This Vitamin D Supplement Mistake Raises Your Death Rate by 2% -- Are You at Risk?
Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 30 2011 |
Story at-a-glance
A meta-analysis of 50 trials looking at mortality rates for “doctor recommended” synthetic vitamin D2 supplements versus natural vitamin D3 shows a six percent risk reduction among those who used D3, compared to a two percent increased risk among those who used D2
Research shows vitamin D3 is approximately 87 percent more potent in raising and maintaining vitamin D concentrations and produces 2- to 3-fold greater storage of vitamin D than does D2. D3 is also converted into its active form 500 percent faster
Optimizing your vitamin D levels may be one of the most important steps you can take in support of your long-term health. The ideal way to do this is by exposing large amounts of skin to sunlight or a safe tanning bed, but if you need to use an oral supplement, make sure you’re taking vitamin D3
The most important factor is your vitamin D serum level, which should ideally be between 50-70 ng/ml. When taking an oral vitamin D supplement, you should take enough to reach and maintain this therapeutic level. As a generic guideline, adults need to take about 8,000 IU’s a day to reach this level
By Dr. Mercola
Drisdol is the synthetic form of vitamin D2; the form of vitamin D typically prescribed by doctors.
But this is not the type produced by your body in response to sun or safe tanning bed exposure.
A recent meta-analysis by the Cochrane Database looked at mortality rates for people who supplemented their diets with D2 versus those who did so with D3, the form naturally produced by your body.
The analysis of 50 randomized controlled trials, which included a total of 94,000 participants, showed:
A six percent relative risk reduction among those who used vitamin D3, but
A two percent relative risk increase among those who used D2
In an article posted on Live in the Now, Dr. John J. Cannell writes:
"Amazingly, this study somehow slipped under the radar...
You would think a paper that took a look at tens of thousands of subjects and analyzed the efficacy of prescription vitamin D (D2) and over-the-counter vitamin D (D3) would warrant a news story or two.
To my knowledge, these papers are the first to paint such a clear picture about the efficacy between D3 and D2."
The Two Types of Vitamin D
Supplemental vitamin D comes in two forms:
Ergocalciferol (vitamin D2)
Cholecalciferol (vitamin D3)
They have long been regarded as equivalent and interchangeable+ especially since a recognized vitamin D expert, Dr. Michael Hollick, recoomended it. But that notion was based on studies of rickets prevention in infants conducted several decades ago. Today, we know a lot more about vitamin D, and the featured study offers compelling support for the recommendation to take vitamin D3 if you need to take an oral supplement—which is the same type of D vitamin created in your body when you expose your skin to sunlight.
According to the latest research, D3 is approximately 87 percent more potent in raising and maintaining vitamin D concentrations and produces 2- to 3-fold greater storage of vitamin D than does D2. Regardless of which form you use, your body must convert it into a more active form, and vitamin D3 is converted 500 percent faster than vitamin D2. Vitamin D2 also has a shorter shelf life, and its metabolites bind poorly with proteins, further hampering its effectiveness.
Unfortunately, vitamin D2—which is a synthetic version made by irradiating fungus and plant matter—is the form of vitamin D most often prescribed by doctors in the U.S. Hopefully this will change sooner rather than later.
As stated by Dr. Cannell in the featured article:
"While there may be explanations for D3's superiority other than improved efficacy, for the time being, these papers send doctors a message: use D3, not D2."
The Incredible Health Benefits of Vitamin D
Optimizing your vitamin D levels may be one of the most important steps you can take in support of your long-term health. There's overwhelming evidence that vitamin D is a key player in your overall health. This is understandable when you consider that it is not "just" a vitamin; it's actually a neuroregulatory steroidal hormone that influences nearly 3,000 different genes in your body. Receptors that respond to the vitamin have been found in almost every type of human cell, from your brain to your bones.
Just one example of an important gene that vitamin D up-regulates is your ability to fight infections, as well as chronic inflammation. It produces over 200 antimicrobial peptides, the most important of which is cathelicidin, a naturally occurring broad-spectrum antibiotic. This is one of the explanations for why it can be so effective against colds and influenza.
That said, keeping a close eye on your vitamin D levels is a wise move for most. The widespread vitamin D deficiency seen today is now thought to fuel an astonishingly diverse array of common chronic diseases, including:
Cancer Hypertension Heart disease
Autism Obesity Rheumatoid arthritis
Diabetes 1 and 2 Multiple Sclerosis Crohn's disease
Cold & Flu Inflammatory Bowel Disease Tuberculosis
Septicemia Signs of aging Dementia
Eczema & Psoriasis Insomnia Hearing loss
Muscle pain Cavities Periodontal disease
Osteoporosis Macular degeneration Reduced C-section risk
Pre eclampsia Seizures Infertility
Asthma Cystic fibrosis Migraines
Depression Alzheimer's disease Schizophrenia
What's Better than a Vitamin D3 Supplement?
While this article focuses on oral vitamin D supplementation, it's important to realize that the ideal way to optimize your vitamin D levels is through appropriate sun or safe tannig bed exposure. There are a number of reasons for this:
When you expose your skin to the sun, your skin also synthesizes high amounts of cholesterol sulfate, which is very important for heart- and cardiovascular health. In fact, according to research by Dr. Stephanie Seneff, high LDL and subsequent heart disease may in fact be a symptom of cholesterol sulfate deficiency. Sulfur deficiency also promotes obesity and related health problems like diabetes
When exposed to sunshine, your skin also synthesizes vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water soluble, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements, which is unsulfated. The water-soluble form can travel freely in your bloodstream, whereas the unsulfated form needs LDL (the so-called "bad" cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport. According to Dr. Stephanie Seneff, there's reason to believe that many of the profound benefits of vitamin D are actually due to the vitamin D sulfate. As a result, she suspects that the oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D might not provide all of the same benefits, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate
You cannot overdose when getting your vitamin D from sun exposure, as your body has the ability to self-regulate and only make what it needs
Guidelines for Naturally Optimizing Your Vitamin D Levels
To optimize your levels, you need to expose large portions of your skin to the sun, and you need to do it for more than a few minutes. And, contrary to popular belief, the best time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is actually as near to solar noon as possible. During this time you need the shortest exposure time to produce vitamin D because UVB rays are most intense at this time. Plus, when the sun goes down toward the horizon, the UVB is filtered out much more than the dangerous UVA.
Just be cautious about the length of your exposure. You only need enough exposure to have your skin turn the lightest shade of pink. Once you reach this point your body will not make any additional vitamin D due to its self-regulating mechanism. Any additional exposure will only cause harm and damage to your skin.
Unfortunately, studies have shown only about 30 percent of Americans' circulating vitamin D is the product of sunlight exposure. This is a byproduct of public health agencies' misguided advice to stay out of the sun to avoid cancer (when in fact vitamin D from sun exposure will actually help prevent it).
The truth is, vitamin D from sun exposure or a safe tanning bed is the BEST way to optimize your vitamin D levels. Safe tanning beds have electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, which helps you avoid unnecessary exposure to health-harming EMF fields. They also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight.
Vitamin D Dosage Recommendations
If appropriate tanning is not feasible, then you'll be wise to consider an oral vitamin D3 supplement. According to the most recent findings by Carole Baggerly, founder of GrassrootsHealth, her research of nearly 10,000 people shows the ideal adult dose appears to be 8,000 IU's a day to get most into the healthy range. Just remember to get your vitamin D levels tested regularly if you take an oral supplement.
Important: Your Serum Level is what Really Matters
While 8,000 IU's of vitamin D3 per day is a general recommendation that appears to be beneficial for most people, vitamin D experts from around the world are in agreement that the most important factor is your vitamin D serum level. There's no specific dosage level at which "magic" happens. So the take-home message is that you need to take whatever dosage required to obtain a therapeutic level of vitamin D in your blood.
At the time (in 2007) the recommended level was 40-60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). Since then, the optimal vitamin D level has been raised to 50-70 ng/ml, and when treating cancer or heart disease, as high as 70-100 ng/ml.
Source: Live in the Now November 16, 2011
Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews July 6, 2011;(7):CD007470
Related Links:
Vitamin D Resource Page
The Wonder Vitamin That May Help You Prevent 16 Types of Cancer
Vitamin D is a Key Player in Your Overall Health
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Help Your Heart: 71% of Those Who Drank This Lowered Their Blood Pressure
Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 27 2011
Story at-a-glance
Water from young, immature coconuts offers a long and growing list of health benefits, distinct from the benefits of its counterpart, coconut oil
Coconut water is a powerhouse of natural electrolytes, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, amino acids, enzymes, antioxidants and phytonutrients, and is low in sugar, but pleasantly sweet
It’s great for post-exercise rehydration, but also has anti-inflammatory properties, protects your heart and urinary tract, is a digestive tonic, improves your skin and eyes, supports good immune function, and can even help balance your blood glucose and insulin levels
Coconut water is the richest dietary source of cytokinins, plant hormones that have anti-cancer, anti-aging, and anti-thrombolytic benefits in humans
Because coconut water is isotonic and sterile (upon coming out of the coconut), it is very similar to blood plasma and has been used intravenously in emergency situations for more than 60 years
By Dr. Mercola
I have long been a fan of coconut oil as one of the most health promoting of all plant-based fats.
I have spent nearly 15 winters in Hawaii where fresh coconuts off the tree are readily available.
Coconut oil comes from the "meat" of the coconut.
But today, I'd like to share a little information about coconut oil's best friend: coconut water.
If you've ever picked up a fresh coconut in the grocery store and shaken it, you've heard the liquid sloshing inside—this is coconut water.
Both coconut water and coconut milk come from coconuts, but they are not the same thing.
Coconut Milk Versus Coconut Water
Coconut milk, known in Malaysia and Indonesia as "santan" and as "gata" in the Philippines, is a thick liquid made by grinding up coconut meat and then diluting it with plain water. Coconut milk is a rich source of healthy fat, protein, and energy and is often used in cooking, especially in Asian cuisine.
Coconut milk is comprised of about 50 percent fat/protein and 50 percent water, and this is what you commonly see in cans in the Asian section of your grocery store.
Coconut water, on the other hand, is a clear, light, refreshing liquid (95 percent water) extracted from young, green coconuts that have not reached maturity. These look much different than the brown hairy ones you commonly see in the produce section—they are white, smooth, and pointed on one end, flat on the other.
When you can find them, young coconuts will be in the refrigerated produce section because they are perishable.
Coconut water is the liquid part of the endosperm (kernel) of the coconut fruit. When coconuts are immature, the endosperm is semisolid and jelly-like. As the coconut matures, the endosperm becomes more solid and fibrous, developing into the firmer coconut meat with which you are familiar. As the coconut matures, the water inside is replaced by more coconut "meat" and air, so it's best to harvest the water when the coconut is young.
It turns out that BOTH the "meat" and the liquid of coconuts are nutritional powerhouses!
"Dew from the Heavens"
Hawaiians call coconut water "noelani," which means "dew from the heavens." Many tropical cultures prize coconut water above all other beverages due to its rehydrating and health renewing properties. Not only is coconut water good for you, it's good for plants too, having been traditionally used as a growth supplement in plant propagation. As a result of the rich volcanic soils and mineral-rich seawater in which coconut palms grow, coconut water's nutritional profile is very impressive.
Coconut water is:
Rich in natural vitamins (especially the B vitamins), minerals, and trace elements (including zinc, selenium, iodine, sulfur, and manganese). Vitamins are necessary for the enzymatic reactions your cells need in order to function.
Full of amino acids, organic acids, enzymes, antioxidants, and phytonutrients.
Rich source of electrolytes and natural salts, especially potassium and magnesium.
Light, low calorie and nearly fat-free, as well as low in sugar but pleasantly sweet—contains about a fifth of the sugar of other fruit juices, like apple or grape juice, as well as containing a little fiber to moderate absorption.
Rich in cytokinins, or plant hormones, which have anti-aging, anti-cancer, and anti-thrombolytic effects in humans.
Coconut water also has an alkalizing effect on your body, which can help correct the cumulative effects of acidifying foods that make up most diets today. For a complete nutritional profile, refer to the tables at the Coconut Research Center site. The list of health benefits of coconut water is impressive, and growing by leaps and bounds with each new scientific study.
Coconut Water's Abundance of Health Benefits
Addressing every one of these areas is beyond the scope of one article, but I would like to touch on a few of the most impressive areas where coconut water may give your health a boost. According to Bruce Fife, author of Coconut Water for Health and Healing and one of the leading coconut experts, scientific research and clinical observation have shown coconut water to have the following broad-spanning health benefits:
Rehydration (water and electrolytes) Increased exercise performance Cardioprotective (rich in potassium and magnesium); helps regulate blood pressure, improve circulation, reduces plaque formation
Anti-inflammatory; reduces swelling in hands and feet Prevents abnormal blood clotting Aids in kidney function (preventing and dissolving kidney stones, UTI remedy)
Helps balance blood glucose and insulin levels Digestive tonic (rich in enzymes); feeds friendly gut flora Remedy for constipation and diarrhea
Anti-aging properties Enhances skin health (elasticity, age spots, wrinkles), improves wound healing Enhances eye health (cataracts, glaucoma)
Supports good immune function; antimicrobial (contains monolaurin) Helps prevent osteoporosis Anti-cancer properties
Perfect Electrolyte Balance from Mother Nature
Electrolytes are inorganic compounds that become ions in solution and have the capacity to conduct electricity. They are important for electrical signaling—and of course your brain, heart, muscles and nervous system are all bioelectrical systems. Your cells use electrolytes to maintain voltage across their membranes and carry electrical impulses to other cells.
