Disease Proof

DiseaseProof regular, Llouise—funny spelling, for a funny lady—read yesterday’s Health Points and was intrigued by The New York Times report dealing with vitamin D and sunlight. Here’s the excerpt I pulled:

Complete cloud cover halves the energy of ultraviolet rays, and shade reduces it by 60 percent, according to the National Institutes of Health…

…To strike a balance between useful exposure and protection, the N.I.H. recommends an initial exposure of 10 to 15 minutes, followed by application of a sunscreen with an S.P.F. of at least 15. The institutes say this much exposure, at least two times a week, is usually sufficient to provide adequate vitamin D, though some researchers suggest it may not be enough. At the earth’s northern latitudes for much of the year, and at the midlatitudes in winter, the sun does not stay far enough above the horizon (45 degrees) for the angle of the sun’s rays to guarantee an efficient ultraviolet-B bath. Northerners may have to rely on the vitamin D synthesized in the summer or on foods and supplements.

After reading this, she was curious to get Dr. Fuhrman’s thoughts on this study; suggesting that vitamin D supplementation might be overrated and needs to be reconsidered. The report is over at PR Web:

Low blood levels of vitamin D have long been associated with disease, and the assumption has been made that vitamin D supplements may protect against disease. In the light of new knowledge that hundreds of genes are dependent on vitamin D, this assumption needs to be reconsidered.

In a report published in the current issue of the journal BioEssays, Trevor Marshall, Ph.D., professor at Australia's Murdoch University School of Biological Medicine and Biotechnology, explains how increased vitamin D intake affects much more than just nutrition or bone health. The paper explains how the Vitamin D Nuclear Receptor (VDR) acts in the repression or transcription of hundreds of genes, including genes associated with diseases ranging from cancers to multiple sclerosis.

"The VDR is at the heart of innate immunity, being responsible for expression of most of the antimicrobial peptides, which are the body's ultimate response to infection," Marshall said. "Molecular biology is now forcing us to re-think the idea that a low measured value of vitamin D means we simply must add more to our diet. Supplemental vitamin D has been used for decades, and yet the epidemics of chronic disease, such as heart disease and obesity, are just getting worse."

Well, fearing the wrath of a Llouise scorned, I quickly emailed the article over to Dr. Fuhrman and here’s what he had to say about it:

You can always find someone who will take the opposite stance to the main thrust of research in the world and the press is always quick to jump on it, even if it is one person's opinion without significant research to prove anything. Lots of this (anti vitamin D supplementation) article is not correct. Vitamin D deficiency does cause rickets. Taking Vitamin D supplement have a long proven history to reduce incidence of rickets. That does not mean that severe calcium deficiency can't contribute to rickets as well.

Evidence is emerging that more than 17 different types of cancer are likely to be vitamin D sensitive. A recent meta-analysis concluded that 1,000 IU of oral vitamin D per day is associated with a 50% reduction in colorectal cancer incidence. That is taking the supplements result in dramatic benefits.

In general, the most critical outcome related to any intervention is mortality, and a recently published meta-analysis examining the effects of vitamin D supplementation is the most important information we have. The authors of this study evaluated 18 randomized, controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation for any indication. The mean daily dose of vitamin D was 528 IU, and the mean follow-up period was 5.7 years. Vitamin D supplementation was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality compared with placebo.

Here's the study Dr. Fuhrman is talking about. From the Archives of Internal Medicine:

Background: Ecological and observational studies suggest that low vitamin D status could be associated with higher mortality from life-threatening conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes mellitus that account for 60% to 70% of total mortality in high-income countries. We examined the risk of dying from any cause in subjects who participated in randomized trials testing the impact of vitamin D supplementation (ergocalciferol [vitamin D2] or cholecalciferol [vitamin D3]) on any health condition.

Methods: The literature up to November 2006 was searched without language restriction using the following databases: PubMed, ISI Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded), EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library.

Results: We identified 18 independent randomized controlled trials, including 57 311 participants. A total of 4777 deaths from any cause occurred during a trial size–adjusted mean of 5.7 years. Daily doses of vitamin D supplements varied from 300 to 2000 IU. The trial size–adjusted mean daily vitamin D dose was 528 IU. In 9 trials, there was a 1.4- to 5.2-fold difference in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D between the intervention and control groups. The summary relative risk for mortality from any cause was 0.93 (95% confidence interval, 0.87-0.99). There was neither indication for heterogeneity nor indication for publication biases. The summary relative risk did not change according to the addition of calcium supplements in the intervention.

Conclusions: Intake of ordinary doses of vitamin D supplements seems to be associated with decreases in total mortality rates. The relationship between baseline vitamin D status, dose of vitamin D supplements, and total mortality rates remains to be investigated. Population-based, placebo-controlled randomized trials with total mortality as the main end point should be organized for confirming these findings.

So Llouise, does that answer your questions? And Llouise, keep the comments coming. You rock!

For as long as I can remember eggs have been America’s on again, off again lover, but as of this moment, they’re out…again. Reuters reports that Seven or More Eggs a Week Raises Risk of Death. Check it out:

Middle-aged men who ate seven or more eggs a week had a higher risk of earlier death, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

Men with diabetes who ate any eggs at all raised their risk of death during a 20-year period studied, according to the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study adds to an ever-growing body of evidence, much of it contradictory, about how safe eggs are to eat. It did not examine what about the eggs might affect the risk of death.

Men without diabetes could eat up to six eggs a week with no extra risk of death, Dr. Luc Djousse and Dr. J. Michael Gaziano of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School found.

"Whereas egg consumption of up to six eggs a week was not associated with the risk of all-cause mortality, consumption of (seven or more) eggs a week was associated with a 23 percent greater risk of death," they wrote.

"However, among male physicians with diabetes, any egg consumption is associated with a greater risk of all-cause mortality, and there was suggestive evidence for a greater risk of MI (heart attack) and stroke."

Now, “seven or more eggs” sounds a bit excessive—don’t you think? Especially if you’re adhering to Dr. Fuhrman’s food pyramid. We talked about it earlier this week, but here’s another look:

Today the link between animal products and many different diseases is as strongly supporting in the scientific literature as the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. For example, subjects who ate meat, including poultry and fish, were found to be twice as likely to develop dementia (loss of intellectual function with aging) than their vegetarian counterparts in a carefully designed study.1 The discrepancy was further widened when past meat consumption was taken into account. The same diet, loaded with animal products, that causes heart disease and cancer also causes most every other disease prevalent in America including kidney stones, renal insufficiency and renal failure, osteoporosis, uterine fibroids, hypertension, appendicitis, diverticulosis, and thrombosis.2

But, Dr. Fuhrman is hardly anti-egg. Here’s why:

If you choose a limited amount of animal products to be included in your family’s diet, I favor eggs over fish or dairy, because of the potential for transmission of chemicals, mercury, and PCBs in the fish and dairy. Eggs, because they are virtually pollution-free, would be favored choice over other animal products to add to an otherwise vegan diet.

And for reference, check out egg’s Nutrient Scores:

Eight glasses of water a day, good for you or just an urban legend? Discover Magazine investigates:

Balderdash, says a new review of the scientific literature by kidney gurus Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb from the University of Pennsylvania. They found that for the average, healthy individual, there is no evidence that increased water intake benefits organ functioning, appetite, headaches, skin tone, or substance clearance from the kidneys—and the origin of 8×8 is a mystery. The human body didn’t evolve a chronic thirst—it evolved a great capacity for maintaining proper water balance in the face of variable intake.

These findings support an earlier study by Heinz Valtin from Dartmouth, which found no support for 8×8, and debunked a few other myths. He found that dark urine does not mean dehydration, caffeinated beverages “count” as fluid intake, thirst doesn’t mean “it’s too late,” water doesn’t prevent (or help) constipation, cancer, or heart disease.

