Real health news

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Argentinian Farmers paying the price for US Biotechnology

The increasing demand for biotechnology in the USA is pushing the production of soy, cotton and corn in 3rd world countries with devastating consequences.  The agrochemicals (pesticides) used can't be sprayed legally within 500m of homes, yet a lot of these plantations occur within 30m of homes along Argentina's farm belt.

Birth defects and cancer rates have exploded in poor rural communities with Dr. Medardo Avila Vazquez (paediatrician) commenting: 

"We've gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects, and illnesses seldom seen before."

All soy and almost all corn, wheat and cotton in Argentina is genetically modified, but weeds and insects are becoming increasingly resistant to pesticides used.  The result is that farmers have increased their use of chemicals from 34 million litres in 1990 to more than 317 million litres today!  That is about 2kg of concentrate per acre which is more than 2x what US farmers use.  On top of this they are also adding more toxic poisons such as 2,4,D (used in Agent Orange) to combat increased resistance.

The EPA's response?  In May 2013 they just increased the allowable glyphosphate residues (from Monsanto's Roundup) in food.  Problem solved. 

Argentina also follow US agricultural practices of the 'no-till' method which means they spray their crops after planting (due to GM resistance).  Original farming methods had farmers spray the topsoil, wait for the pesticides to dissipate, then plant.  

In Entre Rios 18 schools are regularly exposed to sprayers closer than 50m from the schools

In Santa Fe students fainted when pesticides drifted into classrooms

Among 65,000 people in Santa Fe cancer rates were 2-4x higher than the national average

'New' illnesses such as thyroid disorders and respiratory illnesses are seen within 10 years of industrial farming practices in Santa Fe

In Chaco birth defects have quadrupled

In Avia Terai 31% had a family member with or who have had cancer

Doctors increasingly are calling for broader, longer-term and more independent research, saying governments should make the industry prove that the accumulated agricultural burden isn't making people sick.

"That's why we do epidemiological studies for heart disease and smoking and all kinds of things," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a former EPA regulator now with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "If you have the weight of evidence pointing to serious health problems, you don't wait until there's absolute proof in order to do something."

Read more:

Argentines link health problems to pesticides

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How to get the Maximum Sulforaphane from your Broccoli

Sulforaphane is a potent phytochemical with known cancer-fighting properties and can be found in vegetables such as:

Broccoli

Broccoli sprouts

Cauliflower

Cabbage

Steaming vegetables for 3-4 minutes is the best form of cooking to maximize the absorption of sulforaphane.  Aim for a bright green colour when it comes to broccoli.

The reason for this is quite interesting.  The enzyme myrosinase responsible for activating sulforaphane is destroyed when veggies are overcooked which = NO sulforaphane.  Boiling or microwaving for less than a minute destroys most myrosinase enzymes.  But all is not lost.  There is a way you can get around this when you are at the mercy of someone else's cooking methods.

If you combine the overcooked broccoli with another food containing myrosinase it will restore the sulforaphane.  Foods high in myrosinase include:

Mustard

Radish

Arugula

Wasabi

Uncooked cruciferous vegetables - coleslaw, sauerkraut, etc.

Other foods vulnerable to food preparation methods are:

Garlic - wait at least 10 minutes after crushing before you add it to cooking.  This allows for maximum allicin formation.

Tomatoes - lycopene concentration increases when tomatoes are cooked.

Study was done by Dr. Elizabeth Jeffery at the University of Illinois, USA. 

Read more:

There's only one way to cook veg to get the benefits

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Your Water could be making you Allergic

High levels of dichlorophenols (used in pesticides and to chlorinate water) have been associated with food allergies.

Study was published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

Off course it's hard to say which source is the most problematic - tap water, foods grown with pesticides, or food grown with pesticides AND contaminated water.  More than likely the cumulative affect.  Which means it might not be enough to just switch to drinking bottled water.

15 million Americans are affected by food allergies

Food allergies increase by 18% from 1997 - 2007 (only 10 years!)

More than 50% of 2,211 people who tested for high levels of dichlorophenols had allergies

Read more:

Pesticides in tap water tied to food allergies

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Kidney Bean Leaves won't let the BedBugs Bite

Looking for a non-toxic way to get rid of those pesky bedbugs?  Seems an ancient European herbal remedy is making a popular comeback.  

