WAIT…I’ve Highlighted and Given some bonus links on my Saratoga.com blog…make sure you check out there first! 🙂

NUTRIGENOMICS

Reversing Diabetes 2 with Diet (diabetologia)

Conclusions/interpretation: Normalisation of both beta cell function and hepatic insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetes was achieved by dietary energy restriction alone. This was associated with decreased pancreatic and liver triacylglycerol stores. The abnormalities underlying type 2 diabetes are reversible by reducing dietary energy intake

 

How Gut Imbalances Can Lead to IBS (Dr. Hyman)

Imagine a tennis court. That is the surface area of your small intestine, where food is absorbed. Your small intestine is also the site of about 60 percent of your immune system. And this sophisticated gut-immune system is just one-cell layer away from a toxic sewer — all of the bacteria and undigested food particles in your gut.

If that lining breaks down — from stress, too many antibiotics or anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin or Advil, steroids, intestinal infections, a low-fiber, high-sugar diet, alcohol, and more – your immune system will be exposed to foreign particles from food and bacteria and other microbes.  This will trigger and activate immune response, allergy, and will irritate your second brain (the enteric nervous system) creating havoc that leads to an irritable bowel, an irritable brain, and other system wide problems including allergy, arthritis, autoimmunity, mood disorders, and more.

The microbial ecosystem in the gut must be healthy for you to be healthy.  When your gut bacteria are out of balance — when you have too many pathogenic bacteria and not enough healthy bacteria — it makes you sick.  You’ve got about 3 pounds of bacteria — 500 species — in your gut. In fact, there is more bacterial DNA in your body than there is human DNA! Among all that gut bacteria, there are good guys, bad guys, and VERY bad guys.

 

Ancient Spice Could Treat Arthritis (Science Daily)

The Cardiff scientists believe they have been able to demonstrate that treatment with an extract of Boswellia frereana — a rare frankincense species — inhibits the production of key inflammatory molecules which helps prevent the breakdown of the cartilage tissue which causes the condition.

Dr Ali adds: “The search for new drugs to alleviate the symptoms of conditions like inflammatory arthritis and osteoarthritis is a priority area for scientists. What our research has managed to achieve is to use innovative chemical extraction techniques to determine the active ingredient in frankincense.

“Having done this we are now able to further characterise the chemical entity and compare its success against other anti-inflammatory drugs used for treating the condition.”

Fatty Foods Boost Mood (Vital Choice)

New findings support the idea that fatty foods can elevate your mood … with obvious implications for efforts to maintain a healthy weight. But the news has a silver lining, in that it suggests that if people are made aware of this, they could make healthier choices among fatty foods. That is, they could pick fatty foods that satiate them faster than empty-calorie junk foods, while delivering nutrients (like omega-3s) that tend to improve metabolism and overall health.

Vitamin/mineral supplementation and cancer, cardiovascular, and all-cause mortality in a German prospective cohort (EPIC-Heidelberg)

In a prospective study involving data collected from 23,943 subjects without pre-existing cancer and myocardial infarction/stroke at baseline, who were followed for an average of 11 years, during which time 1,101 deaths were documented (cancer deaths=513; cardiovascular deaths=264), baseline users of antioxidant vitamin supplements were found to have a significantly reduced risk of cancer mortality (HR=0.52) and all-cause mortality (HR=0.58). Interestingly, subjects who started taking vitamin supplements during the follow-up period had significantly increased risks of cancer mortality (HR=1.74) and all-cause mortality (HR=1.58), as compared to baseline non-users. The authors state that this finding, “may suggest a “sick-user effect,” which researchers should be cautious of in future observational studies.” They conclude, “Based on limited numbers of users and cases, this cohort study suggests that supplementation of antioxidant vitamins might possi bly reduce cancer and all-cause mortality.”

Retinol, vitamins A, C, and E and breast cancer risk: a meta-analysis and meta-regression. (Fulan H, Changxing J, et al, Cancer Causes Control, 2011, [Epub ahead of print].