Dr. Fuhrman actually emailed me this one, here’s what he had to say about all the water hype. Check it out:

If you need all that water, you must be eating an unhealthy diet. A healthy diet, high in fruits and vegetables and low in salt is full of water already.

And you won’t be peeing as much either—yippee!

Jenna Watson of TreeHugger recently caught Michael Pollan on the Canadian leg of his book tour. She blogged about it, here’s some of her post:

I won’t get into the nitty gritty details of every single word he said, but he was inspiring, engaging, funny and real. A must-see if you have the opportunity. One of the interesting points he makes is our lack of “food culture” in North America. We eat to get nutrients and "fuel-up", instead of eating to enjoy time with our families and savour the flavours of the stuff we put in our mouths. His eloquent words really made me think...

It is amazing and saddening that some families don’t eat together. My parents always had us sit together at the table and we weren't allowed to watch TV while we ate. It’s an important time to catch up with one another and just have some family moments. Having come back to Toronto for 6 months (from my regular home of Barcelona), I do notice the lack of food culture, or better yet how the characteristics that Pollan says we should aim for are definitely things that we do in Spain.

Sometimes it seems like ALL we do is eat - it's a social thang. We sit down for breakfast, lunch and dinner (in my house at least). When we get together with friends we meet at a café, bar, restaurant or somebody's house to eat and/or drink.

Michael Pollan is a wonderful advocate of wholesome food. Here’s what Dr. Fuhrman has to say about him:

Many of Michael Pollan’s points are interesting and valid, but some discourage people to look to science as motivation to direct healthier eating styles and lifestyles. It almost seems as if his statements support a false view that what you eat does not matter much, when in fact, we have tremendous control our health destiny via nutritional excellence. As I always say, “Nutrition is the prescription.” And Michael Pollen, I think, would support that high nutrient natural foods, not supplements is the key to good health.

And my buddy Tara Parker-Pope of Well digs Michael Pollan too. In fact, she mentioned him in our recent interview. Check it out:

I think Michael Pollan makes a good point when he notes that this culture of nutritionism has taken much of the pleasure out of eating. Now when I put salmon on my plate in the cafeteria I swear I think to myself "mmm, omega 3s..." There's something really wrong with that.

Hey, as a writer and healthy-eater, I admire him a lot.

A new study has determined that fad diets like Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and the Zone produced only modest weight-loss with limited sustainability. Ian Ayres of the Freakonomics blog has more:

A randomized control year-long study looked at the impact of four different diets (Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets) on a group of overweight and obese subjects who were looking to lose weight. The diets produced only “modest” average weight loss of about 6.4 lbs (2.3 percent of original body weight) and found no statistically significant difference in weight loss for the four different diets.

People do a pretty good job of losing weight for about half a year, and then their weight tends to drift back toward their pre-diet number. The difficulty of sustaining weight loss can be seen in this figure taken from a 2-year randomized study of the Weight Watchers program:

All those second rate diets fail, because without addressing adequate micronutrient density, people crave more food than their body requires for good health.

In spite of the more than $110 million consumers spend every day on diets and “reducing” programs (more than $40 billion per year), Americans are the most obese people in history. To be considered obese, more than one-third of a person’s body must be made up of fat. A whopping 34 percent of all Americans are obese, and the problem is getting worse, not better.

Unfortunately, most weight-loss plans either don’t work or offer only minor, usually temporary, benefits. There are plenty of “rules and counting” diets, diet drugs, high-protein programs, canned shakes, and other fads that might enable you to lose some weight for a period of time. The problem is that you can’t stay on these programs forever.

Here’s my UNEXPERT opinion. Ditch the “diet” and change your lifestyle. Hey, it worked for me—Healthy, with a Vengeance!

“Low cholesterol as a result of eating healthfully does NOT place one at higher risk of cancer,” exclaims Dr. Fuhrman in response to a recent Reuters report that low cholesterol has been linked to stomach cancer-risk. From the report:

Some studies have linked low cholesterol levels to higher death rates from cancer in general, Dr. Kouichi Asano, of Kyushu University, Fukuoka, and colleagues explain in the International Journal of Cancer. "With respect to gastric cancer, a limited number of studies suggest this inverse association, while others do not."

The researcher looked into this in a study involving some 2,600 residents of Hisayama, Japan, who were followed for 14 years.

Gastric cancers developed in 97 subjects. After accounting for age and gender, stomach cancer rates rose significantly with descending cholesterol level. For example, among subjects with the highest cholesterol levels, the gastric cancer rate was the equivalent of 2.1 cases per 1000 persons per year; among those with the lowest cholesterol, the rate was 3.9 per 1000 person-years.

I talked to Dr. Fuhrman at length about this study and he thinks it’s a bunch of hooey. He goes on to explains why you shouldn’t worry about low cholesterol and cancer if you’re consuming a superior diet. Take a look:

Low cholesterol levels around the world in healthy populations are linked lower rates of all cancers and that was confirmed in the China-Oxford-Cornell Study. That means if you eat a cardio-protective diet that earns you a low cholesterol level. That is indicative of a lower risk and protection against multiple cancers.

Cancer is a disease with a slow doubling time. It is in the body on the average of 8-12 years prior to diagnosis in the U.S. and 12-18 years prior to diagnosis in areas without modern screening and detection. Having cancer and having cancer even when it is not yet diagnosed lowers cholesterol levels. Having very low cholesterol, on a diet that you would expect to generate a high-cholesterol, is suspicious and it could potentially be a sign of an undiagnosed or early cancer.

Take my cholesterol numbers for example:

I hate to fly! The only exercise I get on a plane is an exercise in panic and fear, but not this guy. Dr. Charles van der Horst turns a plane into his own personal gym. The New York Times tells his story:

To this day, every place I go I find the time to exercise. It’s a wonderful way to see the country and to get that endorphin rush that makes a bad day a little more tolerable. For me, running through dusty fields of Malawi and hearing the Islamic call to prayer is mesmerizing. And I can’t help but smile, when I’m running through a village and these gorgeous little African children start running with me yelling, “azungu,” which can mean stranger, foreigner or white guy — all of which are true.

My colleagues and friends still have a tough time believing I spend a short layover in London doing laps in a pool. Or that I walk through German customs wearing my ratty running shorts. My daughters tell me I should get rid of them. Despite their embarrassment, I won’t. The shorts are too comfortable.

The ultimate eyebrow raiser is on the South African Airways flight back from Johannesburg to the United States. This endless trip is enough to drive anyone crazy. My solution is to go into the restroom halfway through the flight and change into workout clothes. I then do a full hour of calisthenics, crunches, push-ups and lunges in the aisle of the plane. I’ll ask the stewards for a lot of those steamy washcloths, and then retreat to the restroom for a sponge bath. I’ll sleep like a baby for the rest of the flight.

Okay, I’m an exercise nut—yoga, running, weights—but like I said, on a plane, I’m like a cat in water—EEK! Now, get this. Dr. Fuhrman is also a plane exerciser. Get a load of this:

Hey, I do stuff like that too on the planes. Stretching, lunges, one-legged knee bends, toe raises. Except I don’t sponge bath after. It often is a surprise that I am the only one exercising in the back of the plane. I usually get to know the stewardesses in the back galley, while I am exercising and stretching and wind up talking to them about their diets and sometimes I’ll meet someone who will pull out their bag of veggies and fruits to show me they do not eat the junk plane food.

I’d call him crazy, but I’d be risking my job—oh, wait. Oops!

Dr. Fuhrman’s got a question for you, “How can diabetics safely lower the high glucose levels that are slowly destroying their bodies?” Oh, that’s simple you—wait, lets explore this—what about gastric surgery? It was recently reported to be a good idea. From The New York Times:

Weight-loss surgery works much better than standard medical therapy as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes in obese people, the first study to compare the two approaches has found.