Kidney Bean leaves contain microscopic hairs (trichomes) that stab insects' legs and immobilise them. They are trapped within seconds of stepping on the leaf.  Traditionally the leaves were scattered on the floor next to the bed.  Unfortunately they dry out and don't last long, making it a bit impractical.

Now modern science is trying to imitate Mother Nature and develop non-toxic synthetic materials that will do the same thing.  So far they've only been able to slow them down, but not stop them.

Seems like we can always learn from Mother Nature.

Study done at University of California, Irvine

Read more:

Bedbug remedy based on kidney bean leaves

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Myths about Alcohol and Weight Gain

Some good news before the festive season kicks off.  Alcohol does NOT put on weight and can in fact make you loose weight.  Just to be clear, this is not a new ALCO-TRIM diet as there are plenty of other health reasons why you shouldn't overindulge.  But looking at all the studies researching links to weight gain it's amazing that the general health community still holds on to this myth despite lack of evidence.  

Calories

We're told alcohol contains lots of calories which will lead to weight gain, but this might not be true.  When calorie/kilojoule content of food was documented in the 1880's it was measured by it's combustibility.  The quicker the food burnt, the more energy/calories it contained.  Alcohol is highly combustible so the conclusion was that it must be high in calories too.  But as Tony Edwards (author of the original article) mentions so is coal, 10x more actually, and I'm sure you're not going to become obese by eating coal. 

Glycaemic Index (GI)

This measures how much glucose is created by every food containing carbs, scored out of 100.  So sugar is 100/100, green vegetables 10/100.  Beer-brewers use maltose/malt sugar (2 glucose units) with GI of 110/100 or 119/100 (depending on who you believe) which makes it very fattening despite it only registering 50 carb calories/pint.  Wine and spirits on the other hand measures 0/100.

Appetite

Some might argue that drinking more reduces appetite when the opposite was found to be true.  People ate more when they drank, yet put on less weight.

Theories

Alcohol doesn't seem to affect metabolism or act as a thermogenic.  It seems to be the GI content of the alcohol that makes the difference and would explain why beer drinkers still get the 'beer belly'.  Even though we're talking about alcohol here, it would be the same with foods we eat too.  It's about moving away from calories and looking at other aspects of food that contribute to weight gain.

Studies

A quick summary of some of the studies:

Rats with stable calorie intake lost more weight as alcohol intake increased (2004, Fluminense Federal University, Brazil)

Rats with same calorie intake - alcohol group put on no weight, water group put on extra weight (2008, University of Austin, Texas)

Female drinkers had lower risk of becoming overweight - drinking 5g alcohol/day had 4% lower risk, drinking 15g alcohol/day (about 1 medium glass of wine) had 14% lower risk (1990's, Harvard)

Drinking below 30g/day (about 2 medium glasses of wine) had 24% lower risk (University College Medical School, London)

Non or infrequent drinkers were fatter than daily drinkers (University of Denmark)

Men eating the same meals for 12 weeks put on no extra weight when drinking 2 glasses red wine/day for 6 of those weeks (1997, U.S sports scientists)

These are just summaries and you can read more about these studies at the link below.

Summary

The studies were done using wine and spirits, not beer.  You might not loose weight by drinking beer but studies have linked beer consumption to more flexible arteries, probably due to flavonoids in hops.  So everything has pro's and con's.

Could this myth be discarded in the same way as the 'eggs are bad for you', 'cholesterol causes heart disease', 'low-fat is good'? (just to name a few)  I think so...but it won't be anytime soon. 

Read more:

New book claims that drinking does not make you fat

Remember to maintain balance in life.

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Some good common sense advice for everyone in their fertile years wanting to start or expand their families.

[realizehealth]

Hi! Recently I have been doing a lot of research on gmos and all of the horrible corporations involved in genetically enhancing our food and products we use every day and I was wondering if you know of any good books with more info about it, or books with natural recipes for food and every day products such as soap and what not

Hi maroseg,

I know there are a lot of books out there that covers this subject, although I haven't read any specific ones I can personally recommend.  A really good doco to watch (which you might have already stumbled upon with your research) is THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO which provides a lot of good info.  Here in Australia the supermarkets (COLES & WOOLWORTHS) used to provide a little booklet listing foods and brands according to their GM status a few years ago.  Not sure if they still do this.  It might depend on where you reside.  Europe is the most progressive in this (at the time of writing) as they've forced Monsanto out a few months ago by making it too hard for them to continue pursuing growing GM foods there.  The USA is probably the worst.  Here in Australia I personally wouldn't touch anything related to corn, soy or cotton unless they are clearly labelled non-GMO.  It can get tricky for ordinary people as maltodextrin and dextrose (common sweeteners used in packaged foods) are derived from GM corn, so I just stay away from these as well.  

