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

• I thought astronauts only subsisted on Tang and freeze-dried ice cream. But experts think silk worms are another option. Yeah, the bugs that make silk, mainly because they don’t produce a lot of poop, but the average spaceman would need to eat 170 worms a day; via DiscoBlog.

• Despite good intentions, many dieters breakdown and splurge on crappy food. According to a new report, ice cream and sorbet, mayonnaise, margarine, crackers and cookies are the top five diet-breakers, with ice cream and sorbet taking the top spot; from Marketing Charts.

• The U.S. Agriculture Secretary wants to update our food safety system, saying a modernized system should focus on early detection of potential dangers. But some people are calling for a separate food-safety agency, instead of the FDA and USDA sharing the duties; via Reuters.

• A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine claims winter temperatures may cause high blood pressure in the elderly. Among the participants, 8,801 adults over the age of 65, those with high blood pressure in the summer, 23.8%, jumped to 33.4% in winter; WebMD explains.

• Sitting down too much may worsen sleep apnea. Research in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reveals sitting a lot causes fluid to build up in the legs and when laying down the fluid shift is greater, making sleep apnea worse; Reuters reports.

• More and more food is turning up counterfeit. It’s dubious, wild fish is turning out to be farm-raised fish, soybean oil if being mixed with high-grade extra virgin olive oil, honey is cut with high fructose corn syrup and sugar-water is diluting maple syrup; USA Today investigates.

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Salt’s a bad guy! Dr. Fuhrman says consuming salt boosts stroke risk and previous studies show sodium leads to hypertension, i.e. high blood pressure. Even sea salt is a bad idea. When he was on Studio 10 TV in St. Petersburg, Florida, this past November, Dr. Fuhrman explained the supposed health benefits of sea salt don’t out weigh the negatives.

And now, a new study in Archives of Internal Medicine claims high sodium intake and low potassium consumption increases heart disease risk by 24%. Scientists collected data from 2275 participants, ages 30 to 54, with pre-hypertension. After examining urine excretion, researchers determined those people peeing out more sodium and less potassium were more likely to develop cardiovascular disease; from FoodNavigator-USA.

Fruits and vegetables are packed with a myriad of nutrients and vitamins. And foods like strawberries and plums are excellent sources of potassium. So, go buy some!

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Pretty soon, 11.2 million more people could be put on cholesterol-lowering medications. A new study in Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes reveals statins, such as Crestor and Lipitor, can lower heart attack and stroke risk by 44%. Currently, 33.5 million older Americans, with high cholesterol and hypertension, take statins. However, authors of the new study, called JUPITER, believe 44.7 million people now fit the criteria for statin therapy, meaning more and more prescriptions; HealthDay News reports.

Not all news on statins is good! Just last week, research came out linking statins, like the aforementioned Crestor and Lipitor, with rare eye disorders, including eyelid-droop and double-vision. That means 11.2 million more people will have googly eyes!

I guess it’s easier to prescribe pills and meds, than fruits and vegetables, which naturally reverse and prevent high cholesterol and heart disease.

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Two new studies, one in the American Journal of Roentgenology and the other in the British Medical Journal, cast doubt on the long-established Framingham Risk Score for evaluating cardiovascular disease. The Framingham score assesses risk based on age, gender, total blood cholesterol, HDL, smoking, blood pressure and taking blood pressure medication. The first study did not accurately predict risk for a group of 1,653 people with no history of heart disease and the second revealed the Framingham score did no better than chance in predicting the 108 deaths; HealthDay News reports.

Okay, I admit, this report made me woozy, way over my head! So I asked Dr. Fuhrman about it. Here’s what he had to say:

Medical studies are clouded when they only look at the symptoms of unhealthy behavior such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure. These easily measurable numbers correlate with unhealthful lifestyle and diet-style, but they could reflect past habits, not present ones, plus they are not the sole cause of heart attacks.

These numbers do not incorporate other more critical factors such as diet-style and exercise tolerance and body weight. So if one person had higher cholesterol but was eating significantly healthier and exercising more, they might be at significantly lower risk than a person with a lower cholesterol and blood pressure, but with more intravascular and cellular oxidative stress from their low nutrient diet.

Hopefully that clears it up for you. Now, in other heart-related news, a recent report showed even a little extra belly fat can increase cardiovascular risk. And, in attempt to curb his own heart troubles and those of his city, Chicago’s health commissioner is encouraging everyone to go vegetarian!

Like Dr. Fuhrman says, a vegetable-based diet is the best way to aggressively reverse heart disease!

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A new analysis of 60,000 medical records revealed pediatricians fail to diagnosis weight problems in children. Reporting in Pediatrics, researchers determined 54% of obese children and 74% of severely obese kids were diagnosed, but only 10% of overweight children were given a weight-related diagnosis, meaning doctors are missing an opportunity to intervene before weight issues get out of control; The New York Times investigates.

Not surprising, some parents can’t even recognize their child is overweight or obese, could be because parents themselves are overweight and previous research claims kids eat like their parents and if parents don’t eat and live healthfully, they shouldn’t expect their children too!

And unchecked childhood obesity is being blamed for more kids taking drugs for diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and other chronic conditions. Eek!

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