Things like water balance and blood pH depend on your body's proper electrolyte balance, and you can suffer severe medical problems if your electrolytes fall out of balance.
Fresh coconut water is one of the richest natural sources of electrolytes and can be used to prevent dehydration from strenuous exercise, vomiting, or diarrhea. You lose electrolytes (especially sodium and potassium) when you sweat, which must be replenished with food and water intake. Because coconut water naturally contains so many electrolytes, it's been called "Nature's Gatorade."
Coconut water has five electrolytes your body needs:
Potassium: The most important positive ion (cation) inside your cells; potassium regulates heartbeat and muscle function; coconut water contains 295 mg, which is 15 times the amount in the average sports drink
Sodium: The most important positive ion in fluid outside your cells, and also the one most depleted with exercise, as you lose sodium through sweat and urine
Magnesium: important for maintaining the electrical potential of your cells, proper muscle function, and preventing calcium overload
Phosphorous: Plays important roles in bone health, but also in transferring energy throughout your body, helping your muscles contract, and regulating nerve function (partners with calcium)
Calcium: Important for bone health (partners with phosphorous)
The ONLY "Sports Drink" I Recommend
For most average exercisers and athletes, sports drinks are not only a waste of your money, but more importantly, can actually worsen the health of most who use them. Less than one percent of those who use sports drinks actually benefit from them. Most sports drinks are loaded with things you DON'T want, like refined sugars, artificial colors and chemicals, none of which are in natural coconut water.
If you exercise for 30 minutes a day at a moderate to high intensity, fresh, pure water is the best thing to help you stay hydrated. It's only when you've been exercising for longer periods, such as for more than 60 minutes, or in the heat, or at extreme intensity levels, where you are sweating profusely, that you may need something more than water to replenish your body.
Besides plain water, coconut water is one of the best and safest option to rehydrate yourself after a strenuous workout. If you need the electrolytes, it will provide them. If you don't need them, then it certainly won't hurt you. And as you're learning, coconut water has a mountain of other health benefits in addition to rehydration, which no commercial sports drink in the world can provide. Depending on how much salt you've lost through sweating, you might even add a tiny pinch of natural Himalayan salt to your glass of coconut water.
One study in 2007 found sodium-enriched coconut water to be as effective as commercial sports drinks for whole body rehydration after exercise, with less stomach upset.
Coconut water is sterile when it comes out of the coconut, and extremely similar in composition to human blood plasma. These unique properties make it so completely compatible with the human body that it can be infused intravenously into your bloodstream. Physicians have actually used coconut water successfully as an IV fluid for more than 60 years, especially in remote regions of the world where medical supplies are limited and it has saved many lives. You can appreciate how safe and beneficial this natural beverage is, if it can be used intravenously!
Cytokinins: Secret Fountain of Youth Revealed!
Possibly the most important nutritional constituent in coconut water—more beneficial than the electrolytes vitamins and minerals and amino acids—is something you've likely never even heard of: cytokinins.
Cytokinins are phytohormones, or plant hormones. These hormones regulate the growth, development, and aging of a plant. Coconut water has been an important horticultural resource, used in the propagation of several plants, including orchids and traditional Chinese medicinal herbs. The cytokinins found in coconut water support cell division, and thus promote rapid growth.
But what does this have to do with humans?
Cytokinins have actually been found to exert an anti-aging effect on human cells and tissues. When human cells are exposed to cytokinins, aging slows down considerably. Cells treated with cytokinins don't undergo the normal degenerative changes, so they don't "act their age." Researchers have suggested that if you consume a diet rich in cytokinins, you may experience anti-aging effects and have less risk for degenerative and age-related diseases. And coconut water is the richest natural dietary source of cytokinins.
Cytokinins have also been found to have anti-thrombolytic properties so may lower your risk for blood clots. But coconut's heart benefits don't stop there. They have also been shown to have anti-cancer effects.
According to Bruce Fife:
"In regulating cell growth, cytokinins prevent the mistakes that may lead to the development of cancer. Normal cells are kept healthy while cancerous cells are programmed to die, preventing them from growing and spreading. Subsequently, the anti-cancer effects of cytokinins have been well documented."
Benefits for Your Heart and Urinary Tract
High levels of mineral ions, especially potassium, in coconut water have been found to help prevent heart attacks. And coconut water has been found to have blood pressure benefits. In one study, 71 percent of people who drank coconut water experienced lower blood pressures.
Similar benefits have been found if you have problems with urinary stones. Dr. Eugenio Macalalag, director of the urology department of the Chinese General Hospital in the Philippines, reported that coconut water was effective in treating his patient's kidney and urethral stones. He reported that his patients who drank coconut water two to three times a week experienced a significant reduction in stone size and expulsion, eliminating their need for surgery.
Pesticide, Chemical and Environmental Considerations
The most common variety of coconut being grown today for harvesting coconut water is a high-water yield dwarf hybrid variety that CAN be heavily fertilized and sprayed with pesticides. This makes it very important for you to select organic coconut water and organic fresh coconuts.
It is important to make sure the coconuts and coconut products you purchase are certified organic and sustainably raised. Regular coconut palms grow to be 80 to 100 feet tall, and because workers have to climb up and pick the coconuts, more manageable dwarf varieties have been cultivated that average about nine feet tall. There are environmental concerns as well, related to the intense market demand for coconuts and their products.
According to Josefine Staats, the founder of KULAU Coconut Water:
"Coconut palms are often cultivated in industrial-style monocultures geared towards efficiency. But plantation economies with the sole focus of maximizing their yield often severely damage fragile ecosystems. There are a few (who profit), but many others are left to deal with the ecological consequences."
SO Much More Than a Sports Drink
Coconut water is one of Nature's perfect foods—it is hard to say enough good things about it. It's the perfect replacement for juice or soda. Please remember to read the label, to make sure it's as pure and unprocessed as possible. Of course, drinking it fresh from the coconut, as opposed to bottled, is the ultimate choice.
I'd like to close with a quote from Jean Yong (et al), who published a comprehensive review of the potential impact on human health of this amazing natural elixir:
"The recent discovery of other medicinal values of coconut water signifies a good potential in improving human health. Better insights and understanding of the functions and properties of the individual components of coconut water will, therefore, help us to better utilize this marvelous and multidimensional liquid with special biological properties from nature."
So next time you're searching for a cool, refreshing after-workout beverage, crack open a coconut and experience its rejuvenation for yourself!
References:
Coconut Research Center
J Physiol Anthropol Appl Human Sci March 2002
MedicineNet
Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health July 2007
Am J Emerg Med January 2000
Plant-Hormones
J Anti-Aging Med March 2002
Experimental Hematology October 2002
HealthTruthRevealed April 2008
Plant Foods for Human Nutrition
West Indian Med J January 2005
Int Surg October-December 1987
The Nibble August 2011
Molecules 2009
Story at-a-glance
Water from young, immature coconuts offers a long and growing list of health benefits, distinct from the benefits of its counterpart, coconut oil
Coconut water is a powerhouse of natural electrolytes, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, amino acids, enzymes, antioxidants and phytonutrients, and is low in sugar, but pleasantly sweet
It’s great for post-exercise rehydration, but also has anti-inflammatory properties, protects your heart and urinary tract, is a digestive tonic, improves your skin and eyes, supports good immune function, and can even help balance your blood glucose and insulin levels
Coconut water is the richest dietary source of cytokinins, plant hormones that have anti-cancer, anti-aging, and anti-thrombolytic benefits in humans
Because coconut water is isotonic and sterile (upon coming out of the coconut), it is very similar to blood plasma and has been used intravenously in emergency situations for more than 60 years
By Dr. Mercola
I have long been a fan of coconut oil as one of the most health promoting of all plant-based fats.
I have spent nearly 15 winters in Hawaii where fresh coconuts off the tree are readily available.
Coconut oil comes from the "meat" of the coconut.
But today, I'd like to share a little information about coconut oil's best friend: coconut water.
If you've ever picked up a fresh coconut in the grocery store and shaken it, you've heard the liquid sloshing inside—this is coconut water.
Both coconut water and coconut milk come from coconuts, but they are not the same thing.
Coconut Milk Versus Coconut Water
Coconut milk, known in Malaysia and Indonesia as "santan" and as "gata" in the Philippines, is a thick liquid made by grinding up coconut meat and then diluting it with plain water. Coconut milk is a rich source of healthy fat, protein, and energy and is often used in cooking, especially in Asian cuisine.
Coconut milk is comprised of about 50 percent fat/protein and 50 percent water, and this is what you commonly see in cans in the Asian section of your grocery store.
Coconut water, on the other hand, is a clear, light, refreshing liquid (95 percent water) extracted from young, green coconuts that have not reached maturity. These look much different than the brown hairy ones you commonly see in the produce section—they are white, smooth, and pointed on one end, flat on the other.
When you can find them, young coconuts will be in the refrigerated produce section because they are perishable.
Coconut water is the liquid part of the endosperm (kernel) of the coconut fruit. When coconuts are immature, the endosperm is semisolid and jelly-like. As the coconut matures, the endosperm becomes more solid and fibrous, developing into the firmer coconut meat with which you are familiar. As the coconut matures, the water inside is replaced by more coconut "meat" and air, so it's best to harvest the water when the coconut is young.
It turns out that BOTH the "meat" and the liquid of coconuts are nutritional powerhouses!
"Dew from the Heavens"
Hawaiians call coconut water "noelani," which means "dew from the heavens." Many tropical cultures prize coconut water above all other beverages due to its rehydrating and health renewing properties. Not only is coconut water good for you, it's good for plants too, having been traditionally used as a growth supplement in plant propagation. As a result of the rich volcanic soils and mineral-rich seawater in which coconut palms grow, coconut water's nutritional profile is very impressive.
Coconut water is:
Rich in natural vitamins (especially the B vitamins), minerals, and trace elements (including zinc, selenium, iodine, sulfur, and manganese). Vitamins are necessary for the enzymatic reactions your cells need in order to function.
Full of amino acids, organic acids, enzymes, antioxidants, and phytonutrients.
Rich source of electrolytes and natural salts, especially potassium and magnesium.
Light, low calorie and nearly fat-free, as well as low in sugar but pleasantly sweet—contains about a fifth of the sugar of other fruit juices, like apple or grape juice, as well as containing a little fiber to moderate absorption.
Rich in cytokinins, or plant hormones, which have anti-aging, anti-cancer, and anti-thrombolytic effects in humans.
Coconut water also has an alkalizing effect on your body, which can help correct the cumulative effects of acidifying foods that make up most diets today. For a complete nutritional profile, refer to the tables at the Coconut Research Center site. The list of health benefits of coconut water is impressive, and growing by leaps and bounds with each new scientific study.
Coconut Water's Abundance of Health Benefits
Addressing every one of these areas is beyond the scope of one article, but I would like to touch on a few of the most impressive areas where coconut water may give your health a boost. According to Bruce Fife, author of Coconut Water for Health and Healing and one of the leading coconut experts, scientific research and clinical observation have shown coconut water to have the following broad-spanning health benefits:
Rehydration (water and electrolytes) Increased exercise performance Cardioprotective (rich in potassium and magnesium); helps regulate blood pressure, improve circulation, reduces plaque formation
Anti-inflammatory; reduces swelling in hands and feet Prevents abnormal blood clotting Aids in kidney function (preventing and dissolving kidney stones, UTI remedy)
Helps balance blood glucose and insulin levels Digestive tonic (rich in enzymes); feeds friendly gut flora Remedy for constipation and diarrhea
Anti-aging properties Enhances skin health (elasticity, age spots, wrinkles), improves wound healing Enhances eye health (cataracts, glaucoma)
Supports good immune function; antimicrobial (contains monolaurin) Helps prevent osteoporosis Anti-cancer properties
Perfect Electrolyte Balance from Mother Nature
Electrolytes are inorganic compounds that become ions in solution and have the capacity to conduct electricity. They are important for electrical signaling—and of course your brain, heart, muscles and nervous system are all bioelectrical systems. Your cells use electrolytes to maintain voltage across their membranes and carry electrical impulses to other cells.
Things like water balance and blood pH depend on your body's proper electrolyte balance, and you can suffer severe medical problems if your electrolytes fall out of balance.