Our best option at this time is to stick to organically grown (from local farms if possible) produce and avoid citric acid/maltodextrin/dextrose (commonly found in most packaged foods) at all costs as these are usually derived from GM corn (unless otherwise stated).  People dictate what companies will sell.  They are out to make a profit and will not sell/produce foods people refuse to buy.  

It would be great if we can get some more debate on this subject and am happy to hear form more followers who have researched this subject.

[realizehealth]

Could Cow's be the New Oil?

How cool is this!  They have actually found a way to turn cow gas into fuel.

By using a system of valves and pumps, bowel gases from cows are channeled into a tank where methane is then separated from other gases such as carbon dioxide.  The methane is then compressed and resembles natural gas.  

Each head of cattle produces about 250 - 300L of methane per day which could power a refrigerator for 24 hours.

But don't get too excited just yet.  This could still be a while away from becoming reality.

"As an energy source it is not very practical at the moment, but if you look ahead to 2050, when fossil fuel reserves are going to be in trouble, it is an alternative." - Guillermo Berra

Research was done at Argentina's National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA).

Read more:

Digestive gases from cows turned into fuel

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Genome Sequencing of Lactobacillus Acidophilus

We have only just begun to scratch the surface in our research of probiotic strains and its different functions in the body.  Exciting information is emerging about entire genomes of particular probiotic strains which might challenge some of our previous thoughts on them.

Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14 strain has just undergone full genome sequencing and was compared to other L. acidophilus strains.

La-14

NCFM

ATCC4796

30SC

To put it a bit more simply, it's like looking at 4 different varieties of apples.

It is interesting to note that La-14 and NCFM was found to be 99.98% similar, whereas the other 2 were very different.  The next question researchers are looking to answer is what this 0.02% difference means. Will it be significant enough to give them completely different functions in the body?

What does the feature hold for probiotics?

Probiotic use will become more prominent as it already is one of the fastest growing health categories in the world.  Strains will be very specific in what they are designed to treat, a lot more than what they currently are.  You will have specific probiotic strains for weight loss, kidney stones, candida, allergies, etc.  These already exist to some extend but the variety will be a lot bigger.  

Food

Although I love probiotics, we have to be careful to not 'medicalize' it too much.  Nature gave us the ability to ferment a wide variety of foods using different techniques to produce different types of organisms.  It should be noted that you will receive billions more organisms in a tablespoon of sauerkraut than a probiotic capsule.  If you consume a lot of different fermented products in your daily diet, you can't really go wrong. 

[realizehealth]

Saturated Fats NOT the cause of Heart Disease and in fact Good for You

Hallelujah!! Wonderful to see a respected cardiologist confirm what we've known and been saying for years.  

Dr. Aseem Malhotra (British cardiologist) wrote an article in the British Medical Journal disputing the myth that saturated fats are bad for you and cause heart disease.  Here is what he had to say:

"There has been too much emphasis on fatty foods and not enough attention paid to cutting out sugar, which is the real culprit when it comes to heart disease and weight gain.  Unprocessed fatty foods like butter and eggs have been "demonised" since the 1970s, but there is no scientific link showing they cause heart disease."

He also refers to studies that showed 75% of heart attack patients have normal cholesterol levels.  At the same time he doesn't necessarily advocate to go and gorge yourself on bacon either:

"I think we have to have a balance here. The ultimate message is eat real food. Avoid processed food because processed food is potentially harmful. We know that there are products that are loaded with sugar that are promoted as low fat."

He recommends a Mediterranean style diet with nuts, olive oils, fish, and other 'real' foods.  And of course we know that Coconut oil, pure butter and ghee are other wonderful sources of saturated fats.  To finish his argument:

"Just to back up the evidence base, Sweden only four days ago became the first western country to change their nutritional guidelines on the review of 16,000 studies saying that a low carbohydrate diet, one that is higher in fat, is actually healthier for weight loss and improving cholesterol profile. So this isn’t just anecdote, this isn't opinion."