The study, of 60 patients, showed that 73 percent of those who had surgery had complete remissions of diabetes, meaning all signs of the disease went away. By contrast, the remission rate was only 13 percent in those given conventional treatment, which included intensive counseling on diet and exercise for weight loss, and, when needed, diabetes medicines like insulin, metformin and other drugs.

In the study, the surgery worked better because patients who had it lost much more weight than the medically treated group did — 20.7 percent versus 1.7 percent of their body weight, on average. Type 2 diabetes is usually brought on by obesity, and patients can often lessen the severity of the disease, or even get rid of it entirely, by losing about 10 percent of their body weight. Though many people can lose that much weight, few can keep it off without surgery.

Yeah, I don’t know about this. I mean, maybe it’s a good idea, if you consider serious complications a key component of success. Hopefully this chart will help you think twice before you run out and get your tummy sliced open. Take a look:

The startling discovery, announced yesterday, prompted federal health officials to immediately halt one part of the large trial so thousands of the Type 2 diabetes patients in the study could switch to less-intensive treatment.

"As always, our primary concern is to protect the safety of our study volunteers," said Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which is sponsoring the study.

Although the reason for the increased risk remains a mystery, Nabel and other experts stressed that the benefits of blood sugar control have been well established for diabetics and said patients should not make any changes in their care without consulting their doctors.

But the findings cast doubt on a major hope about diabetes treatment -- that pushing levels below current targets would be beneficial -- and would force experts to rethink how to treat one of the nation's leading health problems.

"It's profoundly disappointing," said Richard Kahn, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association. "This presents a real dilemma to patients and their physicians. How intensive should treatment be? We just don't know."

The findings are the second major blow to widespread assumptions about how to protect against heart disease -- the nation's leading killer. Another recent major study found that driving blood cholesterol levels as low as possible did not necessarily slow the progression of heart disease.

As you can imagine, Dr. Fuhrman was less than surprised by these results. Here’s what he had to say about it. Have a look:

It basically illustrates that giving diabetics more medication to better control their glucose numbers leads to more heart attacks; more medicine equals more heart attacks. Diabetes is a disease arising out of nutritional ignorance, obesity and lack of exercise and activity. The prescription must be nutritional excellence for an excellent outcome. Most diabetics who follow a nutrient-dense vegetable-based diet not only reduce their medication use, but they actually get rid of their diabetes and become non-diabetic.

So, back to Dr. Fuhrman’s original question, “How can diabetics safely lower the high glucose levels that are slowly destroying their bodies?” Well—as we just found out—nutritional excellence is a huge part of it. More form Dr. Fuhrman:

I have achieved marked success with diabetic patients and the success at becoming "non diabetic" or almost "non-diabetic" regularly occurs on the nutritarian program whether the patient follows a strict vegan diet or not. I describe the diet-style as a "vegetable-based" diet because the base of the pyramid is vegetables, not grains. Even though most animal products are excluded, it is not necessary to adopt a completely vegan diet to achieve the goals.

I offer patients the choice of adding two servings a week of low-fat fish, such as tilapia, flounder, sole, and scrod, as well as an egg-white omelet, once or twice each week. A few servings of very low-saturated-fat animal products each week can be interspersed with the vegan meals without diminishing the results achievable from the vegetable-based diet.

And lets not forget an obvious—but often overlooked—component of preventing and fighting diabetes is exercise. Let’s check back in with Dr. Fuhrman:

The most effective prescription for diabetes is exercise. An essential component of my prescription for diabetes is daily exercise; it is more important than daily medication. Two hundred calories a day of formal exercise on an incline treadmill and an elliptical machine are a great goal to shoot for. It is not an official recommendation of anyone except me.

Seriously, it’s a win-win situation for diabetics. You get to eat delicious food, stay active, lose weight, feel good, and, kick your diabetes in the butt. Can’t get much better than that!

Dr. Fuhrman will tell you, antioxidants are strong medicine. In fact, antioxidants and other phytochemicals are profound cancer-fighters. He explains:

The most dramatic finding in nutritional science in the last fifty years is the power of plant-derived phytochemicals to affect health. Phytochemicals, along with the rich assortment of powerful antioxidants found in unrefined plant foods, fuel a defensive system that removes toxic cellular metabolites that age us. Phytochemicals also are required for maintenance and repair of our DNA.

Cancer may be promoted by toxic compounds, but we have cellular machinery, fueled by phytochemicals, to detoxify and remove noxious agents and to repair any damage done. Our body is self-healing and self-repairing when given sufficient nutrient support to maximize efficiency of protective cellular machinery. But, only when we consume large amounts of green vegetables and a diversity of natural plant foods can we maximize phytochemical delivery to our tissues.

And some new research links antioxidants and “rabbit food” to healthy eyeballs. Here’s looking at you kid! Karen Ravn of The Los Angeles Times reports:

Surprisingly, despite their reputation, carrots are probably not near the top of the list. Certainly, the vitamin A they're full of is necessary for eye health, says Dr. Michael Marmor, an ophthalmology professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. "But people are generally not vitamin A deficient in our society, and a high dose doesn't do any more good."

The most useful vegetables, according to new research, seem to be the leafy green ones -- such as spinach, kale and collard greens -- which are rich in the antioxidant carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin.

These are also the only carotenoids found in measurable amounts in the eye, says Bill Christen, a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School. "That adds credence to the idea that they could be of benefit," he says.

Christen is lead author of a new study published this month showing that people who eat diets high in lutein and zeaxanthin are less likely to develop cataracts than others whose diets included less of those nutrients. A second new study by Australian scientists that is to be published next month, found similar results for age-related macular degeneration.

But while these studies show a diet-eye health relationship, they do not directly demonstrate cause and effect. Only one study to date has shown specific nutrients can cause reductions in risk for eye disease.

By you’re probably saying, “Where can I get some of those antioxidants?” Here’s a decent list of antioxidant sources from Diana Kohnle of HealthDay News. Take a look:

• Vitamin C, found in citrus fruits and juices; berries and other fruits; dark green vegetables; red and yellow peppers.
• Vitamin E, found in vegetable oils, whole grains, and leafy green vegetables.
• Selenium, found in whole grains, most vegetables, chicken, eggs, and most dairy products.
• Beta carotene, found in colorful fruits and vegetables like broccoli, spinach, carrots, sweet potatoes, red and yellow peppers, apricots, cantaloupes and mangoes.

Sesame seeds have the highest level of calcium of any food in the world. Interestingly, they not only have a highly absorbable spectrum of vitamin E, they increase the bioactivity of vitamin E in the body.1 Comparing the many forms of vitamin E in sesame seed with the vitamin E in supplements is like comparing a real horse to a toy horse. Sesamin, a sesame lignan, has beneficial effects on postmenopausal hormonal status, raises antioxidant activity in body cells, decreases the risk of breast cancer, and lowers cholesterol.2

Speaking of sesame seeds, here’s a little dialogue Dr. Fuhrman and I had about sesame seeds. And yes, we’re a little nerdy. These are the types of things we discuss. Enjoy:

Me: Are there any significant nutritional differences between regular sesame seeds and black sesame seeds?

Dr. Fuhrman: Regular sesame seeds are hulled, the outer brown cover it removed and along with it 90 percent of the calcium and other minerals. It is like comparing white bread to whole wheat. Brown and black sesame seeds are almost equal nutritionally but the important thing is neither has the hull removed.

Me: Gotcha. I buy raw black and brown sesame seeds from my farmers market. The black have an interesting peppery taste.

Anyone else enjoy black sesame seeds? I find they go great over spinach or blended into seed and avocado-based salad dressings.