Fresh coconut water is one of the richest natural sources of electrolytes and can be used to prevent dehydration from strenuous exercise, vomiting, or diarrhea. You lose electrolytes (especially sodium and potassium) when you sweat, which must be replenished with food and water intake. Because coconut water naturally contains so many electrolytes, it's been called "Nature's Gatorade."
Coconut water has five electrolytes your body needs:
Potassium: The most important positive ion (cation) inside your cells; potassium regulates heartbeat and muscle function; coconut water contains 295 mg, which is 15 times the amount in the average sports drink
Sodium: The most important positive ion in fluid outside your cells, and also the one most depleted with exercise, as you lose sodium through sweat and urine
Magnesium: important for maintaining the electrical potential of your cells, proper muscle function, and preventing calcium overload
Phosphorous: Plays important roles in bone health, but also in transferring energy throughout your body, helping your muscles contract, and regulating nerve function (partners with calcium)
Calcium: Important for bone health (partners with phosphorous)
The ONLY "Sports Drink" I Recommend
For most average exercisers and athletes, sports drinks are not only a waste of your money, but more importantly, can actually worsen the health of most who use them. Less than one percent of those who use sports drinks actually benefit from them. Most sports drinks are loaded with things you DON'T want, like refined sugars, artificial colors and chemicals, none of which are in natural coconut water.
If you exercise for 30 minutes a day at a moderate to high intensity, fresh, pure water is the best thing to help you stay hydrated. It's only when you've been exercising for longer periods, such as for more than 60 minutes, or in the heat, or at extreme intensity levels, where you are sweating profusely, that you may need something more than water to replenish your body.
Besides plain water, coconut water is one of the best and safest option to rehydrate yourself after a strenuous workout. If you need the electrolytes, it will provide them. If you don't need them, then it certainly won't hurt you. And as you're learning, coconut water has a mountain of other health benefits in addition to rehydration, which no commercial sports drink in the world can provide. Depending on how much salt you've lost through sweating, you might even add a tiny pinch of natural Himalayan salt to your glass of coconut water.
One study in 2007 found sodium-enriched coconut water to be as effective as commercial sports drinks for whole body rehydration after exercise, with less stomach upset.
Coconut water is sterile when it comes out of the coconut, and extremely similar in composition to human blood plasma. These unique properties make it so completely compatible with the human body that it can be infused intravenously into your bloodstream. Physicians have actually used coconut water successfully as an IV fluid for more than 60 years, especially in remote regions of the world where medical supplies are limited and it has saved many lives. You can appreciate how safe and beneficial this natural beverage is, if it can be used intravenously!
Cytokinins: Secret Fountain of Youth Revealed!
Possibly the most important nutritional constituent in coconut water—more beneficial than the electrolytes vitamins and minerals and amino acids—is something you've likely never even heard of: cytokinins.
Cytokinins are phytohormones, or plant hormones. These hormones regulate the growth, development, and aging of a plant. Coconut water has been an important horticultural resource, used in the propagation of several plants, including orchids and traditional Chinese medicinal herbs. The cytokinins found in coconut water support cell division, and thus promote rapid growth.
But what does this have to do with humans?
Cytokinins have actually been found to exert an anti-aging effect on human cells and tissues. When human cells are exposed to cytokinins, aging slows down considerably. Cells treated with cytokinins don't undergo the normal degenerative changes, so they don't "act their age." Researchers have suggested that if you consume a diet rich in cytokinins, you may experience anti-aging effects and have less risk for degenerative and age-related diseases. And coconut water is the richest natural dietary source of cytokinins.
Cytokinins have also been found to have anti-thrombolytic properties so may lower your risk for blood clots. But coconut's heart benefits don't stop there. They have also been shown to have anti-cancer effects.
According to Bruce Fife:
"In regulating cell growth, cytokinins prevent the mistakes that may lead to the development of cancer. Normal cells are kept healthy while cancerous cells are programmed to die, preventing them from growing and spreading. Subsequently, the anti-cancer effects of cytokinins have been well documented."
Benefits for Your Heart and Urinary Tract
High levels of mineral ions, especially potassium, in coconut water have been found to help prevent heart attacks. And coconut water has been found to have blood pressure benefits. In one study, 71 percent of people who drank coconut water experienced lower blood pressures.
Similar benefits have been found if you have problems with urinary stones. Dr. Eugenio Macalalag, director of the urology department of the Chinese General Hospital in the Philippines, reported that coconut water was effective in treating his patient's kidney and urethral stones. He reported that his patients who drank coconut water two to three times a week experienced a significant reduction in stone size and expulsion, eliminating their need for surgery.
Pesticide, Chemical and Environmental Considerations
The most common variety of coconut being grown today for harvesting coconut water is a high-water yield dwarf hybrid variety that CAN be heavily fertilized and sprayed with pesticides. This makes it very important for you to select organic coconut water and organic fresh coconuts.
It is important to make sure the coconuts and coconut products you purchase are certified organic and sustainably raised. Regular coconut palms grow to be 80 to 100 feet tall, and because workers have to climb up and pick the coconuts, more manageable dwarf varieties have been cultivated that average about nine feet tall. There are environmental concerns as well, related to the intense market demand for coconuts and their products.
According to Josefine Staats, the founder of KULAU Coconut Water:
"Coconut palms are often cultivated in industrial-style monocultures geared towards efficiency. But plantation economies with the sole focus of maximizing their yield often severely damage fragile ecosystems. There are a few (who profit), but many others are left to deal with the ecological consequences."
SO Much More Than a Sports Drink
Coconut water is one of Nature's perfect foods—it is hard to say enough good things about it. It's the perfect replacement for juice or soda. Please remember to read the label, to make sure it's as pure and unprocessed as possible. Of course, drinking it fresh from the coconut, as opposed to bottled, is the ultimate choice.
I'd like to close with a quote from Jean Yong (et al), who published a comprehensive review of the potential impact on human health of this amazing natural elixir:
"The recent discovery of other medicinal values of coconut water signifies a good potential in improving human health. Better insights and understanding of the functions and properties of the individual components of coconut water will, therefore, help us to better utilize this marvelous and multidimensional liquid with special biological properties from nature."
So next time you're searching for a cool, refreshing after-workout beverage, crack open a coconut and experience its rejuvenation for yourself!
References:
Coconut Research Center
J Physiol Anthropol Appl Human Sci March 2002
MedicineNet
Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health July 2007
Am J Emerg Med January 2000
Plant-Hormones
J Anti-Aging Med March 2002
Experimental Hematology October 2002
HealthTruthRevealed April 2008
Plant Foods for Human Nutrition
West Indian Med J January 2005
Int Surg October-December 1987
The Nibble August 2011
Molecules 2009
Thursday, November 24, 2011
The #1 Cause of Accidental Death in the U.S. - Are You at Risk?
Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 24 2011
Story at-a-glance
Modern medicine’s definition of health care is treating diseases with pills and drugs, many of which cause health problems that result in prescriptions for more medications to offset the side effects from the first ones.
Most chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, are largely preventable with simple lifestyle changes.
Consumers are starting to make an impact on how health care providers, from doctors to hospitals, address health care issues, and that’s good news. It’s not too late to make positive changes in your own life now, so you can avoid these hazardous “treatments.”
By Dr. Mercola
With all its designer drugs and state-of-the-art machinery, you'd think modern medicine is the perfect fix for providing patient-focused care.
You might also expect that Americans would be the healthiest people on Earth, seeing that the U.S. is the epicenter of all this technology, and especially since we spend more on health care than any other country in the world.
Yet, every year in the U.S., seven out of 10 deaths are due to preventable chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, stroke, and obesity.
How can that be?
How is it that we're not just chronically ill, but also lagging behind most industrialized nations in life expectancy?
The answer lies in how we approach health care: like it or not, the real focus of modern medicine is on selling disease and making money, not making you well.
New Disease Definitions and Phony Parameters Feed Pharma's Pockets
From blood pressure guidelines to mental illness definitions and dozens of other physical ailments, modern medicine's bottom line for only treating symptoms is to expand the indications for the drug pipeline. And that's not just in the United States. For most of the world, the definition of health "care" has become interchangeable with drug interventions. I put the word "care" in quotations to indicate this is modern medicine's definition, not mine.
I'll explain my personal definition of health care later in this article, but for the standard paradigm, it's apparent it means not only lowering the minimum acceptable parameters for blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes, but creating new "diseases" to be "treated." The result is that more people than ever are now on drugs for preventable chronic conditions. Unfortunately, all these drugs haven't made us healthier. Instead, we just keep spending more money, with 75 percent of every health care dollar going to chronic disease treatment.
In 2008 alone, Americans spent $2.3 trillion on this type of health "care" – three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and more than eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980.
In other parts of the world, 36 million people die every year due to chronic diseases – which health officials predict will cost $47 trillion a year by 2030. The numbers are so staggering that the United Nations has formed a special committee just to address strategies for addressing chronic disease. The committees met several times, most recently in New York City, where they declared war on salt, junk food, and tobacco as their first move toward reigning in health care costs.
Sick Pills for Well People
Doctors realize merely treating symptoms does not remove the disease. They also know it's lifestyle choices, not salt, junk food, or tobacco, that are responsible for making us ill. So why are drugs typically their first line of "patient-centered" care, particularly when so many of them have side effects that can only be treated with more drugs? And what makes health officials think that taxing, banning or regulating salt, junk food, and tobacco is going to solve the chronic disease crisis?
In her book, "Death by Modern Medicine," Dr. Carolyn Dean talks about how, for well over a century, the definition of health care has been pills-and-drugs. It's a deliberately schemed and manipulated paradigm that's been packaged and sold through:
The insurance industry's (including Medicare's and Medicaid's) methodology for payment, which doesn't recognize nutritional care or proven naturopathic approaches to health care
Direct-to-Consumer advertising
Influencing physicians and other health care providers through gifts, honoraria for speaking engagements, and financial support for training programs, which is simply another form of advertising
Intense lobbying by PhRMA and individual drug makers such as Merck and Pfizer
Big Bucks for Buying Doctors' Attention
When it comes to making payments to physicians it wants to influence, the pharmaceutical industry is very generous, Pharma Marketing Blog notes:
"Last year (2010) a mere dozen pharmaceutical companies paid $760 million to physicians and other health care providers for consulting, speaking, research and expenses, according to ProPublica's 'Dollars for Docs' project."
These "gifts" ranged from $50 to $2,000 for a single meal, to thousands of dollars for speaking fees, ProPublica said. In fact, one pain specialist, Gerald M. Sacks, allegedly racked in $270,825 from four different Big Pharma companies in one year! Whether that bonus income influenced Dr. Sacks' prescribing practices is unknown, but what we do know is that just between 1997 and 2005, the amount of five major painkillers sold in the U.S. jumped 90 percent – and in 2011 prescription drug overdoses replaced car accidents as the No. 1 reason for accidental deaths in the U.S., with painkillers topping the list.
It's scandalous how this happens, Dr. Dean says, because when it's all said and done, the advertising and marketing aren't even based on science!
According to a study published in 2004:
"…only 6 percent of drug advertising material is supported by scientific evidence. Therefore, most of what you read about a drug is pure fiction, and doesn't help a person to make an informed choice about what they are taking, what it will do, and how it may harm them. Drug companies are making claims based on lies."
The British Medical Journal said
"High amount of misinformation puts patients' health at risk" because "doctors tend to base their decisions on the information and advertising material sent out by drug companies."
That's right. Doctors rely on drug companies to tell them how to treat their patients, and with what drug. What's disturbing is that drug studies often result in bias favoring the sponsoring company, meaning that what your doctor is learning from drug reps may be highly slanted toward you getting a prescription for something that has little or no science behind it.
Now you know why Americans consume nearly 40 percent of all pharmaceutical products sold! As Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber say in their book, "Trust Us, We're Experts," it's the best science money can buy. However, there are two other cash-cows that drug companies love even more since it is becoming progressively more difficult to patent new drugs.
Vaccines are the New Revenue Source for Drug Companies
Vaccines are a highly controversial topic and if you still believe that most benefit from them I would encourage you to do some additional research. I have a dedicated section on this site where you can learn more. First, vaccines have not eliminated disease in the world; and secondly, they are huge moneymakers, no matter what health officials want you to think. When it comes to vaccine safety, information, and choice, I recommend the National Vaccine Information Center, which has the most informative vaccine website I know of, where you can educate yourself on vaccine choices.
When it comes to revenues, vaccines are one of the fastest-growing sectors of the pharmaceutical industry, with a projected $36.3 billion-a-year business by 2013. This business is helped along by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) which recommends vaccines in the U.S., which in turn prompts states to follow up by mandating them. But don't believe the old line that all this recommending and mandating only costs doctors money. Although the government regulates what pediatricians can charge for vaccines, it also gives some nice "incentives" for making sure you and your child get fully vaccinated.
Dubbed the "AFIX" approach, these incentives consist of an:
Assessment that evaluates how well-vaccinated a provider’s patients are, compared to what the CDC would like them to be;
Feedback to providers on what they can and must do to improve immunization rates;
Incentives to motivate physicians to step up their efforts to push vaccines on their patients; and
eXchange of information about how each provider's vaccine status compares to other providers, state norms and expected outcomes.