Mmmm...I'm sure the pharmaceutical companies pushing cholesterol-lowering statin drugs won't be too happy sharing his opinion.

Read more:

Link between fatty foods and heart disease 'a myth'

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Are You Sabotaging Your Weight Loss with this Common Mistake?

So you've started going to bootcamp and sweating it out with your personal trainer, follow a low-carb, high-protein diet, and after months of pain and hunger still don't see the results you expect.  The answer could be found in your social life.

Alcohol consumption is a major contributor of why most diets fail.  Here are some interesting facts:

26% of slimmers consume 1/4 of their weekly calorie intake on alcohol

4 out of 10 consume 1,000 calories in alcohol in just 1 night out

Alcohol influences weight by:

Adding extra calories on top of eating

Diminishing will power to say 'no' to junk food

Depressing leptin (hormone that tells you to stop eating) production which will make you feel hungrier

Slowing down the body's fat-burning process by up to 73%

Your liver will process the empty calories from alcohol first in order to get rid of the toxins, so it's more likely that the food you have eaten before or while drinking will be stored as fat.

Be especially careful with mixer drinks containing sugary soft drinks and beer.  Dry wines and less-sweet varieties usually contain less calories.

Read more:

Alcohol destroys 1 in 4 diets

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Forget about Calorie Counting. All Calories are NOT equal.

I really wanted to write a bit about this topic as I find it one of the biggest misconceptions around diet and weight loss and one of the hardest things to explain to someone who has been brainwashed by mainstream media or still following well-meaning but out-of-date nutritional advice.   

So many variables have to be taken into account:

Food type - carbohydrate, fat, protein, sugars, fibers, etc.

Food condition - raw, cooked, processed, etc.

Personal biochemistry - metabolism, liver pathways, gut bacteria, etc.

Genetic make-up - some gene profiles metabolise certain foods better than others

The list just goes on.  A good example is cooked food.  Cooking meat gelatinises the collagen protein in meat, making digestion easier and using up less calories to eat.

Processing - take barley grain and grind it into a flour.  The grain will take a lot longer to digest than the flour and will use up more calories.

Gut bacteria respond differently to processed foods and cooked foods and the foods you eat can largely dictate which bacterial communities will be dominant in your gut.

Then there is also the issue of insulin-resistance.  Where sugars and carbohydrates in general will stimulate an insulin surge in the blood stream, protein and esp. fats will keep insulin levels more stable.  This will affect how well you burn or store fat.

In short, a calorie of protein, fat, sugar will all be digested differently and have different biochemical effects in the body.  It is often more helpful to consider the flow-on effect of eating a certain type of food than just looking at the caloric value.

Read more:

Proof is in the eating

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How to Detox your Brain

Sleep!  It's that simple.  But it's true.

Our brain cells are programmed to contract during sleep which increases the space between them.  This allows spinal fluid to move freely between the cells and flush out toxic by-products through the brain lymphatics (glymphatics).  The liver then eliminates it.

We have a cleansing system that almost stops when we are awake and starts when we sleep.  It's almost like opening and closing a faucet - it's that dramatic' - Dr. Maiken Nedergaard

This could be quite big considering we live in a society where disrupted sleep patterns are very common - shift work, late nights, over-stimulation.  It also brings up the question whether it's lack of sleep creating a build-up of toxins in the brain, or whether a defective 'clearance' system in the brain is responsible for poor sleep.  The old 'chicken-or-the-egg' scenario.

Disorders such as Alzheimer's are linked with beta amyloid protein build-up in the brain, so potentially we can slow down progress or prevent it altogether if we can remove it more efficiently.  This could also explain why people with sleep disorders are more likely to develop neurodegenerative diseases.

Research done at University of Rochester using 2-photon microscopy with results published in the journal Science.

Read more:

Sleep 'cleans' the brain

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What is a portion?