In early September ParentDish blogged about the growing concern over the safety of the butter flavoring used in microwave and movie theater popcorn. Here’s a refresher:

A pulmonary specialist at Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center thinks exposure to the fumes from microwave butter popcorn might be the cause of lung disease in one of her patients. She sent a letter to several federal agencies expressing her concerns. "We cannot be sure that this patient's exposure to butter flavored microwave popcorn from daily heavy preparation has caused his lung disease," said Dr. Cecile Rose. "However, we have no other plausible explanation."

Apparently the patient, a unidentified man, consumed "several bags of extra butter flavored microwave popcorn" every day for several years. The ailing patient's condition improved when he stopped making the popcorn.

This may sound far-fetched, but it's not. So-called "popcorn lung" is a real disease that has resulted in lawsuits by workers in food factories who were exposed to diacetyl, a chemical used to create that buttery flavor.

Popcorn lung? Are food-producers REALLY risking the health of their workers and customers for fake butter? The answer is yes. Why else would we have warnings like this? Take a look:

Workers in several factories that manufacture artificial butter flavoring have been diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare and serious disease of the lungs. The cases found have been mainly in young, healthy, non-smoking males. There are no known cures for bronchiolitis obliterans except for lung transplantation.

While several authorities have called the disease "Popcorn Worker's Lung," a more accurate term suggested by other doctors may be more appropriate, since the disease can occur in any industry working with diacetyl: diacetyl-induced bronchiolitis obliterans…

…Dr. Cecile Rose, pulmonary specialist at Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center, in a letter, warned federal agencies or regulators that consumers, not just factory workers, are in danger of suffering the fatal popcorn lung disease from buttery flavoring fumes in microwave popcorn. David Michaels of the George Washington University School of Public Health first published Rose's letter on his blog. However, the only sample data known-to-date is the case where a consumer, who ate at least two bags of buttery microwave popcorn daily for 10 years, became diagnosed with the same disease affecting workers exposed to the substance, bronchiolitis obliterans. His lung problems were linked to breathing the vapors; although rare, the reported man's kitchen also had diacetyl levels comparable to those in popcorn plants.

Of course it’s always easier to relate to something when you attach a face to it. Meet Eric Peoples, a victim of Popcorn Lung. Here he is testifying in front of U.S. House Education and Labor Committee Subcommittee on Workforce Protections:

This disease is irreversible and severe cases often require a lung transplant. Evaluation of interventions to prevent bronchiolitis obliterans relies on early detection of abnormal spirometry results or unusual decreases in repeated measurements.

The whole diacetyl-popcorn lung situation spun Dr. Fuhrman into quite a tizzy. He emailed me his thoughts the other day and he didn’t pull a single punch. Have a look:

Diacetyl should be banned since we know it causes this irreversible and potentially deadly disease, but for some reason this poison is still allowed to be used on popcorn. Even breathing the fumes of the fake buttery flavor they put on the popcorn could damage a person's lungs, especially if you work behind the counter and serve it to people. We likely only know the tip of the iceberg about diacetyl poisoning.

When faced with all this information, I can’t imagine anyone coming to the defense of diacetyl. David Michaels of George Washington University certainly isn’t. He drops this great quote in The Washington Post. Enjoy:

"They're finding it there because they're looking there," said David Michaels of the department of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University. Michaels, assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration, accuses OSHA of "regulatory paralysis."

"It's not some carcinogen where you get cancer 30 years from now or something. The people are dying right in front of you," Michaels said. "You can't wait until you have all the evidence. You have to regulate it."

No doubt, a lot of experts are up in arms over diacetyl and bronchiolitis obliterans, but, will anything be done about it? The Angry Toxicologist doesn’t think so. Check it out:

Nothing will be done unless it’s regulated strongly, even by good companies and here’s why: Let say Bob’s Flavor Inc. wants to do the right thing and use an alternative flavoring that won’t hurt his workers. Bob knows, however, that this will drive up his prices and he’ll be driven out of the market by someone willing to do the wrong thing for a competitive advantage. Everyone is tied to the lowest cost operation, so the only way to make it safe for Bob to do the right thing is to level the playing field so that everyone has to do the right thing.

Okay, here’s my question. Is microwave and movie theater popcorn THAT precious? Stop eating it all together, and then, you’ll send one HELL of a message to rogue food producers and fat-cat cost-cutting businessmen—don’t you think!

If you Eat to Live you’re probably doing just fine, but, if you’re deep in the throes of the standard American diet, you might be missing a nutrient or two—or seven! Elizabeth M. Ward, RD of WebMD offers up 7 Nutrients Your Diet May Be Missing, take a look:

You don't outgrow your need for calcium just because you're all grown up. While calcium is necessary to bolster developing bones, it's also needed to keep your skeleton strong throughout life. And that's not all. Besides participating in maintaining a normal heart rhythm, calcium plays a role in blood clotting and muscle function…

…Fiber is best known for keeping bowel movements regular and preventing other intestinal woes, including diverticular disease, an intestinal inflammation. Years of research on fiber underscores its importance in overall health, too…

…Magnesium is an unsung hero of sorts. This mighty mineral participates in hundreds of bodily functions that foster good health, yet few people know that magnesium contributes to bone strength; promotes peak immunity; and normalizes muscle, nerve, and heart function…

…Vitamin E, found primarily in fatty foods such as nuts, seeds, and oils, is a potent antioxidant. It combats free radicals, the unstable oxygen molecules that result from normal metabolism as well as from exposure to air pollution, cigarette smoke, and strong ultraviolet rays…

…Vitamin C is also vital for the production of collagen, the connective tissue that keeps muscles, skin, and other tissues, including bone, healthy. And, like vitamin E, vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that helps ward off cellular damage…

…Vitamin A comes in two forms: as retinol (preformed and ready for the body to use) and carotenoids, the raw materials the body converts to vitamin A. Americans have no trouble consuming adequate retinol, but they don't get nearly enough carotenoids…

….Potassium is present in every cell of your body. It plays a central role in normal muscle contraction, transmission of nerve impulses, and fluid balance. Potassium even serves to promote strong bones, and it's necessary for energy production.

I asked Dr. Fuhrman why most people might be missing these nutrients—honestly, I knew the answer already—but here’s what he had to say and, like usual, Dr. Fuhrman cuts right to the chase. Check it out:

Well, since Americans eat 40 percent of calories from animal products and 50 percent from processed foods and they do not eat significant amounts of seeds, nuts, fruits, legumes and vegetables, of course they are deficient in many plant-derived nutrients.

Now, whether you Eat to Live or not, brush up on these posts for great sources of the aforementioned nutrients. Enjoy:

• Dr. Fuhrman's Fab Five
• Answers to Common Questions about Flaxseed
• Sowing Seeds of Good Health
• Popeye Was Right--Greens Pack a Powerful Punch
• Nutrient Density of Green Vegetables
• Ten Super Foods to Use in Your Recipes and Menus

New research claims not enough milk, exercise, and sunshine is causing rickets in some children. Lauran Neegaard of the Associated Press reports:

It's not just that they don't drink fortified milk. Bodies make vitamin D with sunlight. With teen computer use, urban youngsters without safe places to play outdoors and less school P.E., it's no wonder D levels are low. Because skin pigment alters sun absorption, black children are particularly at risk.

Rickets marks the worst deficiency, where bones become so soft that legs literally bow. Rickets was once thought to have been eradicated with milk fortification, but "I am now treating rickets in a way that I never treated it 20 years ago," says Tosi, who diagnoses rickets or super-low D levels in children every month at a bone clinic she runs for mostly inner-city children.

Doctors who've never seen rickets can miss it. Charlene Bullock repeatedly asked her 5-year-old's doctor why his leg was bending inward and he could no longer run with his playmates. It took a trip to Tosi's special clinic to learn Na-shun had rickets — the once energetic child had quit running because his bones ached like an old man's.

Fortunately, rickets caught early is easily cured with high-dose infusions of vitamin D and calcium, and Bullock's son quickly rebounded. "He's doing everything with that little leg."

