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

Fifteen minutes of exercise might not seem like a lot, but in this age of Sony Playstations and Mp3 Players, it’s a start. A new study claims 15 minutes of moderate exercise makes children 50 percent less likely to become obese than inactive children. Reuters reports:

A study of 5,500 children who agreed to wear a motion sensor device showed that those who exercised more were less likely to be obese -- and that short bursts of intense activity seemed to be the most helpful…


…"Our data suggest that higher intensity physical activity may be more important than total activity," Andy Ness of the University of Bristol and colleagues wrote.

Are there kids that actually play outside nowadays? When I was a kid we had Nintendo, but still, if I couldn’t get outside to play a game of wall-ball once a day, my head would explode.

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Okay parents, time to get mad—really mad! How would you feel if your local school’s cafeteria wasn’t being inspected? I hope your reaction would be, “I’d grab a large blunt object and go ‘talk’ to the principle.” BloggingBaby is all over a new report claiming some school cafeterias are not being monitored for violations:

School cafeterias are required by congress to be inspected twice yearly, but of the 94,132 schools reporting for the 2005-2006 school year, only 61% of schools met that requirement. Almost 30% were only inspected once and 10% percent were not inspected at all. These inspection rules apply to schools that participate in the federal school lunch program, which is nearly every public school in the US. Of the 60 million students attending these public schools, half of them eat a lunch that was prepared at their school.


These missed inspections are not the fault of the schools themselves; state and local health authorities are charged with this task and many health departments are understaffed, especially those in small towns and rural areas. School cafeterias are not the only facilities missing required inspections. The recent spate of food poisonings in products such as peanut butter is another indication that the Food and Drug Administration isn't doing its job. According to a recent AP analysis, their inspections have fallen off by half between 2003 and 2006.

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Dr. Fuhrman’s radio show Nutritional Wisdom airs live Wednesdays at 11am EST with an encore presentation Thursdays at 3pm EST on VoiceAmerica. Be sure to check out this week’s episode Raising your child’s IQ. And if you've missed an episode click the Nutritional Wisdom category for previous episodes.

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Obesity is a big deal—no pun intended—and arguably it’s an even bigger deal with children. In Disease-Proof Your Child Dr. Fuhrman points out obesity is the most common nutritional problem facing kids in the United States:

The number of children who are overweight in the United States has more than doubled during the past decade. Social forces, from the demise of cooking to the rise of fast food, as well as dramatic increases in snack food and soda consumption, have led to the most overweight population of children in human history. Added to this dietary disaster is television, computer, and video technology that entertains our youngsters while they are physically inactive. Unless parents take a proactive role in promoting and assuring adequate nutrition and an active lifestyle, you can be sure the children of American will continue this downward spiral into obesity and ill health. Obese children suffer physically and emotionally throughout childhood and then invariably suffer with adult heart disease, and a higher cancer incidence down the road.

As a result, there are a lot of “tips” out there promising to help parents avoid obesity with their own kids. Like these from the American Academy of Family Physicians. Diana Kohnle of HealthDay News reports:

• Don't force him to eat when he isn't hungry -- he shouldn't have to clean his plate if he's already full.
• Don't use food as a reward, or as a comfort when he's upset.
• Feed your child a healthy, balanced diet -- one that includes fast food no more than once a week.
• Limit your child's TV watching and encourage physical activity, like playing outside. Offer to play outside with your child.
• Encourage your child to get regular exercise, so that he continues to exercise into adulthood.

All these make sense to me, but “one that includes fast food no more than once a week?” Yeah, I don’t know about that. How about no fast food? Why? Because it’s junk! Better yet, check out Dr. Fuhrman’s Secrets to Getting Your Children to Eat Healthfully. Here’s a few:

1. Keep only healthy food in the house. Every person in the household should have the same food choices available.


2. Offer and feed a wholesome diversity of natural foods, vegetables, beans, raw nuts, seeds, and fresh fruit, while giving each child as much latitude as possible to eat what they prefer.

3. Don't attempt to manage your children's caloric intake. They can do that on their own.

Of course if words are too intimidating, have listen to Dr. Fuhrman’s podcast on Getting Children to Eat Well.

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Overnight mandatory HPV vaccinations have become the nation’s newest polarizing social issue. Are they a good idea or a bad idea? Dangerous or safe? Very good questions, but, if laws are passed requiring children to get the vaccination, the answers to these inquires won’t matter will they?

So, before big brother gears up to infringe on our liberties again. Let’s see how necessary these HPV vaccinations really are. Dr. Fuhrman emailed me a link to a study appearing in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The research examines prevalence of HPV infection among females in the United States. Here’s some of the introduction:

A highly efficacious prophylactic vaccine against HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18 was licensed in June 2006 and recommended for routine use in females aged 11 to 12 years in the United States.11-14 Clinical studies of the quadrivalent HPV vaccine demonstrated close to 100% efficacy in preventing infection and disease (cervical cancer precursors, genital lesions) associated with types included in the vaccine in analyses restricted to those women who were naive to HPV types 6, 11, 16, or 18 (either by HPV DNA or HPV antibodies).