In this review, the authors analyzed data from 51 studies examining the relationships between intakes of retinol, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E on risk of breast cancer, and found that the risk of breast cancer was reduced by 17% in those with the highest vitamin A intake (compared to the lowest, pooled OR=0.83). Furthermore, dietary vitamin A, dietary vitamin E, and total vitamin E intakes all reduced the risk of breast cancer when results from all the studies were pooled, but became nonsignificant when data from the cohort studies was pooled. The authors conclude, “…the total intake of vitamin A and retinol could reduce breast cancer risk.”

IAP: Where Blood Type Meets Digestion (Peter D’Adamo)

No single diet theory can address all aspects of our individuality, and only a fool would claim that soy, red meat, grains, coconut oil or anything else is universally good or universally bad for everyone.

For example, people who are blood type O appear to derive significant benefit from a diet including hormone and antibiotic free meats and poultry. There is a very basic physiologic reason for this: those with type O blood have almost three times the levels of an enzyme in their intestines called ‘intestinal alkaline phosphatase’ (IAP). [1. This enzyme performs two very important functions in the body. First, IAP splits dietary cholesterol into smaller fragments, allowing for their proper breakdown. Second, IAP enhances the absorption of calcium from the diet. Now you’d think this was cutting-edge, late-breaking news since it is obviously of tremendous interest in these nutrigenomic times. However, the first observations were made over four decades ago.[2]

You don’t need supplements if you eat a healthy diet? True or false? (Dr. Hyman)

It is true ONLY if you work and live outside, breathe only fresh unpolluted air, drink only pure, clean water, sleep nine hours a night, move your body every day, and are free from chronic stressors and exposures to environmental toxins.Then you don’t need vitamins.Today, even with our “enriched food,” more than 92 percent of Americans are deficient in one or more vitamins. That doesn’t mean they are receiving less than the amount they need to get for optimal health. That means they receive less than the MINIMUM amount necessary to prevent deficiency diseases. In a study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, researchers found that 6 percent of those tested had serious vitamin C deficiency and 30 percent were borderline low.A USDA survey showed that 37 percent of Americans don’t get enough vitamin C, 70 percent not enough vitamin E, almost 75 percent don’t get enough zinc, and 40 percent don’t get enough iron.I would say that 100 percent of us don’t have enough of the basic nutrients to create optimal health or give ourselves a metabolic tune up.

Not Having Enough Food Causes Obesity and Diabetes (Dr. Hyman)

Almost $300 billion of government subsidies support an agriculture industry that focuses on quantity not quality, on producing cheap sugar and fats from corn and soy that fuel both hunger and obesity. These calorie-rich, sugary, processed foods are what most people buy if they don’t have enough money. You can fill up on 1200 calories of cookies or potato chips for $1, but you’ll only get 250 calories from carrots for that same $1. If you were hungry, what would you buy?

Processed foods have become cheaper as real food grows more expensive. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that between 1985 and 2000 the retail price of carbonated soft drinks rose by 20 percent, fats and oils by 35 percent, and sugars and sweets by 46 percent. Compare that to the 118 percent increase in the retail price of fresh fruits and vegetables. In 15 years the price of vegetables ballooned six times as fast as the cost of sugary, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor sodas.

When calories are scarce metabolism slows down and muscle is lost. As a result the blood sugar imbalances that drive the process of insulin resistance and lead to pre-diabetes and diabetes worsens, and soon people are caught in a recurrent pattern of bingeing on nutrient-poor calories once resources are again available.

Certainly people can learn to eat better for less as I pointed out in my recent blog on the topic, and doing so is an essential part of what needs to happen to break out of this cycle of poverty and disease as I will discuss more below. That said, breaking the hunger-binge cycle is easier said than done. Bingeing after food scarcity and the increased fat accumulation and insulin resistance that come along with it are hard-wired biological mechanisms to prevent us from starvation. Once you have diabetes, engaging in this cycle makes blood sugar control that much more difficult and leads to the swings of high and low sugar that drive health problems and their related costs.

Diabetics without access to adequate food have fives times as many doctor visits as diabetics who have enough to eat on a regular basis.