The incentive part of AFIX is quite broad: referred to as "opportunities for partnerships and collaboration," they range from "small tokens" of appreciation and "resources," to "assisting" with staffing, including paying for nurses and community-based vaccinators (i.e. those giving shots in drug stores). No wonder so many entities are suddenly on-board with the latest flu vaccine push! The truth is vaccines are Pharma's latest money machines.
Cancer—Another Major Revenue Stream
For more than forty years the war on cancer has been waged with abysmal results. It's no secret that we are not winning the war on cancer, partly because the FDA is a rogue, out-of-control agency that systematically sabotages serious threats to the current model. Proven cancer cures like that of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who showed a tremendous success rate for his antineoplastin treatment over 30 years ago are a great example of this suppression.
The "science" behind the FDA's decisions on what cancer studies can be introduced to the public is in the politics, and the fact that Pharma feeds the FDA's pockets, through direct fees drug companies pay the FDA to get their products reviewed, and the less-reportable, more lucrative bonuses drug companies give the FDA for such things as travel expenses and speakers' fees.
The bottom line is, as Dr. Samuel Epstein says in his book, "The Politics of Cancer," this industry is fed and led by politics.
Drug company research and publicly-funded budgets for the likes of the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the National Institute of Health are dependent on treating cancer, not preventing it. The reason is obvious: the $50 billion-a-year cancer business is growing by 15 percent a year. If they cure cancer, there goes the bottom line.
Disease Prevention 101: A Healthy Lifestyle
The best way to avoid the pitfalls of modern medicine, especially dangerous drugs, is to modify your lifestyle. Of all the healthy lifestyle strategies I know of that can have a significant impact on your health, normalizing your insulin and leptin levels is probably the most important. There is no question that this is an absolute necessity if you want to avoid disease. That means modifying your diet to avoid excessive amounts of fructose, grains, and other pro-inflammatory ingredients like trans fats, and exercising regularly.
These additional strategies can further help you stay healthy:
Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels to between 50 and 70 ng/ml.
Animal based omega-3 fats – Correcting the ratio of omega-3 to healthful omega-6 fats is a strong factor in helping people live longer. This typically means increasing your intake of animal based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil, while decreasing your intake of damaged omega-6 fats (think trans fats).
Get most of your antioxidants from foods –Good sources include blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, beans, and artichokes.
Use coconut oil – Another excellent anti-aging food is coconut oil, known to reduce your risk of heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, and lower your cholesterol, among other things.
Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible – This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
Use great caution when it comes to prescription drugs – Pharmaceutical drugs kill thousands of people prematurely every year – as an expected side effect of the action of the drug. And, if you adhere to a healthy lifestyle, you most likely will never need any of them in the first place.
Learn how to effectively cope with stress – Stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day, so developing effective coping mechanisms is a major longevity-promoting factor.
Meditation, prayer, physical activity and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using energy psychology tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden emotional problems.
Incorporating these healthy lifestyle guidelines will help set you squarely on the path to optimal health and give you the best shot at living a much longer life. Remember, it's never too late to take control of your health. And when you do go to the doctor, know that it's OK to ask questions and opt for less medical intervention while choosing a more natural way of healing your body – you should NEVER think that you're not supposed to, or can't, ask questions of the person you've entrusted with your body.
Related Links:
15 Dangerous Drugs Big Pharma Shoves Down Your Throat
Drug Companies Are Killing You Legally While Robbing You Blind
Many High Tech Health Interventions Unnecessary and Wasted
Story at-a-glance
Modern medicine’s definition of health care is treating diseases with pills and drugs, many of which cause health problems that result in prescriptions for more medications to offset the side effects from the first ones.
Most chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, are largely preventable with simple lifestyle changes.
Consumers are starting to make an impact on how health care providers, from doctors to hospitals, address health care issues, and that’s good news. It’s not too late to make positive changes in your own life now, so you can avoid these hazardous “treatments.”
By Dr. Mercola
With all its designer drugs and state-of-the-art machinery, you'd think modern medicine is the perfect fix for providing patient-focused care.
You might also expect that Americans would be the healthiest people on Earth, seeing that the U.S. is the epicenter of all this technology, and especially since we spend more on health care than any other country in the world.
Yet, every year in the U.S., seven out of 10 deaths are due to preventable chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, stroke, and obesity.
How can that be?
How is it that we're not just chronically ill, but also lagging behind most industrialized nations in life expectancy?
The answer lies in how we approach health care: like it or not, the real focus of modern medicine is on selling disease and making money, not making you well.
New Disease Definitions and Phony Parameters Feed Pharma's Pockets
From blood pressure guidelines to mental illness definitions and dozens of other physical ailments, modern medicine's bottom line for only treating symptoms is to expand the indications for the drug pipeline. And that's not just in the United States. For most of the world, the definition of health "care" has become interchangeable with drug interventions. I put the word "care" in quotations to indicate this is modern medicine's definition, not mine.
I'll explain my personal definition of health care later in this article, but for the standard paradigm, it's apparent it means not only lowering the minimum acceptable parameters for blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes, but creating new "diseases" to be "treated." The result is that more people than ever are now on drugs for preventable chronic conditions. Unfortunately, all these drugs haven't made us healthier. Instead, we just keep spending more money, with 75 percent of every health care dollar going to chronic disease treatment.
In 2008 alone, Americans spent $2.3 trillion on this type of health "care" – three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and more than eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980.
In other parts of the world, 36 million people die every year due to chronic diseases – which health officials predict will cost $47 trillion a year by 2030. The numbers are so staggering that the United Nations has formed a special committee just to address strategies for addressing chronic disease. The committees met several times, most recently in New York City, where they declared war on salt, junk food, and tobacco as their first move toward reigning in health care costs.
Sick Pills for Well People
Doctors realize merely treating symptoms does not remove the disease. They also know it's lifestyle choices, not salt, junk food, or tobacco, that are responsible for making us ill. So why are drugs typically their first line of "patient-centered" care, particularly when so many of them have side effects that can only be treated with more drugs? And what makes health officials think that taxing, banning or regulating salt, junk food, and tobacco is going to solve the chronic disease crisis?
In her book, "Death by Modern Medicine," Dr. Carolyn Dean talks about how, for well over a century, the definition of health care has been pills-and-drugs. It's a deliberately schemed and manipulated paradigm that's been packaged and sold through:
The insurance industry's (including Medicare's and Medicaid's) methodology for payment, which doesn't recognize nutritional care or proven naturopathic approaches to health care
Direct-to-Consumer advertising
Influencing physicians and other health care providers through gifts, honoraria for speaking engagements, and financial support for training programs, which is simply another form of advertising
Intense lobbying by PhRMA and individual drug makers such as Merck and Pfizer
Big Bucks for Buying Doctors' Attention
When it comes to making payments to physicians it wants to influence, the pharmaceutical industry is very generous, Pharma Marketing Blog notes:
"Last year (2010) a mere dozen pharmaceutical companies paid $760 million to physicians and other health care providers for consulting, speaking, research and expenses, according to ProPublica's 'Dollars for Docs' project."
These "gifts" ranged from $50 to $2,000 for a single meal, to thousands of dollars for speaking fees, ProPublica said. In fact, one pain specialist, Gerald M. Sacks, allegedly racked in $270,825 from four different Big Pharma companies in one year! Whether that bonus income influenced Dr. Sacks' prescribing practices is unknown, but what we do know is that just between 1997 and 2005, the amount of five major painkillers sold in the U.S. jumped 90 percent – and in 2011 prescription drug overdoses replaced car accidents as the No. 1 reason for accidental deaths in the U.S., with painkillers topping the list.
It's scandalous how this happens, Dr. Dean says, because when it's all said and done, the advertising and marketing aren't even based on science!
According to a study published in 2004:
"…only 6 percent of drug advertising material is supported by scientific evidence. Therefore, most of what you read about a drug is pure fiction, and doesn't help a person to make an informed choice about what they are taking, what it will do, and how it may harm them. Drug companies are making claims based on lies."
The British Medical Journal said
"High amount of misinformation puts patients' health at risk" because "doctors tend to base their decisions on the information and advertising material sent out by drug companies."
That's right. Doctors rely on drug companies to tell them how to treat their patients, and with what drug. What's disturbing is that drug studies often result in bias favoring the sponsoring company, meaning that what your doctor is learning from drug reps may be highly slanted toward you getting a prescription for something that has little or no science behind it.
Now you know why Americans consume nearly 40 percent of all pharmaceutical products sold! As Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber say in their book, "Trust Us, We're Experts," it's the best science money can buy. However, there are two other cash-cows that drug companies love even more since it is becoming progressively more difficult to patent new drugs.
Vaccines are the New Revenue Source for Drug Companies
Vaccines are a highly controversial topic and if you still believe that most benefit from them I would encourage you to do some additional research. I have a dedicated section on this site where you can learn more. First, vaccines have not eliminated disease in the world; and secondly, they are huge moneymakers, no matter what health officials want you to think. When it comes to vaccine safety, information, and choice, I recommend the National Vaccine Information Center, which has the most informative vaccine website I know of, where you can educate yourself on vaccine choices.
When it comes to revenues, vaccines are one of the fastest-growing sectors of the pharmaceutical industry, with a projected $36.3 billion-a-year business by 2013. This business is helped along by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) which recommends vaccines in the U.S., which in turn prompts states to follow up by mandating them. But don't believe the old line that all this recommending and mandating only costs doctors money. Although the government regulates what pediatricians can charge for vaccines, it also gives some nice "incentives" for making sure you and your child get fully vaccinated.
Dubbed the "AFIX" approach, these incentives consist of an:
Assessment that evaluates how well-vaccinated a provider’s patients are, compared to what the CDC would like them to be;
Feedback to providers on what they can and must do to improve immunization rates;
Incentives to motivate physicians to step up their efforts to push vaccines on their patients; and
eXchange of information about how each provider's vaccine status compares to other providers, state norms and expected outcomes.
The incentive part of AFIX is quite broad: referred to as "opportunities for partnerships and collaboration," they range from "small tokens" of appreciation and "resources," to "assisting" with staffing, including paying for nurses and community-based vaccinators (i.e. those giving shots in drug stores). No wonder so many entities are suddenly on-board with the latest flu vaccine push! The truth is vaccines are Pharma's latest money machines.
Cancer—Another Major Revenue Stream
For more than forty years the war on cancer has been waged with abysmal results. It's no secret that we are not winning the war on cancer, partly because the FDA is a rogue, out-of-control agency that systematically sabotages serious threats to the current model. Proven cancer cures like that of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who showed a tremendous success rate for his antineoplastin treatment over 30 years ago are a great example of this suppression.
The "science" behind the FDA's decisions on what cancer studies can be introduced to the public is in the politics, and the fact that Pharma feeds the FDA's pockets, through direct fees drug companies pay the FDA to get their products reviewed, and the less-reportable, more lucrative bonuses drug companies give the FDA for such things as travel expenses and speakers' fees.
The bottom line is, as Dr. Samuel Epstein says in his book, "The Politics of Cancer," this industry is fed and led by politics.
Drug company research and publicly-funded budgets for the likes of the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the National Institute of Health are dependent on treating cancer, not preventing it. The reason is obvious: the $50 billion-a-year cancer business is growing by 15 percent a year. If they cure cancer, there goes the bottom line.
Disease Prevention 101: A Healthy Lifestyle
The best way to avoid the pitfalls of modern medicine, especially dangerous drugs, is to modify your lifestyle. Of all the healthy lifestyle strategies I know of that can have a significant impact on your health, normalizing your insulin and leptin levels is probably the most important. There is no question that this is an absolute necessity if you want to avoid disease. That means modifying your diet to avoid excessive amounts of fructose, grains, and other pro-inflammatory ingredients like trans fats, and exercising regularly.
These additional strategies can further help you stay healthy:
Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels to between 50 and 70 ng/ml.
Animal based omega-3 fats – Correcting the ratio of omega-3 to healthful omega-6 fats is a strong factor in helping people live longer. This typically means increasing your intake of animal based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil, while decreasing your intake of damaged omega-6 fats (think trans fats).
Get most of your antioxidants from foods –Good sources include blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, beans, and artichokes.
Use coconut oil – Another excellent anti-aging food is coconut oil, known to reduce your risk of heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, and lower your cholesterol, among other things.
Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible – This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
Use great caution when it comes to prescription drugs – Pharmaceutical drugs kill thousands of people prematurely every year – as an expected side effect of the action of the drug. And, if you adhere to a healthy lifestyle, you most likely will never need any of them in the first place.
Learn how to effectively cope with stress – Stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day, so developing effective coping mechanisms is a major longevity-promoting factor.
Meditation, prayer, physical activity and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using energy psychology tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden emotional problems.