I wasn’t sure how to approach this report. So, I asked Dr. Fuhrman for his input. Here’s what he had to say:

I saw plenty of kids with rickets in my medical school and residency days in the inner cities. Clearly, lack of exercise and sunlight, especially in those with darker skin is creating an epidemic of bone disease. Milk is fortified with Vitamin D, and can be the only D and calcium source in people who do not eat vegetables. I agree that the public needs to be better educated in these important nutritional issues.

Now, in regard to milk, exercise, and sunshine, these posts should explain things. Take a look:

Regular Exercise Pays Big Health Dividends
“As we condition our muscles and gain strength, our bones thicken and strengthen along with the muscle. Without regular exercise along the way, your bone structure can deteriorate as you get older. Some people survive with weak bones, but their quality of life suffers when they are immobilized by arthritis and osteoporosis.”

Cow's Milk and Kids Aren't Made for Each Other
“Milk, which is designed by nature for the rapidly growing cow, has about half its calories supplied from fat. The fatty component is concentrated more to make cheese and butter. 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.”

Importance of Vitamin D
“Sun exposure is perhaps the most important source of vitamin D because exposure to sunlight provides most humans with their vitamin D requirement. The further you live from the equator, the longer you need to be exposed to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Season, time of day, cloud cover, smog, and sunscreen affect UV ray exposure and vitamin D synthesis.”

In a nut shell—good, bad, good.

One psychiatrist realizes that being on a pharmaceutical company’s take can influence your judgment. More from The New York Times:

I had already prescribed Effexor to several patients, and it seemed to work as well as the S.S.R.I.’s. If I gave talks to primary-care doctors about Effexor, I reasoned, I would be doing nothing unethical. It was a perfectly effective treatment option, with some data to suggest advantages over its competitors. The Wyeth rep was simply suggesting that I discuss some of the data with other doctors. Sure, Wyeth would benefit, but so would other doctors, who would become more educated about a good medication…

…Michael Thase, of the University of Pittsburgh and the researcher who single-handedly put Effexor on the map with a meta-analysis began by reviewing the results of the meta-analysis that had the psychiatric world abuzz. After carefully pooling and processing data from eight separate clinical trials, Thase published a truly significant finding: Effexor caused a 45 percent remission rate in patients in contrast to the S.S.R.I. rate of 35 percent and the placebo rate of 25 percent. It was the first time one antidepressant was shown to be more effective than any other. Previously, psychiatrists chose antidepressants based on a combination of guesswork, gut feeling and tailoring a drug’s side effects to a patient’s symptom profile. If Effexor was truly more effective than S.S.R.I.’s, it would amount to a revolution in psychiatric practice and a potential windfall for Wyeth…

…When it came to side effects, Effexor’s greatest liability was that it could cause hypertension, a side effect not shared by S.S.R.I.’s. Norm Sussman showed us some data from the clinical trials, indicating that at lower doses, about 3 percent of patients taking Effexor had hypertension as compared with about 2 percent of patients assigned to a placebo. There was only a 1 percent difference between Effexor and placebo, he commented, and pointed out that treating high blood pressure might be a small price to pay for relief from depression.

Now, psychotropic medications are probably a bit of a grey area, but there’s no question. Doctors and patients are too drug-conditioned. This pharmaceutical rep remarks:

This is the problem with our society today. It's easier for physicians to just throw medications at patients, rather then really consult with them about diet and exercise.

That being said, those that do consult with these patients--a lot of the patients are not compliant. It's like asking an alcoholic to quit drinking. These behavioral patterns are embedded early into these patients.

Here’s Dr. Fuhrman’s hope for this dubious relationship, “Some day the public will wake up to the medicalization of America and the collusion between the drug companies.” Hopefully.

Honestly, I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, but, I am very suspicious of drug-makers, big businesses, and there ties to doctors, hospitals, and various health organizations—and reports like this make my blood boil! A new study claims medical schools and drug makers share strong ties. Amanda Gardner of HealthDay News reports:

More than half of department chairs at U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals have financial ties with the drug industry, a new study finds.

These institutional relationships seemed to be just as widespread as those of individual physicians or scientists with industry.

"There is not a single aspect of medicine in which the drug companies do not have substantial and deep relationships, affecting not only doctors-in-training, resident physicians, researchers, physicians-in-practice, the people who review drugs for the federal government and the people who review studies," said lead researcher Eric Campbell, associate professor at the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"Drug companies have relationships with everyone," he continued. "They're involved in every aspect of medicine. Someone has to decide which of these is OK."

The study, the first to examine the extent of these institutional relationships, is published in the Oct. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Although Campbell himself reported no financial conflicts, one co-author did report having served as a consultant for drug makers Genentech and GlaxoSmithKline.

I put pharmaceutical companies and diet corporations—like Atkins and South Beach—in the same dubious category; using misinformation and fear to make money at the expense of people’s health. Now, for more on the connections between big pharma and modern medicine, check out these previous posts:

• Legal Drug-Pushers
• Docs and Drug Companies
• Medical Journal Conflict?
• Overdosed America

Some day the public will wake up to the medicalization of America and the collusion between the drug companies, the medical profession and the government. They pay doctors millions because it is money well spent. These influential doctors then market the drug to other doctors. It is a form of multi-level marketing.

Heck, Dr. Fuhrman isn’t the only one suspicious of drug companies. Even some pharmaceutical reps are getting wise. Read this post: Pharmaceutical Rep Urges Healthy Diet Over Drugs.

It seems that a certain strain of ear infection has become quite the advisory. Serena Gordon of HealthDay News explains:

An emerging "superbug" that causes ear infections in children and is resistant to multiple antibiotics can only be treated with an adult medication, researchers report.

Two Rochester, N.Y., pediatricians report finding a multiple antibiotic-resistant strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae that caused ear infections in nine children in their practice over three years. The only antibiotic that was effective in treating these infections was levofloxacin, which isn't approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in children.

"We found a superbug causing ear infections in Rochester -- the Legacy strain -- that's resistant to all antibiotics approved by the FDA for use in children," said the study's lead author, Dr. Michael Pichichero, a professor of microbiology, immunology and pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and a private practice pediatrician with the Legacy Pediatric Group.

The resistant infections accounted for only 1.5 percent of the ear infections in their practice, Pichichero noted.

Could the problem be the overuse of antibiotics? More from Dr. Fuhrman:

Most doctors want to please their patients and they want to do it quickly and move to the next patient as soon as they can. Patients often expect them for common respiratory illnesses and many doctors comply with their wishes. Antibiotics as a solution work great; they enable the doctor to maintain their important role in the eyes of the patients, reinforce the value of doctor visits, and allow the patient to think their care was indispensable. The only problem is that most prescriptions are either not needed, or not in the best long-term interest of the patients.

John Tierney of The New York Times examines the debate surrounding dietary fat. Here’s a bit:

Gary Taubes demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly…

…In the case of fatty foods, that confident voice belonged to Ancel Keys, a prominent diet researcher a half-century ago (the K-rations in World War II were said to be named after him). He became convinced in the 1950s that Americans were suffering from a new epidemic of heart disease because they were eating more fat than their ancestors.

There were two glaring problems with this theory, as Mr. Taubes, a correspondent for Science magazine, explains in his book. First, it wasn’t clear that traditional diets were especially lean. Nineteenth-century Americans consumed huge amounts of meat; the percentage of fat in the diet of ancient hunter-gatherers, according to the best estimate today, was as high or higher than the ratio in the modern Western diet…

…To bolster his theory, Dr. Keys in 1953 compared diets and heart disease rates in the United States, Japan and four other countries. Sure enough, more fat correlated with more disease (America topped the list). But critics at the time noted that if Dr. Keys had analyzed all 22 countries for which data were available, he would not have found a correlation. (And, as Mr. Taubes notes, no one would have puzzled over the so-called French Paradox of foie-gras connoisseurs with healthy hearts.)