The Benefits of Wine Due to Antioxidant Boost of Omega 3s (Vital Choice)

The authors of the new study set out to investigate the effects of red wine polyphenols on the vulnerability of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids to become oxidized … particularly the fatty acids most involved in the inflammatory response: omega-6 AA, omega-3 EPA, and omega-3 DHA (Cazzola R, Cestaro B 2011). The researchers found that the wine polyphenols increased all three fatty acids’ resistance to peroxidation … but they provided more protection to the omega-3 DHA and EPA than to omega-6 AA.
 
The oxidation process tended to raise the ratio of omega-6 AA to omega-3 EPA … which is bad for heart and overall health. But they found that red wine polyphenols delayed any such increase in the AA:EPA ratio. As the researchers concluded, “These results … [provide] a biochemical rationale for future ‘in vivo’ [animal or human clinical] studies on the benefits to health of moderate red wine consumption.” (Cazzola R, Cestaro B 2011)
 
Taken together, the findings of these two studies suggest that people who drink red wine in moderation will maintain higher omega-3 levels than peers who start out with the same omega-3 blood levels but drink no red wine.
“While there is evidence that people who consume sugar are more likely to have heart disease or diabetes, it is controversial as to whether high sugar diets may actually promote these diseases, and dietary guidelines are conflicting,” said the study’s senior author, Kimber Stanhope, PhD, of the University of California, Davis. “Our findings demonstrate that several factors associated with an elevated risk for cardiovascular disease were increased in individuals consuming 25 percent of their calories as fructose or high fructose corn syrup, but consumption of glucose did not have this effect.”
 

In this study, researchers examined 48 adults between the ages of 18 and 40 years and compared the effects of consuming 25 percent of one’s daily calorie requirement as glucose, fructose or high fructose corn syrup on risk factors for cardiovascular disease. They found that within two weeks, study participants consuming fructose or high fructose corn syrup, but not glucose, exhibited increased concentrations of LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and apolipoprotein-B (a protein which can lead to plaques that cause vascular disease).

HEALTH

Thinking Healthy Lights Up Your Brain (Vital Choice)

Two years ago, Professors Antonio Rangel of Caltech and Todd Hare of the University of Zurich published a paper describing differences in the brains of people who are good at exercising self-control. They found that everyone uses the same area of the brain – the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, or vmPFC – to make value-laden decisions like what to munch on. But they discovered that a second brain area – the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or dlPFC – “lights up” when a person is exercising self-control during the decision-making process. When the dlPFC is active during a food-choosing decision, it forces the vmPFC to weigh a food’s perceived health benefits as well its taste and other attributes. And the new study reveals that “external cues” can help kick-start the dlPFC and thereby encourage more self-control.

The Health Hazards of Triclosan (Dr. Mercola)

Triclosan is lipophilic, which means it can bioaccumulate in your fat for long, periods of time, and as reported by Scientific American, triclosan is now detectable in human breast milk, blood, and urine samples. In one Swedish study, high levels of triclosan were found in three out of five breast milk samples!

  • A 2006 animal study indicated that triclosan makes thyroid hormones much more potent, speeding up their impact. It may also make protein receptors more sensitive to thyroid hormones.
     
  • A more recent study published in 2010 showed that triclosan has endocrine-disrupting effects in male western mosquitofish.
  • In a study evaluating the effects of triclosan in female rats, the chemical was found to advance the age at which the rats hit puberty.  Serum thyroid hormone concentrations were also suppressed.
  • Another study published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health found that the chemical had a marked hypothermic effect. It lowered the body temperature and caused a “nonspecific depressant effect on the central nervous system” in mice.
  • A 2003 study published in the Lancet of Infectious Diseases identified antibacterial cleaning and hygiene products as an emerging risk factor for antibiotic resistance by effectively killing weaker bacteria, while favoring the more tolerant varieties, including one that feeds on triclosan!

If you use antibacterial cleaning products in conjunction with chlorinated tap water, you may be exposing yourself to yet another hazard because when triclosan mixes with chlorine, chloroform is formed.

