Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

MSNBC reports the phytochemicals in berries help slow the growth of cancer tumors. That's probably not news to regular readers of Dr. Fuhrman's writing, but it's great to see the word spreading. Reporter Karen Collins contends berries are great, but eating a variety of produce everyday is key:

Research does show that berries are among the fruits highest in antioxidant content and that they are excellent sources of several phytochemicals that seem to help block cancer development. However, other fruits and vegetables provide different nutrients and phytochemicals with unique health benefits. The best advice, then, is to eat berries often for their great taste and health boost, but stay focused on the main goal of eating a wide variety of produce every day.

Here's some of the berry advantages mentioned in Collins's report:

Strawberries are known as excellent sources of vitamin C, providing as much or more than a whole day's recommended amount in just one cup. But all berries are good sources of vitamin C, with one cup of raspberries or blackberries giving you close to half of amounts currently recommended for a whole day for adults. One of the ways vitamin C protects our health is its function as an antioxidant. Antioxidants attract and neutralize highly reactive molecules called free radicals that could otherwise damage body cells in ways that initiate cancer development, heart disease and age-related eye damage. Yet laboratory studies show that much of the antioxidant power of fruits and vegetables comes not from the classic antioxidant vitamins such as vitamin C, but from natural protective compounds called phytochemicals.

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Adapted from Dr. Fuhrman's book Disease Proof Your Child:

Do not feed babies anything with added salt, sugar, or honey. Only organic fruits and vegetables and organic baby food should be used. To reduce the chance of developing allergies, delay feeding strawberries and citrus fruits until twelve months of age, and hold off on ground nuts and nut butters until nine months of age. Of course, children should not be given whole nuts until the age of two and a half because of a choking hazard, but raw nut butters and food made with ground raw nuts are fine after nine months of age. Avoid peanuts and peanut butter until the age of two, because they have such a strong potential for food allergy.

Raw nuts and seeds are an excellent source of protein, the healthiest type of fat, and are loaded with minerals and vitamins. Grind up sunflower seeds, almonds, and walnuts and store these ground nuts in the freezer to add to vegetables and fruit dishes for your child after nine months of age.

Important Foods to Avoid (at least) Until the First Birthday:
Eggs, fish and other seafood, meat, cow's milk, cheese, butter, oils, wheat, strawberries, oranges, grapefruits, fruit juice, sweeteners, honey peanuts, and processed foods with additives or salt.

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From Dr. Fuhrman's book Disease Proof Your Child:

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science released a public report in June 2003, warning the public about the cancer risk from consuming food containing dioxin and other polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs). The Institute of Medicine advises the federal government on medical matters and appoints experts to research and produce reports. The report concluded with the statement:

The most direct way for an individual or a population to reduce dietary intake of dioxins is to reduce their consumption of dietary fat, especially from animal sources that are known to contain higher levels of these compounds.

This report from the National Academy of Science came out only one day after the Environmental Protection Agency reported that the amount of dioxin released into the environment by industry increased to 328 pounds in 2001, up from 220 pounds the year earlier. The EPA added that 6.16 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the environment in 2001.

The EPA explained that these compounds persist in the environment and build up in the bodies of farm animals that eat contaminated feed or grass. While many of these toxic chemical compounds are resistant to degradation in the natural environment, they dissolve readily in oil and thus accumulate in the fatty tissues of fish, birds, and mammals. Humans are exposed predominately by eating contaminated animal products. Every time an animal is exposed to a tiny bit of these toxic chemicals, it remains in the animal's body for life, only released when the animal is eaten by humans, through fatty animal products such as meat, cheese, and full-fat milk.1 Animal products tested to be exceptionally high in these harmful compounds are catfish, lobster, mollusks, cheese, butter, and ice cream.2

Unborn children and breast feeding infants are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of these chemicals. These chemicals are linked to a broad range of diseases, including behavioral disorders, thyroid dysfunction, endometriosis, and cancer.3 Since these chemicals are stored in the fatty tissues of animals and in our fat stores too (because we are animals as well), a woman has to begin eating more carefully before she gets pregnant to prevent harmful exposure to the developing fetus.

The health of children is not merely the result of what they have been fed as youngsters, but is strongly influenced by a mother's diet and what she consumed and stored in her fat-supply years before her child is conceived. The National Academy of Science gave a clear public warning against eating a diet rich in animal fats, especially fatty fish and shellfish. Again, a plant-based diet containing healthy fat from avocados, raw nuts, and seeds, with much less or no animal fats, is revealed as a powerful weapon to beat the modern cancer epidemic.

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According to Dr. Fuhrman we're a culture indoctrinated by the message, "Drink your milk. It will help you grow big and strong." So many mothers prematurely abandon breastfeeding and turn to cow's milk. In Disease Proof Your Child Dr. Fuhrman contends this isn't a good idea:

Humans are designed to be raised on human milk in the first few years of life, not cow's milk. Human milk makes for slower growth. Cow's milk is specially designed for baby cows, and it supplies the nutrients to facilitate the rapid growth natural to cows.

Even baby formula isn't an adequate substitute for the real thing. Dr. Fuhrman explains:

No infant formula can duplicate human milk. Human milk contains living cells, hormones, active enzymes, immunoglobins, and compounds with unique structures that cannot be replicated.