OK people.  Time for a reality check.  Many of us are on diets, but whether you're following paleo, raw food, low carb, low fat, or anything-goes, one rule still applies to all of them....portion-control!  But has all-you-can-eat, super-sized meals and drinks increased the divide between our perception of how big a portion is compared to the reality?  Let's have a look:

1 PORTION

Milk, yoghurt - 1 cup or 250mL

Cottage cheese - 1/4 cup or 63mL

Harder cheese - 30g

Meat, fish - 30g (yes, that means a 300g piece of steak is really 10 portions!)

Eggs - 50g egg

Cereal, grains (dry) - 3/4 cup or 20g

Cereal, grains (cooked) - 1/2 cup or 100g

Bread - 1 slice or 1 roll, 25-30g

Crackers, biscuits - 2-3 or 20g

Rice, pasta (cooked) - 1/2 cup or 100g

Starchy vegetables - 1/2 cup or 100g

Low-starch, green vegetables - 1 cup or 200g

Fruit - 1 small fruit, 1/2 banana, 1 cup berries, 1/2 cup fruit juice, 2 dates, 12 grapes

Legumes (cooked) - 1/2 cup or 50g baked beans

Nuts - 15g, 1 tablespoon peanut butter

Fats, oils - 1 teaspoon butter, oil, 1 tablespoon cream

Courtesy of Dr. Ingrid van Heerden

Each person will have different lifestyle needs that might dictate how much they have to eat (activity levels, metabolism, etc.) but it's good to have a reality check every now and face up to how much we are really eating.

[realizehealth]

Cookies the Drug of Choice

The problem of sugar addiction seems to be getting a lot of media attention lately with good reason.  The role of dopamine and dopamine-receptors in the brain is already recognised when it comes to addictive behaviours which would include sugar, alcohol, drugs, smoking, even exercise.  

 Again a fairly standard test involving rats, a maze, oreo cookies, rice cakes, cocaine, morphine and saline (salt water).  No surprise that rats preferred cookies to rice cakes, and cocaine/morphine to saline.  

It was more interesting when they compared brain activity between the cookie group and cocaine/morphine group.  Researchers found more stimulation of pleasure neurons in the brains of cookie rats than those of drug rats.

It's hard to say which ingredient in the cookie is the main culprit - sugar, hydrogenated fats, preservatives, refined grains, or maybe the combination.  But it gives us a better understanding and maybe even empathy for those who struggle to say 'no' when offered a treat.

The study was done at Connecticut College in New London, USA

[realizehealth]

Hope for Type 1 Diabetics

Some good news for those with Type 1 Diabetes (insulin-dependent).  This form of Diabetes, which usually gets diagnosed during childhood and is dependent on life-long injections of insulin, occurs when the immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells and the body stops producing its own insulin. 

Insulin production

New technology has enabled researchers to detect far lower levels of insulin and have found that 73% of diabetics tested had working beta cells producing low levels of insulin regardless of how long they've had the disease.  Possible reasons include:

Some cells being immune to attack

New cells regenerating

This opens up the possibility to focus on regeneration of beta cells in future medical research, or even the link between nutrition/environment and auto-immune disease.

Genetic markers

German researchers found 2 genetic markers that predicts whether children will develop Type 1 Diabetes - DR3/DR4-DQ8.  I would like to emphasize that this doesn't mean you WILL develop Type 1 Diabetes.  It just makes it more likely if all the right triggers are present.  In future this could make it easier for healthcare practitioners to identify those at risk and develop a lifestyle plan to avoid triggers.

Read more:

Most Type 1's still producing Insulin

Blood Test to predict Type 1 Diabetes

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BPA Detoxification

This was an eye opener.  

It was previously thought that BPA was excreted out of the body fairly quickly, but that theory seems to have been proven very much incorrect.  Testing urine concentrations of BPA at various times after eating showed that high levels remain in the body even after fasting for as long as 24 hours.

So what does this mean?

It is possible that BPA does not come from food exposure alone, but also environmental such as tap water, house dust, touching of receipts, etc.

As a matter of interest, the clearance rate of BPA from the body was about 8x slower than previously thought.

Even the FDA admitted that they got it wrong when they acknowledge criticism from some scientists:

"FDA agrees that due to the uncertainties raised in some studies relating to the potential effects of low doses of BPA that additional research would be valuable".

Yes, I know it's not much, but what do you expect.

The study was done at Rochester's Environmental Health Sciences Centre.

Read more:

Plastics with BPA linger in body