Why It’s Important to Read Labels-Saw Dust in Lo-Carb Foods (Dr. Hyman)

On a recent plane ride to a medical conference, I started a conversation with the man sitting next to me to pass the time.  I told him that I was a physician working in the area of nutrition. He exclaimed that the new low-carb craze was a boon for business.  I assumed he was in the food business — but I was wrong.

When I asked him what he did for a living, he replied that he worked in the wood pulp industry. So what’s the connection between wood pulp and low carbs? As it turns out, cellulose — an indigestible fiber starch — is one of the main ingredients in processed low-carb foods. And what’s another name for cellulose?

Sawdust!

Yes, cellulose gives us those low net carbs that food manufacturers like to cite on labels.

How to Clean Up Minor Surface Mold (Dr. Mercola)

If you have just a small area of surface mold, you probably don’t have to call in an expert. However, only attempt to clean it if it’s limited to the surface of a small area. You cannot “clean” deep-rooted mold. Dr. Thrasher has one word for those of you who have bought into the home-remedy advice to “kill off mold” with ammonia or bleach: Don’t.

“What happens is you’ll kill the mold but you’ll leave the carcass behind,” Dr. Thrasher explains. “The carcass will disintegrate and release toxins into the air. So you really went from one problem (mold growth) to another problem; dead mold and the release of all of their toxins… and then once water is reintroduced in the environment, the mold will grow right back to the surface.”

However, for minor visible surface mold on say a baseboard, or on a piece of furniture, you could use a little bit of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and vinegar to wipe it off.

“I just use the concentrated vinegar and baking soda,” he says. “All you need is a couple of tablespoons [of baking soda] to a quart of water. The vinegar I just take straight out of the bottle… I generally do the vinegar first and then follow it with the baking soda… The vinegar will kill the mold and the bacteria but you’re going to leave residue on the surface and so you scrub the surface to try to get rid of the residue.

… I never validated that procedure, but that’s what I recommend; what I do use and it seems to work, but I haven’t validated it with research data. I have to be honest with the population out there.”

Consumption of soft drinks with phosphoric acid as a risk factor for the development of hypocalcemia in postmenopausal women. (J Clin Epidemiol. 1999 Oct;52(10):1007-10.)

Women in the case group had a higher consumption of phosphoric acid-containing soft drink, and showed increased serum levels of PTH and hyperphosphaturia, than those in the control group without significant differences in 1,25(OH)2D3. In the multivariate regression analysis consumption of one or more bottles per day of cola soft drinks showed association with hypocalcemia (1.28, CI 95% 1.06-1.53). The consumption of soft drinks with phosphoric acid should be considered as an independent risk factor for hypocalcemia in postmenopausal women. PMID: 10513764

Conclusions: Intake of cola, but not of other carbonated soft drinks, is associated with low BMD in women. Additional research is needed to confirm these findings.

Preschool children consumed nearly twice as many vegetables and 11 percent fewer calories over the course of a day when researchers at Penn State added pureed vegetables to the children’s favorite foods.

The plastic component bisphenol A (BPA) has been in the headlines nonstop as scientists, health experts and consumers press for a federal ban on food packaging made with this synthetic estrogen, shown to leach readily into infant formula, beverages and canned food. But most Americans are probably unaware that they are regularly exposed to the same endocrine-disrupting chemical in cash register receipts.

Two-fifths of the paper receipts tested by a major laboratory commissioned by Environmental Working Group were on heat-activated paper that was between 0.8 to nearly 3 percent pure BPA by weight. Wipe tests conducted with a damp laboratory paper easily picked up a portion of the receipts’ BPA coating, indicating that the chemical would likely stick to the skin of anyone who handled them. The receipts came from major retailers, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, fast-food restaurants, post offices and automatic teller machines (ATMs).