Yeah, this made me say, “What the—?” So, here’s what Dr. Fuhrman had to say about it:

Amazing how stupid people are. Gary Taubes is a known Atkins' devotee and nutritionally naïve and led by the Atkins' crowd. Now he has his own book. All I can say is that this makes me look like a genius comparatively when I am only stating the obvious. All I can say is:

Health = Nutrition / Calories

Not sure what this means? Well, Dr. Fuhrman explains it in his book Eat to Live. Take a look:

Your health is predicted by your nutrient intake divided by your intake of calories. Health = Nutrition / Calories, or simply H = N/C, is a concept I call the nutrient-density of your diet. Food supplies us with both nutrients and calories (energy). All calories come from only three elements: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Nutrients are derived from non-caloric food factors—including vitamins, minerals, fibers, and phytochemicals. These non-caloric nutrients are vitally important for health. Your key to permanent weight loss is to eat predominantly those foods that have a high proportion of nutrients (non-caloric food factors) to calories (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins). In physics a key formula is Einstein’s E = mc2. In nutrition the key formula is H = N/C.

Every food can be evaluated using this formula. Once you begin to learn which foods make the grade—by having a high proportion of nutrients to calories—you are on your way to lifelong weight control and improved health.

Oh! And for more on the Atkins foolishness, be sure to read these previous postings. Enjoy:

• The Physician and The Student
• How a High-Protein Diet Works
• Increased Risk of Cancer Associated with The Atkins Diet
• Short and Long-Term Dangers of High-Fat Diets
• What Happens When You Tell The Truth About Atkins

Maybe the Pink Floyd song should go, “Hey doctors…we don’t need your medication.” Denise Gellene of The Los Angeles Times reports bipolar disorder may be over-diagnosed in youths:

The report in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry said bipolar disorder was found in 1,003 of every 100,000 office visits from children and adolescents in 2002-03, compared with 25 of 100,000 office visits in 1994-95.

The diagnosis of bipolar disorder among adults increased twofold during the same period, researchers said.

The study didn't investigate the reasons for the sudden rise in bipolar cases among children and adolescents. A book published in 2000, "The Bipolar Child," made the controversial assertion that one-third to one-half of children with depression had bipolar disorder.

Dr. Mark Olfson, a psychiatrist at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior author of the latest study, said part of the increase was attributable to an under-diagnosis of bipolar disorder in the past.

But Olfson said another reason was the mislabeling of children and adolescents with aggressive or irritable behaviors as bipolar, an illness that is treated with powerful psychotropic medications, many of which have not been tested in children.

I’ve got plenty of little cousins and I can I tell you firsthand. At least half of them are hopped up, a scary reality and perhaps, all too common. Here’s what Dr. Fuhrman had to say about this:

I don’t know, but I am always suspicious of all these diseases that are increasing in the last 20 to 30 years with our chemicalized, drugged, medicated, polluted, and nutrition-less toxic food environment. Soon almost all kids will be on medications for something.

For more on this sort of issue, check out these posts:

• ADHD Drugs for Obese Kids
• Dr. Fuhrman Discusses DHA for Children
• ADHD Over-Diagnosis and Treatment Options

Yeah, Dr. Fuhrman isn’t a big fan of Gardasil. Here’s what he had to say on the topic of mandatory HPV vaccinations:

Remember this is not about arguing about the effectiveness or value of vaccines, just whether we should mandate medical care and take another freedom away from Americans. We no longer have the freedom to take or not take medications. Sounds like the Taliban to me.

Not only do mandatory vaccinations seem very un-American, but, Gardasil is hardly the saving grace Merck’s marketing team paints it to be. More from Dr. Fuhrman:

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.

Get ready. It gets worse. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) recently issued a report linking Gardasil to Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). More from Medical News Today:

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) today issued a new report on HPV vaccine (Gardasil(R)) safety analyzing adverse event reports to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The analysis gives evidence for a reported association in VAERS between Gardasil and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), with a statistically significant increased risk of GBS and other serious adverse event reports when Gardasil is co-administered with other vaccines, especially meningococcal vaccine (Menactra(R))…

…GBS is a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system, and can cause total paralysis. "Our analysis of Gardasil reports to VAERS indicates there was a two to 12 times greater likelihood that serious adverse events, such as GBS, were reported when Gardasil was given in combination with Menactra rather than given alone," said Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, NVIC director of patient safety. "Accepted scientific standards indicate that these findings are statistically significant and cannot be dismissed as coincidence. In particular, the available VAERS data show there was a more than 1,000 percent increased risk of GBS reports following Gardasil administration when Menactra was given at the same time."

No worries. I’m sure Merck will come out with flowery commercials that’ll soothe everyone’s nerves.

We all know acrylamides are bad news, but just in case you need a refresher course. Check this out from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Disease-Proof Your Child:

Acrylamide turns up in all kinds of tasty foods, including french fries, potato chips, breakfast cereals, cookies and crackers. But it's difficult for consumers to figure out how much acrylamide is in a particular meal or snack…

…Not only do processed foods and fast foods often contain dangerous trans fats and other additives, but they also can have high levels of acrylamides. When processed foods are baked and fried at high temperatures, these cancer-causing chemical compounds are produced. Many processed foods, such as chips, french fries, and sugar-coated breakfast cereals, are rich in acrylamides. Acrylamides also form in foods you bake until brown or fry at home; they do not form in foods that are steamed or boiled…

… Never eat browned or overly cooked food. Burnt food forms harmful compounds. If by accident something is overcooked and browned, discard it. Avoid fried food and food sautéed in oil. Experiment with low heat cooking to prevent nutritional damage to the food and the formation of dangerous heat-generated compounds.

So when you consider this, it makes a headline like this one seem pretty outrageous; Studies Dispute Acrylamide-Cancer Link. WebMD reports:

New research involving 100,000 women found no evidence of a link between consumption of acrylamide, a chemical found in french fries and other foods, and breast cancer…

…Acrylamide is produced naturally when foods including starchy foods are exposed to high heat during cooking. The chemical is commonly found in processed potato products such as french fries, breads, and cereals. It is also present in coffee and cigarette smoke. In the U.S., 30% of calories consumed contain acrylamide, according to the researchers…

…But while acrylamide is known to promote cancer at very high doses in rats and mice, none of the human studies reported to date have shown dietary levels of the chemical to be cancer causing, epidemiologist Lorelei Mucci, ScD tells WebMD.

Whenever I’m confronted with research that makes me say, “What the—.” I run it by Dr. Fuhrman. And here’s what he had to say:

My thoughts are that junk food does cause cancer, but these studies will always show nothing because once you smoke 10 cigs a day, your risk does not increase significantly more if you smoke 40. But the main reason is that breast cancer is a disease caused by what we ate in our childhood.

On that note, here’s some info on breast cancer from Disease-Proof Your Child:

Worldwide, there is a linear relationship between higher-fat animal products, saturated fat intake, and breast cancer.1 However, there are areas of the world even today where populations eat predominantly unrefined plant foods in childhood and breast cancer is simply unheard of. Rates of breast cancer deaths (in the 50-to-70 age range) range widely from 3.4 per 100,000 in Gambia to 10 per 100,000 in rural China, 20 per 100,000 in India, 90 per 100,000 in the United States, and 120 per 100,000 in the United Kingdom and Switzerland.2

For more on acrylamides, see Acrylamides are Bad News.