Representative data on type-specific prevalence of HPV DNA detection in the United States could provide a baseline estimate to measure the wide-scale impact of the vaccine for reducing infection and could help guide models evaluating impact and cost effectiveness. With widespread implementation of the prophylactic HPV vaccine, decreases in the prevalence of vaccine HPV types would be expected. To determine a prevaccine population-based prevalence of cervicovaginal HPV in the United States, we performed HPV DNA testing on self-collected vaginal swabs among females participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2004.

Now, I’m sure a large portion of the populous believes that the government is just looking out for us and that this medication will save millions of lives--or is this maybe about millions of dollars? If young girls across the country are being injected with the HPV vaccination Gardasil, wouldn’t the makers of Gardasil stand to make a whole lot of money?

So then, it’s probably a good idea for vaccine manufacturers to kick the hype-machine into overdrive. Especially since according to Dr. Fuhrman Gardasil only protects against a small percentage of HPV cases:

Gardasil, the new Merck HPV vaccine, protects against 4 types of HPV and these four types were only found in 3.4 percent.

1. 44 percent of women studied aged 20 – 24 had infections with HPV.
2. The virus disappears and does not cause a problem in 90 percent of infected women.
3. 100 strains exist, the vaccine protects against only 4, but they include the two strains associated with seventy percent of cervical cancers 16 and 18.
4. The vaccine has not been studied for long-term effectiveness and the protection may wear off in 5 – 7 years.
5. Conclusion, most HPV infections and about 50 percent of HPV related cancers will not likely be helped by the vaccine because its effectiveness will likely wane with time, other strains can also cause disease.

Stuff like this proves how powerful spreading panic can be. Float some new fears out there and people will basically believe anything you tell them. For more the HPV vaccination situation, take a gander at these previous posts:

• Dr. Fuhrman on HPV Vaccinations
• Merck Kind of Ditches Effort to Make HPV Drug Mandatory

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How do you feel about dairy? Personally, I don’t like it. Of course this wasn’t always the case. As a kid I loved my morning cereal, but, puking it up ten minutes later was no picnic. Yes, it took a while before the family realized I was lactose intolerant. Now I barely touch the stuff, actually I can’t remember the last time I knowingly ate any dairy.

But for lots of people avoiding dairy is total blasphemy. After all, just last week it was reported that diary foods help with fertility. Not to mention people like BellaOnline's Low Carb Editor Lisa Shea consider foods like cheese to be a delicious and nutritious snack:

Cheese is a delicious, nutritious food. It is in essence milk from a cow (or sheep, goat etc.) that has been processed and solidified. Therefore, cheese is full of calcium and can make just about any meal very tasty. It's a perfect snack, too! Just don't put it on bland bread. Try it on a slice of cucumber, or on a pepperoni ring!

So then, how can dairy be bad for us? Come on, America grew up on dairy. Cookies and milk, whip cream on pumpkin pie, and what about sharing a strawberry shake with your sweetheart? Not a good idea according to Dr. Fuhrman.

Maybe it’s our emotional connection with milk and ice cream, but it sure seems like people ignore the dangers dairy. In a previous post Dr. Fuhrman points out the link between Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, ovarian cancer, and dairy consumption. From Milk: Does It Do A Body Good:

The relationship between Parkinson’s and milk consumption has been suspected for decades1 and was first reported by researchers a few years ago. Chen’s and other recent prospective studies have confirmed the earlier, less definitive findings…


…The researchers also concluded that the non-fat aspects of milk have atherogenic effects (plaque-building) both biochemical and immunological, and the simultaneous attack from all these directions explains why milk was found to have such a strong effect on death rate2…

…A recent study of 61,000 women found that those who consumed more than 2 glasses of milk per day had twice the risk of serous ovarian cancer than women who consumed fewer than two glasses. The risk of those who drank two glasses a day was double that of women who rarely drank milk.3

Dr. Fuhrman is especially worried about cow’s milk and children. In Disease-Proof Your Child he explains that consuming milk puts children at risk for a whole bunch of issues, including Crohn's disease and multiple sclerosis. Here’s a bit of the book:

Milk and cheese are the foods Americans encourage their children to eat, believing them to be healthy foods. Fifty years of heavy advertising by an economically powerful industry has shaped the public's perception, illustrating the power of one-sided advertising, but the reality and true health effects on our children is a different story. Besides the link between high-saturated-fat foods (dairy fat) and cancer, there is a body of scientific literature linking the consumption of cow's milk to many other diseases.

When I read stuff like this I don’t feel ashamed about not eating dairy. Although my friends still think its weird that I can walk into a pizzeria and not order a slice. In fact, I’m probably the only full-blooded Italian that orders a salad at the local pizza joint.

So, if all this daunting research isn’t enough to make you think twice about downing that glass of milk, check out this report by The Washington Post. Apparently the FDA is about to approve a cattle drug that could put humans at risk. Rick Weiss has more:

The American Medical Association and about 12 other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals probably would speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotic, as has happened with other drugs. Those supermicrobes could then spread to people.


Echoing those concerns, the FDA's advisory board last fall voted to reject the request by Intervet of Millsboro, Del., to market the drug for cattle.

Yet by all indications, the FDA will approve cefquinome this spring. That outcome is all but required, officials said, by a recently implemented "guidance document" that codifies how to weigh threats to human health posed by proposed new animal drugs.

You’ve got to love the FDA. They’ve always got our best interests at heart—that was sarcasm folks.
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Darla Shine and Dr. Fuhrman discuss how parents might be making their kids sick over at Happy Housewives Club.

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