Incorporating these healthy lifestyle guidelines will help set you squarely on the path to optimal health and give you the best shot at living a much longer life. Remember, it's never too late to take control of your health. And when you do go to the doctor, know that it's OK to ask questions and opt for less medical intervention while choosing a more natural way of healing your body – you should NEVER think that you're not supposed to, or can't, ask questions of the person you've entrusted with your body.
Related Links:
15 Dangerous Drugs Big Pharma Shoves Down Your Throat
Drug Companies Are Killing You Legally While Robbing You Blind
Many High Tech Health Interventions Unnecessary and Wasted
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
These Two Natural Foods Will Throw Your Blood Sugar Out-of-Whack
Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 23 2011
Story at-a-glance
A phenomenally engaging debate between two of the leading experts in the low protein, low-carb high-fat diet recommendations, Dr Ron Rosedale and Dr. Paul Jaminet
While some claim that adding certain “safe starches” like potatoes and rice back into a low-carb diet can help you avoid insulin resistance, others vehemently disagree, as these foods create marked increases in blood glucose and insulin levels
Consuming starches, especially potatoes and rice, will raise your blood sugar to some extent, which ultimately means that it will be detrimental to some degree in everybody. The higher the blood sugar rise, the more damage is done
When you “starve” your body of sugars and starchy carbs, your body starts to acclimatize itself to burn fatty acids and ketone bodies. Ketones are what your body produces when it converts fat (as opposed to glucose) into energy—a beneficial process that appears to promote longevity
By Dr. Mercola
On his website "Livin' La Vida Low Carb," Jimmy Moore examines the notion of "safe starches," a concept promoted by Paul Jaminet, PhD. in his book, Perfect Health Diet.
Dr. Jaminet claims that those on low-carb diets who add "safe starches" such as white rice and potato back into their diet will usually improve their health and improve insulin sensitivity.
I had a chance to listen to Dr. Jaminet at the Dallas Weston A. Price Conference and was impressed with his ability to consolidate research information.
He is a Ph.D. researcher, an astrophysicist, and his wife Shou-Ching is a Harvard biomedical scientist who does not personally treat patients.
I spoke with Dr. Jaminet briefly after his presentation and he agreed to be interviewed soon. From all his research he developed a very nice graphic that I believe many would find useful.
As you can see he suggests eliminating all grains and legumes.
This is a fairly radical approach that most people are not applying.
Dr. Rosedale's approach is even more carb restrictive.
You can read Dr. Jaminet's response to Dr. Rosedale here, and his earlier statement to which Dr Rosedale was replying here. It is really unusual to have two such prominent experts carry on a civil and erudite discussion on such an important topic. If you have the time and interest I would strongly recommend that you read their detailed debate.
Dr Jaminet uses the term "safe starch" to refer to starchy foods that lack protein toxins, regardless of their starch content. UK-based senior nutritionist Emily Maguire argues that terming any starch foods as "safe" could also result in a very misleading impression.
She especially questions potatoes and white rice being included as "safe" foods in any form of low carb recommendation, as their high glycemic index shows that these foods cause the greatest spike in blood sugar levels.
Dr. Ron Rosedale is a physician who first educated me about the importance of insulin. He has used low-carb diets to treat his patients with obesity, diabetes and chronic diseases for over two decades. He was even invited by prominent groups in India to help them with their health challenges, as they have some of the highest rates of diabetes in the world. He further argues that there is no such thing as a "safe" non-fiber starch (such as rice or potatoes).
You can read Dr. Rosedale's entire long detailed letter at Jimmy Moore's site. Please note it is about 20 percent down this very long page.
According to Dr. Rosedale:
"Eating starch will raise blood sugar to some extent in all living beings that do so, and that will cause some degree of harm in everybody. Therefore, the term 'safe starch' is an oxymoron. 'Tolerably harmful'? Perhaps for some".
Do You Really Need Starches?
Moore's article does include a well-written personal account of a Paleo Diet enthusiast who claims adding potatoes and rice back into her diet in moderate amounts corrected recurring anxiety attacks that developed after about five months on a strict low-carb diet. In her words:
"I saw a holistic nutritionist. I had tests run in which he could tell how my digestion was doing (urine and saliva testing). Lo and behold, I was digesting fats and carbs well, but my protein digestion was not good…
When I told him that I was waking up most nights around 3 or 4 in the morning with racing heart, he said he believed that I was waking up because my liver was trying to do its thing at this time, but was running out of glucose, giving me low blood sugar. In response to low blood sugar, the adrenals release adrenaline, which was causing the rapid heartbeat and eventually woke me from sleep..."
Once she added in one to two 3oz servings of starch in the form of potatoes or rice daily, the anxiety symptoms disappeared. It's hard to argue with such personal experiences.
Dr. Jaminet offers on the "Results" page of his web site, PerfectHealthDiet.com, other accounts from low-carb dieters who benefited from adding starches back to their diets.
But some nutrition experts with a long history of treating patients with diet, such as Dr. Rosedale, disagree with the premise that these so-called "safe starches" are beneficial in the long term for most people. He maintains that those who do suboptimally on a low carbohydrate diet do so as a result of substituting high protein for the carbohydrates, and Rosedale is adamantly against this. The majority of people who reduce carbohydrates raise protein due to the fat phobia perpetuated by the medical establishment for the last half-century. The Rosedale diet is higher in fats and oils and maintains a protein intake that is not higher than necessary.
One of the risks of promoting the idea of "safe starches" is that it grants "permission" to consume them, when most people probably shouldn't. Dr. Rosedale points out that while glucose is certainly not toxic in and of itself, foods that raise your blood sugar levels essentially are "toxic" in that they set in motion a cascade of detrimental health effects. The same can be said for fructose. It's not a toxin in and of itself, but when consumed in excess (anything above 15-25 grams/day for most people), its effects are toxic to your system and will surely have a negative impact on your health.
Now, we do have to remember that discussions such as these are aimed at the majority of people. While I have the enormous respect for Dr. Rosedale's genius in this area and deeply appreciate his first teaching me about the importance of insulin and leptin, he leaves little room for biochemical individuality. I suspect many if not most would do very well with his recommendations, but some may not. That said, I would caution you to be very careful about ignoring them.
The sheer fact that two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and one-in-four American adults have diabetes or pre-diabetes tells us that the majority, probably well over two-thirds of the U.S. adult population, needs to be very careful about eating foods that will raise their insulin levels—as starches like potatoes and rice certainly will.
If you haven't achieved the health outcomes you are seeking, it would seem reasonable to apply the rigid carb restrictions that Dr. Rosedale advises and see if it helps.
Why there's No Such Thing as a "Safe Starch"
In many ways this is an advanced topic and for the majority of people going into areas that they will likely never explore. It really is for those seeking to achieve exceptional high levels of health, not for the over two thirds of the population that are overweight.
Dr. Rosedale offers a large volume of data to support his stance against starches in the featured article, and I highly recommend taking the time to read through it all, plus Dr. Jaminet's reply. Here I will summarize a few of the key points Dr. Rosedale presents in opposition to the "safe starch" concept.
Dr. Jaminet had previously boiled down the debate into two key points:
On low-carb diets, is it better to eat 100 grams (= 400 calories) of carbs per day, as Perfect Health Diet argues, or some lower number of carb
Are "safe starches" the best source of carb calories?
I keep very careful track of my diet with one of the best diet apps on the iPad (in my opinion) called Calorie Counter and Fitness Tracker. My guess is most people are not keeping such detailed records of what they eat. I typically have about 60-70% of my diet as healthy fat and only consume about 100 grams of carbohydrates a day or less than 20% of my total calories. This amount is in line with Perfect Health Diet recommendations, but in my diet, most of the non-fiber carbohydrates are veggies. Only a few meals a week will include some grains as they are a real treat.
Dr. Rosedale is adamant that there simply is no such thing as a safe non-fiber starch. Why? Because consuming starches, especially potatoes and rice, will raise your blood sugar to some extent, which ultimately means that it will be detrimental to some degree in everybody.
My guess is that from a biochemical perspective he is probably right.
This is because when you raise glucose levels, you raise your insulin levels, which in turn increases insulin resistance—and insulin resistance is at the root of virtually all chronic disease, and speeds up the aging process itself. Dr. Rosedale also points out that contrary to Jaminet's speculation, there is a threshold for blood glucose that predicates whether the carbs you eat will be beneficial or detrimental, such a threshold does not exist.
In his words:
"Very simply, the higher the blood sugar rise, the more damage is done in some linear upward slope. This seems to be quite clear, and should put the issue to rest." [Emphasis mine]
Since there is no threshold for blood glucose below which it will not do some level of harm (as it's simply a sliding scale of harm), Dr. Rosedale states that the question of whether or not "safe starches" are the "best" types of carbs becomes moot.
Sugar is Not an Essential Nutrient
Most of you probably know that your body does need, and uses, glucose for energy. Without it you wouldn't survive. Here, it's important to understand that the debate is about whether or not you need to supply your body with sugar from your diet, or whether gluconeogenesis (the metabolic pathway that generates glucose from non-carbohydrate substrates) is the ideal mechanism.
Dr. Rosedale dispels the notion that sugar is a necessary dietary component (barring a hypoglycemic crisis).
According to Dr. Rosedale:
"There is no known need to eat sugar or starches. If there were, it would be an essential nutrient, which glucose is not. It is not listed on any list of essential (or even conditionally essential) nutrients (that we must obtain [from our diet] because we cannot make them sufficiently ourselves), that I'm aware of.
Whether or not "glucose deficiency symptoms" exist, they would not be due to a lack of glucose."
… [Jaminet] is correct to refer to so-called "glucose deficiency" as a symptom. However, it is not symptoms that we must treat. As much as possible we need to get down to the underlying disease. Even if the symptom had to do with glucose, the disease would not be due to a lack of glucose but rather to wrong instructions about what to do with it. Just consuming more of a nutrient or building block without the body properly knowing what to do with it is likely to cause more harm than good. Osteoporosis, for instance, at least in this country, is rarely due to a lack of calcium.
There is a strong positive correlation between those with osteoporosis and those with coronary calcifications. The calcium is there, it's just in the wrong places.
… A disease is never a disease of the individual part. Diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar, osteoporosis is not a disease of calcium and heart disease is NOT a disease of cholesterol. A disease is caused not by the breakdown of the part itself, but corruption in the instructions to that part, a disruption in the unity of the whole."
Why You Don't NEED Sugar in Your Diet
When you "starve" your body of sugars and starchy carbs, your body starts to acclimatize itself to burn fatty acids and ketones (also known as ketoacids, or ketone bodies). Ketones are what your body produces when it converts fat (as opposed to glucose) into energy.
As an example, let's look at your brain. One of the primary fuels your brain needs is glucose, which is converted into energy. But does that mean you need dietary sugar?
The mechanism for glucose uptake in your brain has only recently begun to be studied, and what has been learned is that your brain actually manufactures its own insulin to convert glucose in your blood stream into the food it needs to survive. When your brain becomes insulin resistant—meaning, when its response to insulin is weakened to the point that it stops producing the insulin necessary to regulate blood sugar—it begins to starve and atrophy, causing many of the symptoms of Alzheimer's.
Fortunately, your brain is able to run on more than one type of energy supply, namely ketones. Ketone bodies may even be able to restore and renew neuron and nerve function in your brain after damage has set in, as Dr. Mary Newport's research on coconut oil as a treatment for Alzheimer's suggests (coconut oil naturally contains 66 percent medium chain triglycerides, which are a primary source of ketones).
So, even when it comes to something as essential as providing fuel for your brain, there's actually little or no evidence that consuming sugars is necessary, as long as you provide it with the proper—or likely preferential—fuel, which is healthy fat.
While Dr Jaminet recommends consuming 400 calories, or about 100 grams of mostly fiber-based carbs a day to avoid what he refers to as "glucose deficiency symptoms," Dr. Rosedale counters these claims with research from the likes of George Cahill, by many considered one of the world's experts in the metabolism of starvation.
Dr. Rosedale writes:
"It takes at least several weeks to fully adapt to extremely low sugar intake, such that the body can effectively burn fatty acids and ketones… Let's see what George Cahill has to say about glucose needs in a person well adapted to no carbohydrate intake… [Cahill] recently wrote a paper summarizing many of his long professional career's findings. They are the following:
"Total splanchnic glucose production [to fulfill body needs] in several weeks' starvation amounts to approximately 80 grams daily. About 10–11 grams/day come from glucose synthesis from ketone bodies, 35–40 grams from recycled lactate and pyruvate, 20 grams from fat-derived glycerol, and the remaining 15–20 grams from protein-derived amino acids, mainly alanine."
"… An approximation for clinical use is that if a diet contains over 100 grams carbohydrate, there is no ketosis (<0.1 mM). As one decreases dietary carbohydrate, ketogenesis begins...Glucose administration to fasting normals reverses starvation metabolism rapidly..." [Emphasis mine.]
Therefore, Dr. Rosedale summarizes:
"[U]nder a fully adapted, zero carbohydrate milieu, one only needs approximately 80 g (~320 cal) of glucose daily, the vast majority of which could be derived from fat and non protein sources. Only 15 to 20g need come from proteins, and likely less if one was actually eating fat that would allow for greater glycerol production and protein sparing." [Emphasis mine.]