Lung Scans Not Always Reliable for Detecting Cancer (Reuter’s)

Changes of up to 10 percent can happen simply as a result of the inherent variability of CT imaging,” he added. Then the researchers gave the images to three radiologists who had no idea the scans had been repeated before the tumors could have grown or shrunk appreciably. According to the radiologists’ measurements, however, many tumors had changed, ranging from 23-percent shrinkage to 31-percent growth. Overall, three percent of the tumors appeared to have grown so much that doctors would diagnose disease progression according to common criteria. And the smaller the tumor, the bigger the variation.

Riely said some doctors will make treatment decisions based on tiny changes seen on scans, although that might be a costly mistake, according to the new findings.

Riely stressed, however, that his results don’t mean patients should get repeat scans, which would increase their radiation exposure. Most likely, the results also apply outside of lung cancer, although patients’ breathing could make the chest scans extra variable. Maitland said the findings will also help drug developers, who look at increasingly small changes in tumor size during drug tests, forgetting that the scans might be unreliable at that scale.

“SOURCE: bit.ly/puOY5x Journal of Clinical Oncology, online July 5, 2011.

The Calcium Lie (Dr. Mercola)

What you were led to believe about calcium preventing osteoporosis has been shown to be a myth. Robert Thompson, M.D. wrote a book on this subject called The Calcium Lie, which explains that bone is comprised of at least a dozen minerals, and the exclusive focus on calcium supplementation is likely to worsen bone density and actuallyincreaseyour risk for osteoporosis.Dr. Thompson believes overconsumption of calcium creates other mineral deficiencies and imbalances that will increase your risk of heart disease, kidney stones, gallstones, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, obesity and type 2 diabetes—and the latest study certainly lends credibility to his theory. Part of the reason calcium is so misunderstood is that the predominant theory of bone mineralization is itself flawed.

Revising Our Theory of Bone Mineralization: When you take a biologically foreign form of calcium, or when your body’s ability to direct calcium to the right places becomes impaired (as when you are deficient in vitamin K), calcium is deposited where it shouldn’t be—like sand in gears.Calcium deposits are major contributors and even causative factors in many conditions, including the following:

 DRUGS

In early June 2011, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a drug safety communication on the 80-mg dose of simvastatin because of an increased risk for muscle toxicity. Medscape interviewed Amy Egan, MD, MPH, Deputy Director for Safety in the Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products at the FDA, regarding these warnings and their impact.

Doctors are encouraged to use different brands, not dose past 40mg and consider it’s interactions with other medications.

Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea first emerged when I was in medical school in the late 1970s. I remember the event very clearly and by the 1980s the antibiotics penicillin and tetracycline were no longer effective against it. Next, gonorrhea resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics emerged, leaving only one class of antibiotic drugs, cephalosporins, left to treat it.

Now, it looks like the sophisticated bacteria responsible for gonorrhea are mutating again and developing resistance to this last line of treatment. Although cases of cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea have not yet shown up in the United States, it is already circulating in Japan and Europe — a similar trend to what happened when the last widespread resistance developed.

This is why statistics can be so important: The fact that the number of American children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has increased by 4,000 percent in a mere 10 year span (1994-2003) leads you to quickly realize that something must be askew…

The possibility of such a radical increase being medically valid is close to nil. Another telltale sign that Big Pharma is behind much of this growth is the fact that four times as many children covered by Medicaid receive antipsychotic drugs, compared to children whose parents have private health insurance. One of the reasons for this is because it can be difficult to find a psychiatrist that accepts Medicaid. As a result, many of these children get the medication from a pediatrician or family doctor, who may or may not be fully qualified to make a proper psychiatric evaluation. All they’re going by is what they’ve been told by pharmaceutical reps.

The cost of “medicating away children’s problems” goes far beyond dollars and cents, although that price tag is staggering in and of itself. For example, according to the Star Tribune, the cost of treating children with antipsychotic drugs exceeds $6 million annually in the state of Minnesota alone!