Dr. Fuhrman will tell low-carb diets are dangerous and ill-advised. And yet, scientists and researchers actually waste their time extolling the virtues—or more appropriately, the falsifications—of low-carb-high-protein diets. Take this study for example. HealthDay News reports low-carb diets combat metabolic syndrome:

The study participants didn't follow the diets strictly, study leader Matthew R. Hayes, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania found. "Phase one intake was 25 percent [carbohydrates], on average," he said, rather than the 10 percent recommended. "Phase two carb intake was 35 percent," he said, although 27 percent was recommended. But it was a reduction from the participants' pre-study diet, which included 47 percent of calories from carbohydrates, he said.

To find out why the weight declined, Hayes' team did hormone assays, measuring fasting and post-meal blood levels of hormones associated with appetite and food intake, such as insulin, leptin and cholecystokinin (CCK).

"We found some changes in hormone levels," he said. "We saw a decrease in insulin, a decrease in leptin levels by the end of phase one. It was fast."

"By the end of phase 2, the insulin levels had crept up toward baseline; the leptin levels also rose, but it did not come back to the levels at baseline," Hayes said.

"These alternations in hormone levels acting together help reduce the amount of food consumed," he said. "There's a synergy. Based on the literature already out there, we are speculating that this synergy of hormones may be the mechanism explaining why people are satisfied with less food and [the low-carb diet] results in weight loss."

Pardon me for a second—shenanigans, shenanigans! That’s right. I’m calling shenanigans on this study. Why? Because it’s bound to trick people into believing that low-carb is a safe way of restoring healthy metabolic function. Confused? I’ll let Dr. Fuhrman explain. I asked him about this junk science and here’s what he had to say:

Smoking cigarettes has beneficial effects on body weight. It can improve diabetes control and even has beneficial effects on ulcerative colitis. However, smoking cigarettes harms the body in other ways, so those benefits aren’t worth much. Pursuing studies on high protein, carbohydrate restricted diets, which have already been shown to increase all-cause long term mortality is ignorant and immoral. A high nutrient, vegetable-based diet is a more effective and has long-term health advantages, instead of long-term dangers. This shows the ignorance in the medical and research community that treat diets like drugs. When you have no comprehensive understanding of nutritional science, your implementation and interpretation of scientific studies is almost irrelevant and results in no useful information.

In the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition May 2007 a 10-year dietary assessment of 22,944 subjects was published. It was entitled, Low-Carbohydrate-High-Protein and long-term survival in a general population cohort. The conclusion reads, "Prolonged consumption of diets low in carbohydrate and high in protein is associated with and increase in total mortality." The bottom line is you do not have to smoke cigarettes or eat a dangerous diet to control obesity, diabetes, or metabolic syndrome. My Eat to Live diet-style offers a safe, highly effective option with more dramatic results and protection against cancer, heart disease and all cause mortality.

Yeah, I guess you could drive nails with your head, but using a hammer is a safer choice. In my humble opinion, low-carb only exists because it caters to people’s emotional attachments to food. And we all know there’s lots of money in people’s weaknesses. That should explain why many low-carb peddlers are multi-million dollar corporations.

For more dismantling of low-carb diets, don’t forget about our friends over at AtkinsExposed.org.

Eating to Live on the Outside is a lot of fun. It’s also great practice and helps me—and hopefully helps you—make more informed decisions when dining outside the home. Now, for the most part I don’t catch a lot of flack for my sometimes scathing evaluations, but, it does happen. Just check out the bickering about Fazoli's. Take a look:

Commenter Bridget
Have you ever been in a Fazoli's. I have worked at the Fazolis for 7 1/2 years and i can tell you that most of what you said just isnt accurate. It is very easy to eat healthy at Fazolis. There are many meals that are advertised as under 5 grams of fat. We don't use Olive oil on anything, not even the Grilled Chicken salad. Also, we are always willing to special order anything you want. If you want no dressing or mayo on your sandwich we can do that or if you want extra sauce or a different kind of sauce...we can do that too. The lite Italian dress is lite compared to our regular Italian dressing. If you ask you can get a nutrition guide.

Commenter Chante
Fazoli's doesnt even use "olive oil". The comment that you made about the chicken panani, and the whole wheat penne isnt accurate... no such thing. There is NO OLIVE OIL in a Fazoli's restaraunt..thats like looking for A1 sauce @ a Steak n Shake. I think their catchy little commercial says it all, "fresh, fast, italian" Fresh it is. They prep their menu items daily. Salads are made to order. The cooking process for the pasta, is just perhaps as if you made it @ home. Cooked in boiling water, with some salt for 8-12 minutes. Then covered w/ some vegetable oil, *not olive oil* the vegetable oil is actually cooked off, because they submerge the pasta in boiling water to heat it, when you order. all orders are made to order.Comment about the minestrone soup, all soups are loaded w/ sodium, read the back of the soup cans. Now, your comment about your meat allotment for the week, the chicken panani only has 2 1/2 oz of chicken on it, so if thats your meat allotment for the week... *shruggs* There are plenty of "meatless" menu items. They do serve Alf Sauce and a Marinara Sauce. Perhaps next week we'll read about how you have compared a McDonalds burger to that of a Ruby Tuesday's burger. Good Day.

As you can see, most people that object to my amateur reviews—and I’m not ashamed to say that—don’t know the slightest thing about truly healthy eating. Take this for example. Recently someone named Mike emailed me to share his “great deal of knowledge” on the human body and nutrition, and, to let me know he disapproved of my recent review of Huddle House. Here it is:

I read your "informative" comments about Huddle House on your website and felt compelled to send you an email. Obviously, grease is not the way to healthy nutrition...that much we agree upon. However, when you stated that you do not even eat eggs at all, you demonstrated to me your lack of education regarding healthy foods. To put it simple...eggs are some of the most nutrition rich food a person can eat...provided of course they are not cooked in grease. I am an extremely healthy person, a gym rat for 20+years, with around 10% bodyfat year round. I have competed in many bodybuilding contests in my life and have acquired what I consider a great deal of knowledge concerning the human body and what works and what doesn't work. Red Meat is not bad for you...as long as it is lean red meat. Eggs are an excellent source of nutrition. Vegetables are also very nutritious...much more so than fruits and dairy products...which raise the blood sugar level too high.

I won't carry on. It's just when I read where someone is writing about nutrition and foods as an "advisor" so to speak...and they talk like a typical vegetarian (foolish people that don't understand the body), I have to comment.

Have a good day. Go enjoy some eggs and steak.

By the way, I have eaten at Huddle House...and they will cook your meals like you want if you will only tell them how.

Wow! Mike has some serious emotional attachments to food, but, he’s entitled to his opinion and I’m happy to hear him out. Now, since I’m not the expert here, I’ll refrain from nitpicking his remarks, but, Dr. Fuhrman was more than happy to impart a little knowledge. If you’re reading Mike, hopefully this broadens your horizons a little. Have a look:

Sorry for the straight talk Mike, but just because you consider yourself knowledgeable about nutrition doesn't mean you have a broad and insightful knowledge. Most misinformed individuals consider themselves knowledgeable about nutrition and as a result we have over 80 percent of our country dieing of heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Lots of self-proclaimed knowledgeable nutrition "experts" die prematurely of heart disease.

If you want to disagree with the information here, it might be a good idea if you read my books or even some of the prior blog posts that discuss meat eating. My work is supported with extensive research from scientific sources and an understanding of the broad overview of relevant scientific studies, not just a few selected citations. This helps a person understand the issues with clarity.

I do considers eggs a relatively cleaner and safer animal product compared to cheese and red meat, however I’m still careful to advise limits on animal product intake because animal products at the level of consumption eaten in America is clearly disease-promoting and lifespan shortening. Lastly, Americans only consume four percent of calories from fresh fruits, vegetables beans, nuts and seeds, and yes fruit is essential for protection against certain cancers. I hope you decide to hang around and read more of my blog. Then if you disagree, at least you will know what you are disagreeing with and you will learn about the science that supports such viewpoints.