In Dr Jaminet's reply to Dr Rosedale, he argues that although people can survive on zero glucose consumption due to ketone generation, this is not optimal. For "perfect health," one should provide the body with some dietary glucose. Dr. Jaminet acknowledges that some level of ketosis is desirable, but this can be achieved even with consumption of 100 grams carbohydrate daily if coconut oil is consumed, or transiently during the latter parts of the overnight fast.
Calorie Restriction for Longevity
As Dr. Rosedale mentions, calorie restrictions has repeatedly been shown to be one of the most effective strategies for reversing disease and extending lifespan.
First, sugar (whether it's glucose or any other sugar) glycates, and glycation is one of the most devastating molecular mechanisms there is. Glycation is in large part responsible for the signs of aging. Second, ketosis, which is needed for gluconeogenesis (creation of glucose), will not occur if you consume more than about 100 grams of carbohydrates a day, according to Cahill's research.
So the KEY to calorie restriction is understanding which calories to restrict!
Specifically, calories from carbs are the ones that need to go first, and need to be restricted the most severely.
The detrimental impact of sugar applies to everyone, without exception, to some degree. So while the health effects may be less noticeable in some than in others, it's simply a matter of scale. Then, it's a matter of time until your particular body "gives up" after having compensated and adjusted to the insult over a period of time. In this case, once your body loses its ability to compensate for the continuous influx of daily glucose consumption by spiking insulin and leptin (even if it's moderate; remember it's like a sliding scale of harm that is dose-dependent), you eventually develop insulin and leptin resistance.
Dr. Rosedale includes a number of relevant studies showing the harmful effects of carbohydrates. For all of them, please see the original article. Here are just a few:
PLoS Genetics 2009: "[E]xcess of glucose has been associated with several diseases, including diabetes and the less understood process of aging. On the contrary, limiting glucose (i.e., calorie restriction) slows aging and age-related diseases in most species…The pro-aging effect of glucose signaling on life span correlated with an increase in reactive oxygen species and a decrease in oxidative stress resistance and respiration rate. Likewise, the anti-aging effect of both calorie restriction and the Dgit3 mutation was accompanied by increased respiration and lower reactive oxygen species production."
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 2000: "Blood samples were drawn from 14 normal subjects prior to, at 1, 2 and 3 hours following ingestion of 75 g glucose…We conclude that glucose intake…increases oxidative load [in leukocytes] and causes a fall in a-tocopherol concentration."
Dr. Jaminet argues in response that while moderate carbohydrate restriction is good – thus his advocacy of a low-carb diet – too much carbohydrate restriction can be harmful. In particular, when carbs are scarce body temperature is lowered to conserve glucose, and low body temperature increases risk of infections which might shorten lifespan
Starches Raise Glucose which Contributes to Chronic Disease
So, to sum it up in the fewest number of words possible, know that:
Raising blood glucose raises insulin, which increases insulin and leptin resistance.
And avoiding insulin and leptin resistance is perhaps the single most important factors if you seek optimal health and longevity. Therefore, consuming more than about 80 grams of carbs per day, based on the research, cannot be recommended.
That said, are potatoes and rice, specifically, a more healthful choice than, say, bread or pasta?
No. As explained by Dr. Rosedale, these foods, or any other type of non-fiber starch, will result in the following adverse consequences, regardless of your current state of health:
They will quickly be converted into glucose, which will raise your blood glucose
As your blood glucose rises, your insulin- and leptin levels rise in response. While this mechanism is designed to optimize short-term survival, it's not healthy for a long, post-reproductive lifespan. The immediate effects of spiking your insulin levels are now well known and include vasoconstriction, inhibited fat burning, and reduced production of glycerol substrates to make glucose, just to name a few. For more information, please read Dr. Rosedale's article, Insulin and its Metabolic Effects
Repeated elevations of insulin and leptin eventually lead to insulin- and leptin resistance, which are hallmarks of poor health
However Dr. Jaminet would counter that if you are going to include the carbs mentioned above, rice would be far superior to wheat due to the lectins, gluten and other items in wheat that serve as anti-nutrients and toxins, and that sweet potatoes would be far better than white sugary (fructose-rich) carb sources like white potatoes.
Bottom Line
If you are looking for a new and solid eating plan based on solid science I would strongly recommend Dr. Jaminet's book Perfect Health Diet. Your goal will be 50-70% of your diet as healthy fat which will radically reduce your carbohydrate intake. Most people will likely notice massive improvement in their health by following this approach as they are consuming FAR more grain and bean carbohydrates in their diet.
One of Dr. Jaminet's final conclusions is
"A 20% carb diet, while not optimal for every single person, is healthy for nearly everyone. Twenty percent may be the best single prediction of the optimal carb intake for the population as a whole."
If you are already healthy and seeking to take it to the next level and are willing to experiment then give Dr. Rosedale's suggestions a try and eliminate nearly all non-fiber carbs. They will be very challenging to implement but may provide outstanding results. More information from Dr. Rosedale can be found here.
Whatever diet choices you make please remember ALWAYS listen to your body as it will give you feedback if what you are doing is right for your unique biochemistry and genetics. Listen to that feedback and adjust your program accordingly.
For even more information on this topic, you can follow the still-ongoing discussion between Dr. Rosedale and Dr. Jaminet in the Perfect Health Diet: Safe Starches Symposium.
Source: Livin’ La Vida Low Carb
Source: PerfectHealthDiet.com
Related Links:
Mercola’s Nutritional Plan: Carbohydrates
Low Grain and Carbohydrate Diets Treat Hypoglycemia, Heart Disease, Diabetes Cancer and Nearly ALL Chronic Illness
The Amazing Anti-Aging Discovery Experts Say Deserves the Nobel Prize...
Story at-a-glance
A phenomenally engaging debate between two of the leading experts in the low protein, low-carb high-fat diet recommendations, Dr Ron Rosedale and Dr. Paul Jaminet
While some claim that adding certain “safe starches” like potatoes and rice back into a low-carb diet can help you avoid insulin resistance, others vehemently disagree, as these foods create marked increases in blood glucose and insulin levels
Consuming starches, especially potatoes and rice, will raise your blood sugar to some extent, which ultimately means that it will be detrimental to some degree in everybody. The higher the blood sugar rise, the more damage is done
When you “starve” your body of sugars and starchy carbs, your body starts to acclimatize itself to burn fatty acids and ketone bodies. Ketones are what your body produces when it converts fat (as opposed to glucose) into energy—a beneficial process that appears to promote longevity
By Dr. Mercola
On his website "Livin' La Vida Low Carb," Jimmy Moore examines the notion of "safe starches," a concept promoted by Paul Jaminet, PhD. in his book, Perfect Health Diet.
Dr. Jaminet claims that those on low-carb diets who add "safe starches" such as white rice and potato back into their diet will usually improve their health and improve insulin sensitivity.
I had a chance to listen to Dr. Jaminet at the Dallas Weston A. Price Conference and was impressed with his ability to consolidate research information.
He is a Ph.D. researcher, an astrophysicist, and his wife Shou-Ching is a Harvard biomedical scientist who does not personally treat patients.
I spoke with Dr. Jaminet briefly after his presentation and he agreed to be interviewed soon. From all his research he developed a very nice graphic that I believe many would find useful.
As you can see he suggests eliminating all grains and legumes.
This is a fairly radical approach that most people are not applying.
Dr. Rosedale's approach is even more carb restrictive.
You can read Dr. Jaminet's response to Dr. Rosedale here, and his earlier statement to which Dr Rosedale was replying here. It is really unusual to have two such prominent experts carry on a civil and erudite discussion on such an important topic. If you have the time and interest I would strongly recommend that you read their detailed debate.
Dr Jaminet uses the term "safe starch" to refer to starchy foods that lack protein toxins, regardless of their starch content. UK-based senior nutritionist Emily Maguire argues that terming any starch foods as "safe" could also result in a very misleading impression.
She especially questions potatoes and white rice being included as "safe" foods in any form of low carb recommendation, as their high glycemic index shows that these foods cause the greatest spike in blood sugar levels.
Dr. Ron Rosedale is a physician who first educated me about the importance of insulin. He has used low-carb diets to treat his patients with obesity, diabetes and chronic diseases for over two decades. He was even invited by prominent groups in India to help them with their health challenges, as they have some of the highest rates of diabetes in the world. He further argues that there is no such thing as a "safe" non-fiber starch (such as rice or potatoes).
You can read Dr. Rosedale's entire long detailed letter at Jimmy Moore's site. Please note it is about 20 percent down this very long page.
According to Dr. Rosedale:
"Eating starch will raise blood sugar to some extent in all living beings that do so, and that will cause some degree of harm in everybody. Therefore, the term 'safe starch' is an oxymoron. 'Tolerably harmful'? Perhaps for some".
Do You Really Need Starches?
Moore's article does include a well-written personal account of a Paleo Diet enthusiast who claims adding potatoes and rice back into her diet in moderate amounts corrected recurring anxiety attacks that developed after about five months on a strict low-carb diet. In her words:
"I saw a holistic nutritionist. I had tests run in which he could tell how my digestion was doing (urine and saliva testing). Lo and behold, I was digesting fats and carbs well, but my protein digestion was not good…
When I told him that I was waking up most nights around 3 or 4 in the morning with racing heart, he said he believed that I was waking up because my liver was trying to do its thing at this time, but was running out of glucose, giving me low blood sugar. In response to low blood sugar, the adrenals release adrenaline, which was causing the rapid heartbeat and eventually woke me from sleep..."
Once she added in one to two 3oz servings of starch in the form of potatoes or rice daily, the anxiety symptoms disappeared. It's hard to argue with such personal experiences.
Dr. Jaminet offers on the "Results" page of his web site, PerfectHealthDiet.com, other accounts from low-carb dieters who benefited from adding starches back to their diets.
But some nutrition experts with a long history of treating patients with diet, such as Dr. Rosedale, disagree with the premise that these so-called "safe starches" are beneficial in the long term for most people. He maintains that those who do suboptimally on a low carbohydrate diet do so as a result of substituting high protein for the carbohydrates, and Rosedale is adamantly against this. The majority of people who reduce carbohydrates raise protein due to the fat phobia perpetuated by the medical establishment for the last half-century. The Rosedale diet is higher in fats and oils and maintains a protein intake that is not higher than necessary.
One of the risks of promoting the idea of "safe starches" is that it grants "permission" to consume them, when most people probably shouldn't. Dr. Rosedale points out that while glucose is certainly not toxic in and of itself, foods that raise your blood sugar levels essentially are "toxic" in that they set in motion a cascade of detrimental health effects. The same can be said for fructose. It's not a toxin in and of itself, but when consumed in excess (anything above 15-25 grams/day for most people), its effects are toxic to your system and will surely have a negative impact on your health.
Now, we do have to remember that discussions such as these are aimed at the majority of people. While I have the enormous respect for Dr. Rosedale's genius in this area and deeply appreciate his first teaching me about the importance of insulin and leptin, he leaves little room for biochemical individuality. I suspect many if not most would do very well with his recommendations, but some may not. That said, I would caution you to be very careful about ignoring them.
The sheer fact that two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and one-in-four American adults have diabetes or pre-diabetes tells us that the majority, probably well over two-thirds of the U.S. adult population, needs to be very careful about eating foods that will raise their insulin levels—as starches like potatoes and rice certainly will.
If you haven't achieved the health outcomes you are seeking, it would seem reasonable to apply the rigid carb restrictions that Dr. Rosedale advises and see if it helps.
Why there's No Such Thing as a "Safe Starch"
In many ways this is an advanced topic and for the majority of people going into areas that they will likely never explore. It really is for those seeking to achieve exceptional high levels of health, not for the over two thirds of the population that are overweight.
Dr. Rosedale offers a large volume of data to support his stance against starches in the featured article, and I highly recommend taking the time to read through it all, plus Dr. Jaminet's reply. Here I will summarize a few of the key points Dr. Rosedale presents in opposition to the "safe starch" concept.
Dr. Jaminet had previously boiled down the debate into two key points:
On low-carb diets, is it better to eat 100 grams (= 400 calories) of carbs per day, as Perfect Health Diet argues, or some lower number of carb
Are "safe starches" the best source of carb calories?
I keep very careful track of my diet with one of the best diet apps on the iPad (in my opinion) called Calorie Counter and Fitness Tracker. My guess is most people are not keeping such detailed records of what they eat. I typically have about 60-70% of my diet as healthy fat and only consume about 100 grams of carbohydrates a day or less than 20% of my total calories. This amount is in line with Perfect Health Diet recommendations, but in my diet, most of the non-fiber carbohydrates are veggies. Only a few meals a week will include some grains as they are a real treat.
Dr. Rosedale is adamant that there simply is no such thing as a safe non-fiber starch. Why? Because consuming starches, especially potatoes and rice, will raise your blood sugar to some extent, which ultimately means that it will be detrimental to some degree in everybody.