It is concluded that long-term fluoride exposure from drinking water containing 4.32 ppm increases the risk of overall fractures as well as hip fractures. Water fluoride levels at 1.00 –1.06 ppm decrease the risk of overall fractures relative to negligible fluoride in water; however, there does not appear to be similar protective benefits for the risk of hip fractures. (J Bone Miner Res 2001;16:932–939)

See link in Resources on overview and other links from Dr. Mercola

For years, preoperative geriatric consultation/screening was the only intervention proven to decrease postoperative delirium. There are, however, several recent publications indicating that preoperative and postoperative pharmacological and medical (hydration, oxygenation) management can reduce postoperative delirium. Spinal anesthesia with minimal propofol sedation has been shown to decrease the incidence of postoperative delirium in hip-fracture patients. Likewise, dexmedetomidine sedation in mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU is associated with less postoperative delirium and shorter ventilator times. Preoperative levels of education and brain function (cognitive reserve) may predict patients at risk for postoperative cognitive problems. Reduced white matter integrity is reported to place patients at a higher risk for both postoperative delirium and POCD.

The etiology of postoperative cognitive problems is unknown, but there is emerging evidence that decreased preoperative cognitive function contributes to the development of postoperative delirium and POCD. There is growing concern that inhalation anesthetics may be neurotoxic to the aging brain, but there are no human data evaluating this hypothesis to date. Randomized controlled trials evaluating interventions to improve long-term cognitive outcomes in elderly patients are urgently needed.

Background The benefit of aspirin to prevent cardiovascular events in subjects without clinical cardiovascular disease relative to the increased risk of bleeding is uncertain.
Methods A meta-analysis of randomized trials of aspirin versus placebo/control to assess the effect of aspirin on major cardiovascular events (MCEs) (nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death), individual components of the MCE, stroke subtype, all-cause mortality, and major bleeding. Nine trials involving 102,621 patients were included: 52,145 allocated to aspirin and 50,476 to placebo/control.
Results Over a mean follow-up of 6.9 years, aspirin was associated with a reduction in MCE (risk ratio [RR] 0.90, 95% CI 0.85–0.96, P < .001). There was no significant reduction for myocardial infarction, stroke, ischemic stroke, or all-cause mortality. Aspirin was associated with hemorrhagic stroke (RR 1.35, 95% CI 1.01–1.81, P = .04) and major bleeding (RR 1.62, 95% CI 1.31–2.00, P < .001). In meta-regression, the benefits and bleeding risks of aspirin were independent of baseline cardiovascular risk, background therapy, age, sex, and aspirin dose. The number needed to treat to prevent 1 MCE over a mean follow-up of 6.9 years was 253 (95% CI 163–568), which was offset by the number needed to harm to cause 1 major bleed of 261 (95% CI 182–476).
Conclusions The current totality of evidence provides only modest support for a benefit of aspirin in patients without clinical cardiovascular disease, which is offset by its risk. For every 1,000 subjects treated with aspirin over a 5-year period, aspirin would prevent 2.9 MCE and cause 2.8 major bleeds.

Over 800 studies already show that vitamin D could have cancer-prevention and/or treatment possibilities. But the problem is that it’s a natural substance that can’t be patented as a simple supplement, meaning there’s no real revenue in it, compared to a prescription brand drug. That’s why many drug studies involving vitamins of any kind hinge on how the FDA defines drugs and supplements.

A drug is defined as a product meant for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of a disease. A supplement is defined as a product that is meant to simply “supplement” or “enhance” a normal diet within the daily allowances recommended by the FDA. Drugs – and retailers who sell supplements are not allowed to tell you that vitamin D can possibly “prevent, mitigate or cure” cancer without having the FDA accuse them of selling a drug that hasn’t been approved through the proper FDA process.

Again, Follow the Money if You Want to Know the Truth. That process of getting a drug to market costs an average $359 million and takes nearly 10 years– with a good portion of the money going directly to the FDA through user fees. Over the years these fees have become a major funding source for the FDA. What drug companies get in return is faster FDA reviews and drug approvals.

Relieve GERD, Get Cancer (Arch Surg)

CONCLUSIONS: Medically treated patients with mild or absent GERD symptoms have significantly higher odds of adenocarcinogenesis compared with medically treated patients with severe GERD symptoms. This finding may explain the failure of the current screening paradigm in which the threshold for primary endoscopic examination is based on symptom severity.