So what's the solution? The answer is to breastfeed. Roni Rabin of The New York Times reports more and more health experts are acknowledging the resounding benefits of breastfeeding. It's worth reading the whole article. It touches on research suggesting breast milk can reduce the likelihood of all kinds of diseases, including obesity:

Ample scientific evidence supports the contention that breast-fed babies are less vulnerable to acute infectious diseases, including respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, experts say. Some studies also suggest that breast-fed babies are at lower risk for sudden infant death syndrome and serious chronic diseases later in life, including asthma, diabetes, leukemia and some forms of lymphoma, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The evidence that breastfeeding is better for children's health is so overwhelming that Rabin reports even the formula manufacturers acknowledge that breast milk is the first choice. Senator Tom Harkin has proposed warning labels on infant formula, making clear that the FDA recommends breastfeeding over formula.

Dr. E. Stephen Buescher says breast milk has special properties:

"I think of human milk not just as food, but as a sophisticated and intricate infant support system that has evolved over millions of years to provide the infant with nutrition, protection and components of information," said Dr. E. Stephen Buescher, a professor of pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, who heads the inflammation section in the school's Center for Pediatric Research.

"It isn't just calories," Dr. Buescher said.

The protection that breast-feeding provides against acute infectious diseases—including meningitis, upper and lower respiratory infections, pneumonia, bowel infections, diarrhea and ear infections—has been among the most extensively studied of its benefits and is well documented, said Dr. Lawrence M. Gartner, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' breast-feeding section.

Breast-fed babies have 50 percent to 95 percent fewer infections than other babies, Dr. Gartner said, adding, "It's pretty dramatic."

When it comes to nursing your child, you can't beat the real thing. Dr. Fuhrman says breastfeeding inspires healthy human development:

The antibodies derived from mother's milk are necessary for maximizing immune system function, maximizing intelligence, and protecting against immune system disorders, allergies, and even cancer. The child's immune system is still underdeveloped until age of two, the same age when the digestive tract seals the leaks (spaces between cells) designed to allow the mother's antibodies access to the bloodstream. So picking the age of two as the length of recommended breast-feeding is not just a haphazard guess, it matches the age at which the child is no longer absorbing the mother's immunoglobulins to supplement their own immune system. Nature designed it that way.

Dr. Fuhrman recommends feeding an infant only breast milk for the first six months, but he also suggests mothers continue some breastfeeding even if its only twice a day until the second birthday. There is much more on feeding infants in Disease Proof Your Child.

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From Dr. Fuhrman's book Disease Proof Your Child:

• Look for one without vitamin A--vitamin A intake leads to calcium loss in the urine and osteoporosis.1 We make all the vitamin A we need from the carotenes found in fruits and vegetables.
• A children's supplement should not have more than 2,500 IU of beta-carotene, but even less is better. It is best to receive carotenes from food, not supplements. Studies looking a beta-carotene supplementation show a higher rate of both cancer and heart disease in those supplemented with a high a dose of beta-carotene.2
• It should contain the full spectrum of minerals.
• It should be free from artificial colors, flavors, and artificial sweeteners.
• It must taste acceptable to your children, as it does no good if your child refuses to take it.

There is also a podcast episode on children's vitamins.

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According to HealthDay News a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics claims parenting-style affects children's likelihood to become overweight. Some researchers aren't surprised by the findings, Kathleen Doheny reports:

Authoritarian parenting was associated with the highest risk of overweight, the researchers found, with the risk five times higher. Children of permissive and neglectful mothers were twice as likely to be overweight as children of authoritative mothers, they also found.

"We were sort of suspecting this would be the case," Dr. Kyung Rhee, a clinical instructor and research fellow at Boston University School of Medicine and the study's lead author said, "because authoritative parenting has been associated with better outcomes in academic achievement, better self-control, less depressive symptoms, less risk-taking as teens."

Why are the less-ideal parenting styles associated with the risk of overweight? "We haven't studied exactly the mechanism," Rhee said. She speculated, however, that parents with an authoritative style allow the child to develop "some of their own self-regulatory abilities." As an example, she said an authoritarian parent might tell his child that he needs to finish a vegetable every night, put it on his plate and say, "Eat it." But an authoritative parent might offer a couple of different vegetables and allow the child to choose.

"The authoritarian parents determine everything for the child," Rhee said. "[The children] may learn not to listen to their bodies about how full they are. They learn to listen to external cues, somebody else telling them, 'You need to finish your plate before you get up from the table.' Authoritative parents allow the child to push the boundaries a little while maintaining the boundaries."

The more research I read, the more I wish every parent would listen to Dr. Fuhrman's podcast on getting children to eat well. The food thing just doesn't have to be a battle.

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Eating and exercise habits tend to pass from parents to children. So, it appears, do the resulting medical problems. According to Reuters some doctors are prescribing cholesterol controlling statins to children. Debra Sherman reports:

Cholesterol is making inroads in kindergartens on piles of pizza and burgers, and children as young as 10 are taking statin drugs along with their vitamins to stay healthy.

Poor diets and lack of exercise are the same factors behind rising childhood obesity, and can lead to health problems later in life, notably heart disease, doctors said.

"Genetics play a role, but this is more a lifestyle problem," said Dr. Steven Nissen, interim chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic.

Bad cholesterol builds up plaque on artery walls that narrows arteries and blocks blood flow to the heart. High cholesterol also is linked to other health problems, such as strokes.

Nissen said he occasionally prescribes hugely popular cholesterol-lowering statins -- by far the world's biggest selling class of drugs -- to children when changes in diet and exercise fail to do the job.

"I've treated children as young as 10 with them. I'd have to have a compelling reason to do that. Safety data is limited," he added.

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