My guess is that from a biochemical perspective he is probably right.
This is because when you raise glucose levels, you raise your insulin levels, which in turn increases insulin resistance—and insulin resistance is at the root of virtually all chronic disease, and speeds up the aging process itself. Dr. Rosedale also points out that contrary to Jaminet's speculation, there is a threshold for blood glucose that predicates whether the carbs you eat will be beneficial or detrimental, such a threshold does not exist.
In his words:
"Very simply, the higher the blood sugar rise, the more damage is done in some linear upward slope. This seems to be quite clear, and should put the issue to rest." [Emphasis mine]
Since there is no threshold for blood glucose below which it will not do some level of harm (as it's simply a sliding scale of harm), Dr. Rosedale states that the question of whether or not "safe starches" are the "best" types of carbs becomes moot.
Sugar is Not an Essential Nutrient
Most of you probably know that your body does need, and uses, glucose for energy. Without it you wouldn't survive. Here, it's important to understand that the debate is about whether or not you need to supply your body with sugar from your diet, or whether gluconeogenesis (the metabolic pathway that generates glucose from non-carbohydrate substrates) is the ideal mechanism.
Dr. Rosedale dispels the notion that sugar is a necessary dietary component (barring a hypoglycemic crisis).
According to Dr. Rosedale:
"There is no known need to eat sugar or starches. If there were, it would be an essential nutrient, which glucose is not. It is not listed on any list of essential (or even conditionally essential) nutrients (that we must obtain [from our diet] because we cannot make them sufficiently ourselves), that I'm aware of.
Whether or not "glucose deficiency symptoms" exist, they would not be due to a lack of glucose."
… [Jaminet] is correct to refer to so-called "glucose deficiency" as a symptom. However, it is not symptoms that we must treat. As much as possible we need to get down to the underlying disease. Even if the symptom had to do with glucose, the disease would not be due to a lack of glucose but rather to wrong instructions about what to do with it. Just consuming more of a nutrient or building block without the body properly knowing what to do with it is likely to cause more harm than good. Osteoporosis, for instance, at least in this country, is rarely due to a lack of calcium.
There is a strong positive correlation between those with osteoporosis and those with coronary calcifications. The calcium is there, it's just in the wrong places.
… A disease is never a disease of the individual part. Diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar, osteoporosis is not a disease of calcium and heart disease is NOT a disease of cholesterol. A disease is caused not by the breakdown of the part itself, but corruption in the instructions to that part, a disruption in the unity of the whole."
Why You Don't NEED Sugar in Your Diet
When you "starve" your body of sugars and starchy carbs, your body starts to acclimatize itself to burn fatty acids and ketones (also known as ketoacids, or ketone bodies). Ketones are what your body produces when it converts fat (as opposed to glucose) into energy.
As an example, let's look at your brain. One of the primary fuels your brain needs is glucose, which is converted into energy. But does that mean you need dietary sugar?
The mechanism for glucose uptake in your brain has only recently begun to be studied, and what has been learned is that your brain actually manufactures its own insulin to convert glucose in your blood stream into the food it needs to survive. When your brain becomes insulin resistant—meaning, when its response to insulin is weakened to the point that it stops producing the insulin necessary to regulate blood sugar—it begins to starve and atrophy, causing many of the symptoms of Alzheimer's.
Fortunately, your brain is able to run on more than one type of energy supply, namely ketones. Ketone bodies may even be able to restore and renew neuron and nerve function in your brain after damage has set in, as Dr. Mary Newport's research on coconut oil as a treatment for Alzheimer's suggests (coconut oil naturally contains 66 percent medium chain triglycerides, which are a primary source of ketones).
So, even when it comes to something as essential as providing fuel for your brain, there's actually little or no evidence that consuming sugars is necessary, as long as you provide it with the proper—or likely preferential—fuel, which is healthy fat.
While Dr Jaminet recommends consuming 400 calories, or about 100 grams of mostly fiber-based carbs a day to avoid what he refers to as "glucose deficiency symptoms," Dr. Rosedale counters these claims with research from the likes of George Cahill, by many considered one of the world's experts in the metabolism of starvation.
Dr. Rosedale writes:
"It takes at least several weeks to fully adapt to extremely low sugar intake, such that the body can effectively burn fatty acids and ketones… Let's see what George Cahill has to say about glucose needs in a person well adapted to no carbohydrate intake… [Cahill] recently wrote a paper summarizing many of his long professional career's findings. They are the following:
"Total splanchnic glucose production [to fulfill body needs] in several weeks' starvation amounts to approximately 80 grams daily. About 10–11 grams/day come from glucose synthesis from ketone bodies, 35–40 grams from recycled lactate and pyruvate, 20 grams from fat-derived glycerol, and the remaining 15–20 grams from protein-derived amino acids, mainly alanine."
"… An approximation for clinical use is that if a diet contains over 100 grams carbohydrate, there is no ketosis (<0.1 mM). As one decreases dietary carbohydrate, ketogenesis begins...Glucose administration to fasting normals reverses starvation metabolism rapidly..." [Emphasis mine.]
Therefore, Dr. Rosedale summarizes:
"[U]nder a fully adapted, zero carbohydrate milieu, one only needs approximately 80 g (~320 cal) of glucose daily, the vast majority of which could be derived from fat and non protein sources. Only 15 to 20g need come from proteins, and likely less if one was actually eating fat that would allow for greater glycerol production and protein sparing." [Emphasis mine.]
In Dr Jaminet's reply to Dr Rosedale, he argues that although people can survive on zero glucose consumption due to ketone generation, this is not optimal. For "perfect health," one should provide the body with some dietary glucose. Dr. Jaminet acknowledges that some level of ketosis is desirable, but this can be achieved even with consumption of 100 grams carbohydrate daily if coconut oil is consumed, or transiently during the latter parts of the overnight fast.
Calorie Restriction for Longevity
As Dr. Rosedale mentions, calorie restrictions has repeatedly been shown to be one of the most effective strategies for reversing disease and extending lifespan.
First, sugar (whether it's glucose or any other sugar) glycates, and glycation is one of the most devastating molecular mechanisms there is. Glycation is in large part responsible for the signs of aging. Second, ketosis, which is needed for gluconeogenesis (creation of glucose), will not occur if you consume more than about 100 grams of carbohydrates a day, according to Cahill's research.
So the KEY to calorie restriction is understanding which calories to restrict!
Specifically, calories from carbs are the ones that need to go first, and need to be restricted the most severely.
The detrimental impact of sugar applies to everyone, without exception, to some degree. So while the health effects may be less noticeable in some than in others, it's simply a matter of scale. Then, it's a matter of time until your particular body "gives up" after having compensated and adjusted to the insult over a period of time. In this case, once your body loses its ability to compensate for the continuous influx of daily glucose consumption by spiking insulin and leptin (even if it's moderate; remember it's like a sliding scale of harm that is dose-dependent), you eventually develop insulin and leptin resistance.
Dr. Rosedale includes a number of relevant studies showing the harmful effects of carbohydrates. For all of them, please see the original article. Here are just a few:
PLoS Genetics 2009: "[E]xcess of glucose has been associated with several diseases, including diabetes and the less understood process of aging. On the contrary, limiting glucose (i.e., calorie restriction) slows aging and age-related diseases in most species…The pro-aging effect of glucose signaling on life span correlated with an increase in reactive oxygen species and a decrease in oxidative stress resistance and respiration rate. Likewise, the anti-aging effect of both calorie restriction and the Dgit3 mutation was accompanied by increased respiration and lower reactive oxygen species production."
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 2000: "Blood samples were drawn from 14 normal subjects prior to, at 1, 2 and 3 hours following ingestion of 75 g glucose…We conclude that glucose intake…increases oxidative load [in leukocytes] and causes a fall in a-tocopherol concentration."
Dr. Jaminet argues in response that while moderate carbohydrate restriction is good – thus his advocacy of a low-carb diet – too much carbohydrate restriction can be harmful. In particular, when carbs are scarce body temperature is lowered to conserve glucose, and low body temperature increases risk of infections which might shorten lifespan
Starches Raise Glucose which Contributes to Chronic Disease
So, to sum it up in the fewest number of words possible, know that:
Raising blood glucose raises insulin, which increases insulin and leptin resistance.
And avoiding insulin and leptin resistance is perhaps the single most important factors if you seek optimal health and longevity. Therefore, consuming more than about 80 grams of carbs per day, based on the research, cannot be recommended.
That said, are potatoes and rice, specifically, a more healthful choice than, say, bread or pasta?
No. As explained by Dr. Rosedale, these foods, or any other type of non-fiber starch, will result in the following adverse consequences, regardless of your current state of health:
They will quickly be converted into glucose, which will raise your blood glucose
As your blood glucose rises, your insulin- and leptin levels rise in response. While this mechanism is designed to optimize short-term survival, it's not healthy for a long, post-reproductive lifespan. The immediate effects of spiking your insulin levels are now well known and include vasoconstriction, inhibited fat burning, and reduced production of glycerol substrates to make glucose, just to name a few. For more information, please read Dr. Rosedale's article, Insulin and its Metabolic Effects
Repeated elevations of insulin and leptin eventually lead to insulin- and leptin resistance, which are hallmarks of poor health
However Dr. Jaminet would counter that if you are going to include the carbs mentioned above, rice would be far superior to wheat due to the lectins, gluten and other items in wheat that serve as anti-nutrients and toxins, and that sweet potatoes would be far better than white sugary (fructose-rich) carb sources like white potatoes.
Bottom Line
If you are looking for a new and solid eating plan based on solid science I would strongly recommend Dr. Jaminet's book Perfect Health Diet. Your goal will be 50-70% of your diet as healthy fat which will radically reduce your carbohydrate intake. Most people will likely notice massive improvement in their health by following this approach as they are consuming FAR more grain and bean carbohydrates in their diet.
One of Dr. Jaminet's final conclusions is
"A 20% carb diet, while not optimal for every single person, is healthy for nearly everyone. Twenty percent may be the best single prediction of the optimal carb intake for the population as a whole."
If you are already healthy and seeking to take it to the next level and are willing to experiment then give Dr. Rosedale's suggestions a try and eliminate nearly all non-fiber carbs. They will be very challenging to implement but may provide outstanding results. More information from Dr. Rosedale can be found here.
Whatever diet choices you make please remember ALWAYS listen to your body as it will give you feedback if what you are doing is right for your unique biochemistry and genetics. Listen to that feedback and adjust your program accordingly.
For even more information on this topic, you can follow the still-ongoing discussion between Dr. Rosedale and Dr. Jaminet in the Perfect Health Diet: Safe Starches Symposium.
Source: Livin’ La Vida Low Carb
Source: PerfectHealthDiet.com
Related Links:
Mercola’s Nutritional Plan: Carbohydrates
Low Grain and Carbohydrate Diets Treat Hypoglycemia, Heart Disease, Diabetes Cancer and Nearly ALL Chronic Illness
The Amazing Anti-Aging Discovery Experts Say Deserves the Nobel Prize...
Monday, November 21, 2011
Drinking This "Popular Poison" is Worse than Smoking
Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 21 2011
Story at-a-glance
The soda industry engages in many of the same marketing tactics as Big Tobacco, including forming “independent” front groups, funding research to discredit links to health problems, and making large donations to health organizations
Soda is linked to numerous health problems among children and adults, including obesity, liver disease and even violent behavior; frequent soft drink consumption is associated with a 9-15% increase in aggressive behavior, according to new research
Processed foods and junk foods are heavily marketed to kids and promoted to schools; manufacturers of sugar-laden processed foods pay “rebates” (aka “kickbacks”) to food service companies that serve school districts across the United States
You can fight back against soda and junk-food giants by purchasing healthy, locally grown organic foods instead of processed foods and beverages
By Dr. Mercola
Soda, which is loaded with sugar primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup, is a leading contributor to the rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases facing Americans.
So when I say that drinking a can of soda is just as bad for you as smoking a cigarette (and maybe even worse) it is not an exaggeration.
Drinking soda is in many ways worse for you than smoking, and it is only because of massive marketing campaigns from the industry that these sugary beverages are deemed acceptable for our most vulnerable members of society – our kids.
In the 21st century there would indeed be an uproar if tobacco companies attempted to target our kids, but the soda companies do it everyday.
It's time to wake up and face the facts: the soda industry is out for your children, and the message they send is every bit as damaging (and manipulative) as the one spewed by Big Tobacco.
Striking Similarities Between the Soda Industry and Big Tobacco
If I asked you to quickly recall a commercial or slogan from leading soda companies, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, could you do it?
Chances are you'd have no trouble recalling the friendly polar bear commercials or "the real thing" logo, and if you asked your kids, they'd probably come up with a few too.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for how beverage big-wigs have gotten their products firmly embedded into the homes of millions of Americans and others worldwide. Coca-Cola, for instance, spends close to $3 billion a year on advertising. With that amount of money it's no wonder the company has managed to hold on to its wholesome reputation.
