart disease or stroke.

The findings don't surprise Dr. Aziz one bit, “Some studies have shown that saturated fats even prevent heart disease. Look at the French, no heart disease despite their high saturated fat intake, is it really a paradox?” He also added, “Saturated fats also help with our sex hormones—estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone—which keep us young, and full-fat dairy contains CLA which helps with weight loss.”

This important study failed to achieve much media attention, yet it is groundbreaking given that we were told that saturated fats were bad for 40 years. In fact, the past AHA president Robert H. Eckel cautioned against "over-interpreting" the results of previous studies.

Dr. Aziz explains the LDL link to saturated fats and why doctors thought they were bad:

Saturated fats raise the fluffy LDL, which is not linked to atherosclerosis because it passes freely through the arteries; it is, rather, the small LDL that is affected by sugar that causes the harm. Doctors do not routinely check an advanced lipid test to know which LDL is affected before prescribing a cholesterol lowering drug. Sex hormones levels are rarely checked by doctors and the public continues to suffer as we eliminated these types of fats.  I am doing my part by getting The Perfect 10 Diet’s message to the public and doctors. Hopefully, one day the nation will wake up to the fact that we were once told to follow the biggest myth in the history of mankind.

More on the study below:

Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association
of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease

Patty W. Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B. Hu, and Ronald M. Krauss

ABSTRACT

Background: A reduction in dietary saturated fat has generally
been thought to improve cardiovascular health.

Objective: The objective of this meta-analysis was to summarize
the evidence related to the association of dietary saturated fat with
risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and cardiovascular
disease (CVD; CHD inclusive of stroke) in prospective epidemiologic
studies.

Design: Twenty-one studies identified by searching MEDLINE and
EMBASE databases and secondary referencing qualified for inclusion
in this study. A random-effects model was used to derive
composite relative risk estimates for CHD, stroke, and CVD.

Results: During 5–23 years of follow-up of 347,747 subjects, 11,006
developed CHD or stroke. Intake of saturated fat was not associated
with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD. The pooled relative
risk estimates that compared extreme quantities of saturated fat intake
were: 1.07 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.19; P = 0.22) for CHD; 0.81 (95%
CI: 0.62, 1.05; P = 0.11) for stroke; and 1.00 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.11;
P = 0.95) for CVD. Consideration of age, sex, and study quality did
not change the results.

Conclusions: A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies
showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that
dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD
or CVD. More data are needed to elucidate whether CVD risks are
likely to be influenced by the specific nutrients used to replace
saturated fat. Am J Clin Nutr doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.27725

They are the people who accompany you to and from work each day. They have been invited into your homes and places of business. They are your friends and neighbors. They are your local radio personalities, and more than 100 hosts, producers and program directors have signed up to try The Perfect 10 Diet Challenge! 

Over the next month, tune in as they embark on Phase 1 of The Perfect 10 Diet. We have asked them to follow the first three weeks of the diet program and let us know how it affects their lives. They’ve been invited to share their thoughts on the Perfect 10 blog. Stay tuned over the next few weeks as the Perfect 10 radio revolution begins…

Hey everyone!

Due to the overwhelmingly wonderful response received for the last live Q+A Dr. Aziz did on Facebook, we'll be doing another one this Thursday at 5pm EST.

To participate, just head over to the Perfect 10 Diet Facebook page at 5pm EST on Thursday (March 11). Post your Perfect 10 Diet-related questions on the wall, and Dr. Aziz will be there to answer them from 5 - 6pm EST.

The Perfect 10 Diet FaceBook discussions have yielded a lot of great information, along with a lot of great questions. To lend more detail to those topics that seem to be of a great deal of interest to P10'ers, we'll be posting information from Dr. Aziz on those topics regularly here on the blog.

One such issue that has been raised again and again over on the Perfect 10 Diet Facebook page is that of the safety of agave nectar. What is agave nectar? Agave nectar is a honey-colored liquid that is considerably sweeter than sugar. It is gluten-free and low in the glycemic index so it is marketed as diabetic-friendly sweetner. However, there is some controversy that agave can be dangerous, and that it acts as a high-fructose corn syrup.
We asked Dr. Aziz to shed some light on agave nectar for us, and he did!

"I'll explain the controversy. Agave nectar has a low-glycemic index for one reason only: It's largely made of fructose, so it has minimal impact on insulin-the fat-storing hormone," says Dr. Aziz. "In large quantities, fructose is a very damaging form of sugar. Agave nectar has the highest fructose content of any commercial sweetener. All sugars (table sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, maple syrup) contain some mixture of fructose and glucose. Table sugar is 50/50, HFCS is 55/45. Agave nectar is a at 90 percent fructose."

Is fructose bad? "No," says Dr. Aziz, "Fructose, the sugar found naturally in fruits -- is perfectly fine when you get it from natural sources. But when it's commercially extracted from fruits, it is in a concentrated form. Fructose can be damaging in excess as it can cause insulin resistance and has a negative effect on cholesterol. The controversy is: fructose found in the agave plant is natural, but when extracted, the fructose becomes concentrated, and therefore can be very damaging."

So, what is Dr. Aziz's advice when it comes to using commercially-extracted agave nectar? "If you need a sweetener for use at high temperatures, a small amount of agave nectar once in a while isn't going to harm you or kill you. You can also use plain sugar, honey, or maple syrup but all of these types of sugar will have a negative impact on insulin and should be used moderately ,and in small amounts. Stevia is a perfectly acceptable sweetener on the Perfect 10 Diet, and is recommended for use when high temperature cooking will not be involved."

If you have a question for Dr. Aziz, please leave it here in the comments, or post to the Perfect 10 Diet FaceBook page, or on Twitter. We'll be posting answers to your Perfect 10 Diet questions both here and over at FaceBook, so check back regularly!