Now, as for me and Eating to Live on the Outside, keep looking for my “foolishness” every Friday. Oh, and here’s a few posts on meat consumption and disease:

• The Meat-Disease Connection
• Animal Fat and Cancer
• HealthDay News: Veggies Good, Cured Meats Bad

Yup, can you hear it in the distance? The dangerously food-addicted are rejoicing. Because according to new junk science—oops, I mean “research”—eating lots of fruits and veggies doesn’t protect against breast cancer—yawn. So, if you like a good laugh. Reuters reports:

The study tracked 3,088 U.S. women. Half followed a diet with the widely recommended five daily servings of vegetables and fruit. The other half ate a diet doubling that intake.

Those who consumed twice the vegetables and fruit in a diet also high in fiber and low in fat were no less likely to avoid a recurrence of breast cancer or death than the women who followed the five-a-day diet.

The women, all of whom had been treated successfully for early-stage breast cancer, participated in the study from 1995 to 2000 at seven places in California, Texas, Arizona and Oregon. They were followed for between six and 11 years…

…The researchers emphasized nutrient-dense vegetables like dark, leafy greens, sweet potatoes and carrots, and did not count vegetables such as iceberg lettuce and white potatoes.

The researchers said the study did not look at whether eating a diet high in vegetables, fruit and fiber and low in fat earlier in life would reduce the risk of ever getting breast cancer.

Oops! Sorry, I almost nodded off. Reports like this are boring—but typical! One day fruit is good, next day it’s bad. Then veggies are up, and then their down. It’s like a rollercoaster of junk science and all it does is confuse people—want the truth? Dr. Fuhrman offers it up in Eat to Live:

There is still some controversy about which foods cause which cancers and whether certain types of fat are the culprits with certain cancers, but there’s one thing we know for sure; raw vegetables and fresh fruits have powerful anti-cancer agents. Studies have repeatedly shown the correlation between consumption of these foods and a lower incidence of various cancers, including those of the breast, colon, rectum, lung, stomach, prostate, and pancreas.1 This means that your risk of cancer decreases with an increased intake of fruits and vegetables, and the earlier in life you start eating large amounts of these foods, the more protection you get.

Humans are genetically adapted to expect a high intake of natural and unprocessed plant-derived substances. Cancer is a disease of maladaptation. It results primarily from a body’s lacking critical substances found in different types of vegetation, many of which are still undiscovered, that are metabolically necessary for normal protective function. Natural foods unadulterated by man are highly complex—so complex that the exact structure and the majority of compounds they contain are not precisely known. A tomato, for example, contains more than ten thousand different phytochemicals.

It may never be possible to extract the precise symphony of nutrients found in vegetation and place it in a pill. Isolated nutrients extracted from food may never offer the same level of disease-protective effects of whole natural foods, as nature “designed” them. Fruits and vegetables contain a variety of nutrients, which work in subtle synergies, and many of these nutrients cannot be isolated or extracted. Phytochemicals from a variety of plant foods work together to become much more potent at detoxifying carcinogens and protecting against cancer than when taken individually as isolated compounds.

I’m with Dr. Fuhrman on this one. Plant foods are nutritional heavy weights—take green vegetables for example. But, since this report is buzzing around the newswires and thumping the bloglines, I figured I’d ask Dr. Fuhrman for his thoughts. And here’s what he had to say:

This reminds me of something that happens with some of my new patients.

The patient comes back to see me after six weeks of supposedly following the diet I prescribed and not only hadn't they lost weight, but they had gained.

I said are you sure you are eating the exact diet I told you to follow? And the following ensues:

Patient: "Of course, I ate all that stuff!"

Me: "And nothing else?"

Patient: "You mean I was not supposed to eat my old diet too?"

These people actually gained weight and ate more fat as the study progressed. And the people who have actually read my materials know three critical facts:

1. A high cruciferous diet, with lots of raw greens is the only effective nutritional intervention for women who already have breast cancer.

2. The natural history of breast cancer which is caused by early life standard American diet cannot be changed by moderate changes, later in life.

3. A healthy diet has a high nutrient-per-calorie density, which means that empty calories and extra body weight has a significant negative impact on your health, even if you consume healthy foods along with it.

But hey! Maybe you need more convincing? Now, I’m no doctor, but here’s my professional advice. Get yourself some nice ripe pieces of fruit or some crisp veggies—right now I’m munching on some cantaloupe—kick back, and check out these posts for more information on how plant foods help protect us from all diseases, not just cancer. Enjoy:

• Increasing the Survival of Cancer Patients
• HealthDay News: Veggies Good, Cured Meats Bad
• Fruits and Veggies vs. Diabetes and Colon Cancer
• Pomegranates, Atherosclerosis, and Diabetics
• Ten Ways to Help Prevent Breast Cancer

Which would you prefer, a kick in the head or a punch in the nose? Yes, this is a very dumb question, but, it’s not all that different from this one posed by The New York Times. Reporter C. Claiborne Ray wants to know if eating fortified food is better than taking vitamins. Take a look:

“In some circumstances a pill might be preferable to an enriched food to make sure a person is getting enough of a specific nutrient,” Dr. Sheldon S. Hendler, co-editor of The Physicians’ Desk Reference for Nutritional Supplements said, “for example, for those on restricted diets, including calorie-restricted diets, for those with food allergies and sensitivities (like lactose intolerance) and for the elderly, who may not be able to eat enough of a particular food.” But eating a fortified food rather than taking a pill gives the added advantage of the food’s overall nutritional value, including valuable plant nutrients called phytonutrients, some of which may not even have been identified yet, as well as calories, fiber and water.

Now, Dr. Fuhrman doesn’t buy the hype of fortified foods. If you’re eating plenty of wholesome nutrient-dense fruits, vegetables, seeds, and legumes—you don’t need the fortified food! So, here’s what Dr. Fuhrman had to say about Ray’s question:

Of course this article misses the whole point emphasized in modern nutritional research. That is when you attempt to meet you micronutrient requirements with supplements or fortified products you miss those thousands of phytonutrients that accompany produce that is naturally nutrient rich. So every fortified food you eat is increasing your risk of cancer by decreasing your dietary intake of a food that could have supplied those calories in a more nutrient complete package. Fortified foods = processed foods. Processed foods = obesity and cancer epidemic.

Plants are loaded with tons of health-promoting compounds. Take fruit for example, very strong medicine. From Eat to Live:

Researchers have discovered substances in fruit that have unique effects on preventing aging and deterioration of the brain.1 Some fruits, especially blueberries, are rich in anthocyanins and other compounds having anti-aging effects.2 Studies continue to provide evidence that more than any other food, fruit consumption is associated with lowered mortality from all cancers combined.2 Eating fruit is viable to your health, well-being, and long life.

Susan Bowerman of The Los Angeles Times examines the supposed power of the Chile pepper:

For many of us, the heat of the pepper is what makes it such a palate pleaser. But peppers also have a lot going for them nutritionally — they are good sources of vitamin C, beta carotene, folic acid, magnesium and potassium. Peppers and capsaicin also have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, which might reduce the risk of heart disease, certain cancers and other chronic diseases that occur with age.

Chile-laden meals have been shown to boost energy expenditure in several human trials. In one study, for instance, 10 grams of dried hot pepper added to breakfast increased energy expenditure by 23% immediately after the meal and for more than two hours afterward.

UPDATE: Dr. Fuhrman had some interesting thoughts on this article, check it out:

Healthy foods do not give you sudden energy; you have energy because you eat healthfully, exercise appropriately and get sufficient sleep. The gain of rapid energy from a food is called stimulation and that is an accurate indication that the substance was harmful to your health. Healthful substances do not stimulate, only toxic substances do. It needs to be mentioned as well that too much very hot foods are linked to higher rates of stomach cancer. To conclude, hot spices should be used sparingly and should not be considered health foods.