They, and other beverage giants, are also in the habit of forming strategic alliances with health organizations that make it appear as though they are looking out for your health, which is about as laughable as Big Tobacco sponsoring a marathon. And like Big Tobacco, they also create front groups to fight anti-soda legislation and science.
For instance, as Time magazine reported:
The American Beverage Association, which represents Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other soft drink producers, has attacked suggestions to tax soda as "discriminatory." Their organization is touted as a "neutral forum," but in reality is devoted to discrediting negative press against soft drinks. For instance, in relation to obesity, ABA states, "All of our industry's beverages can be enjoyed as part of a balanced lifestlye."
The soda industry has created the front group Americans Against Food Taxes, which runs anti-tax campaigns. As Kelly Brownell wrote in Time:
"The name of the group implies a patriotic, grass roots movement, not a highly financed entity initiated and organized by industry."
Another industry-created front group, Foundation for a Healthy America, recently donated $10 million to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to research and prevent childhood obesity! Diet Coke has also teamed up with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to raise awareness for women's heart health programs and was the official "Beverage of Choice" for the 2010 winter Olympics.
The soda industry funds research to discredit links between soda drinking and health problems. Brownwell writes:
"The tobacco industry paid scientists who did research disputing links between smoking and lung cancer, the addictive nature of nicotine, and the dangers of second-hand smoke. The soda industry funds scientists who reliably produce research showing no link between SSB [sugar-sweetened beverage] consumption and health. The tobacco industry bought favor from community and national organizations by giving large donations. In an ironic twist, Coca Cola and PepsiCo are corporate sponsors of the American Dietetic Association."
The Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness (isn't that name an oxymoron?) even creates continuing education courses for registered dietitians!
The Top Reason to Give Soda the Boot …
Some of you reading this are undoubtedly thinking, how bad could soda really be? From my perspective, there is absolutely NO REASON you or your kids should ever drink soda. If you were stranded in the middle of a desert with no other fluid available, then maybe, but other than that … none, nada, zip, zero. No excuses.
From a health perspective, drinking Coke or any soft drink is a disaster. Just one extra can of soda per day can add as much as 15 pounds to your weight over the course of a single year, not to mention increase your risk of diabetes by 85 percent. The primary reason why soda is so dangerous to your health?
Fructose.
The fructose content of the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) used in many popular soda brands has been sorely underestimated. Around 100 years ago the average American consumed a mere 15 grams of fructose a day, primarily in the form of fruit. One hundred years later, one fourth of Americans are consuming more than 135 grams per day, largely in the form of soda.
Fructose at 15 grams a day is harmless (unless you suffer from high uric acid levels). However, at nearly 10 times that amount it becomes a major cause of obesity and nearly all chronic degenerative diseases. Instead of consisting of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, many soda brands, including Coke, Pepsi and Sprite, contain as much as 65 percent fructose, nearly 20 percent higher than originally believed.
According to one study, the mean fructose content of all 23 sodas tested was 59 percent -- higher than claimed by the industry. When you consider that Americans drink an average of 53 to 57 gallons of soda per year (depending on the source of your statistics), this difference in actual fructose content could make a huge difference in your health.
The Down and Dirty About Fructose
The American Beverage Association and other front groups will try to persuade you that fructose in high fructose corn syrup is no worse for you than sugar, but this is not true. ABA also claims there is "no association between high fructose corn syrup and obesity," but a long lineup of scientific studies suggest otherwise.
For example:
Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children's Hospital did a study of the effects of sugar-sweetened drinks on obesity in children. He found that for each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened drink, both body mass index and odds of obesity increased.
The Fizzy Drink Study in Christchurch, England explored the effects on obesity when soda machines were removed from schools for one year. In the schools where the machines were removed, obesity stayed constant. In the schools where soda machines remained, obesity rates continued to rise.
In a 2009 study, 16 volunteers were fed a controlled diet including high levels of fructose. Ten weeks later, the volunteers had produced new fat cells around their hearts, livers and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. A second group of volunteers who were fed a similar diet, but with glucose replacing fructose, did not have these problems.
Fructose is also a likely culprit behind the millions of U.S. children struggling with non-alcoholic liver disease, which is caused by a build-up of fat within liver cells. Fructose is very hard on your liver, in much the same way as drinking alcohol.
Liver burden number one: After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver—ONLY your liver can break it down. This is much different than consuming glucose, in which your liver has to break down only 20 percent, and the remaining 80 percent is immediately metabolized and used by the rest of the cells in your body.
Liver burden number two: Fructose is converted into fat that gets stored in your liver and other tissues as body fat. Part of what makes fructose so bad for your health is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar. For example, if you eat 120 calories of fructose, 40 calories are stored as fat. But if you eat the same amount of glucose, less than one calorie gets stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
Fructose metabolism is very similar to the way alcohol is metabolized, which has a multitude of toxic metabolites that, if consumed in excess, can lead to non-alcoholic liver disease. For a complete discussion of fructose metabolism, see my comprehensive article about this.
Diet Soda is NOT a Safe Alternative to Regular Soda
If you think you're better off drinking diet soda, think again. In fact, if I had to choose between the two, I'd take regular soda over diet. Instead of fructose, diet soda contains artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame or sucralose (Splenda). With all the research now available on aspartame and its various ingredients, it's hard to believe such a chemical would even be allowed into the food supply, but it is, and it's been silently wreaking havoc with people's health for the past 30 years.
Just to refresh your memory, aspartame has been linked to the following health concerns, and Splenda is associated with many similar problems:
Lymphomas, leukemias, and brain cancer Asthma
Neurological symptoms including headaches, depressed and anxious mood, seizures, memory loss, hallucinations, and dizziness Visual changes
Weakness and fatigue Joint pain
Sleep disorders Weight gain and diabetes
Abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea Rashes and hives
Does Soda Actually Cause Violence?
It's a well-known fact that poor diet, particularly one high in sugar, exacts a toll on your emotional health.
For example, one recent study published in the journal Psychology Today found a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia. It's also a well-known fact that chronic inflammation plays a major role in heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and cancer. So consuming excessive amounts of sugary beverages can truly set off an avalanche of negative health events -- both mental and physical.
A diet high in sugar, fructose and sweetened beverages like soda also causes excessive insulin release, which can lead to falling blood sugar levels, or hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia, in turn, causes your brain to secrete glutamate in levels that can cause agitation, depression, anger, anxiety and panic attacks.
One 1985 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that reducing sugar intake had a positive impact on emotions. And another, the Los Angeles Probation Department Diet-Behavior Program: An Empirical Analysis of Six Institutional Settings, published in 1983, documented the results when juvenile delinquents were given a reduced-sugar diet. They saw a 44 percent reduction in the incidence of antisocial behavior during the subsequent 3 months, after the implementation of the revised diet.
So can drinking soda affect your child's behavior?
Yes, it can.
A new study further supported this point, and revealed that frequent soft drink consumption was associated with a 9-15% point increase in the probability of engaging in aggressive actions, even after controlling for gender, age, race, body mass index, typical sleep patterns, tobacco use, alcohol use and having family dinners.
Researchers concluded:
"There was a significant and strong association between soft drinks and violence. There may be a direct cause-and-effect relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks, or there may be other factors, unaccounted for in our analyses, that cause both high soft drink consumption and aggression."
The effect is not a new finding, as in 1979 the now notorious "Twinkie Defense" was used in a murder trial for the first time.
As Discovery News reported:
"In a notorious 1979 San Francisco murder trial, lawyers blamed the killer's actions on his recent switch from a health-food diet to one filled with Coca-Cola and other junk food. Their argument worked. Instead of a homicide ruling, the defendant was convicted of a lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter. The legal strategy became known as the "Twinkie Defense," and the precedent raised a number of questions that persist, despite years of research on the subject."
Processed Food "Rebates" Dominate School Cafeterias
Soda manufacturers are not the only ones scheming for a permanent share of your child's diet. In an article published on La Vida Locavore, Ed Bruske revealed, possibly for the first time, that manufacturers of sugar-laden processed foods pay "rebates" (aka "kickbacks") to food service companies that serve school districts across the United States.
Bruske obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that revealed more than 100 companies paid rebates to Chartwells, a food service management company hired by D.C. Public Schools. As you might suspect, the "rebates" present a conflict of interest that could prompt Chartwells to order food for your children based on the amount of rebate it will receive, versus the food's nutritional value.
The end result?
School lunches that contain heavily processed foods like muffins, pizza, tator tots and flavored milk in lieu of fresh produce.
According to Bruske:
"Manufacturers pay rebates based on large volume purchases -- literally, cash for placing an order. Rebates are said to be worth billions of dollars to the nation's food industry, although manufacturers as well as the food service companies who feed millions of the nation's school children every day -- Chartwells, Sodexo and Aramark -- treat them as a closely-guarded secret.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that food service companies engaged in "cost reimbursable" contracts with schools credit any rebates they receive to their school clients. For more than a year, attorneys for D.C. Public Schools refused to make public an itemized list of rebates collected by Chartwells, claiming the information constituted "trade secrets." The schools were overruled by Mayor Vincent Gray's legal counsel after I filed an administrative appeal.
John Carroll, an assistant New York State attorney general investigating rebating practices there, has said rebates pose "an inherent conflict of interest" in school feeding programs because they favor highly processed industrial foods. In cases where schools pay a food service company a flat rate to provide meals, the companies are not required to disclose the rebates they collect. In those cases, Carroll recently told a U.S. Senate Panel, rebates tend to drive up the cost of food, cheating children out of nutrition they might otherwise have on their lunch trays.
Carroll also described cases where rebates discouraged the use of local farm products in school meals. Produce vendors can't afford to pay a rebate for local apples. But in at least one case, a produce distributor raised the prices of his goods so that he could pay a rebate to a food service company. A Homeland Security sub-committee in the U.S. Senate is investigating possible rebate fraud in contracts across the entire federal government."
The top contributors to Chatwells' rebate dollars included Performance Food Group, which paid more than $400,000 over the last three years, followed by General Mills, Kraft Foods, Country Pure Foods and Jenny-O Turkey. Other companies who made the list include:
ConAgra Otis Spunkmeyer Kellog's
Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up FritoLay Tyson
Nestle Cargill Meat Solutions Campbell's Foodservice
Raising a Life-Long Healthy Eater
Food and beverage companies spend $2 billion a year promoting unhealthy foods to kids, and while ultimately it's the parents' responsibility to feed their children healthy foods, junk food ads make this much more difficult than it should be. As a result, the state of most kids' diets in the United States is not easy to swallow.
As The Interagency Working Group on Foods Marketed to Children (IWG) reported:
Nearly 40% of children's diets come from added sugars and unhealthy fats
Only 21% of youth age 6-19 eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day
This is a veritable recipe for disease, and is a primary reason why today's kids are arguably less healthy than many prior generations. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure -- these are diseases that once appeared only in middle-age and beyond, but are now impacting children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that by 2050, one in three U.S. adults will have diabetes -- one of them could be your child if you do not take steps to cancel out the messages junk-food marketers are sending and instead teach them healthy eating habits.
Make no mistake, the advertisers are doing all they can to lure your child in, just as Big Tobacco did generations ago.
So you need to first educate yourself about proper nutrition and the dangers of junk food and processed foods in order to change the food culture of your entire family. To give your child the best start at life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime, you must lead by example. Children will simply not know which foods are healthy unless you, as a parent, teach it to them first.
My nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now to learn how to make healthy eating decisions for you and your children.
If you want to get involved on a larger scale, the Prevention Institute's "We're Not Buying It" campaign is petitioning President Obama to put voluntary, science-based nutrition guidelines into place for companies that market foods to kids. You can sign this petition now. I also urge you to go a step further and stop supporting the companies that are marketing junk foods and beverages to your children today.
Ideally, you and your family will want to vote with your pocketbook and avoid processed food and sugary sodas while instead choosing unprocessed raw, organic and/or locally grown foods as much as possible. These are the foods your child will thrive on, and it's important they learn what real, healthy food is right from the get-go.
This way, when they become tweens and teenagers, they may eat junk food here and there at a friend's house, but they will return to real food as the foundation of their diet -- and that habit will continue on with them for a lifetime.
Source: Time Magazine October 24, 2011
Source: Discovery News October 24, 2011
Source: La Vida Locavore October 18, 2011
Source: Injury Prevention October 24, 2011
Related Links:
The Dirty Truth Behind Coca Cola
Why Coke’s New ‘Healthy Front’ Could Be Just a Big Bluff…
Stop Junk Food Marketing to Kids
Story at-a-glance
The soda industry engages in many of the same marketing tactics as Big Tobacco, including forming “independent” front groups, funding research to discredit links to health problems, and making large donations to health organizations
Soda is linked to numerous health problems among children and adults, including obesity, liver disease and even violent behavior; frequent soft drink consumption is associated with a 9-15% increase in aggressive behavior, according to new research
Processed foods and junk foods are heavily marketed to kids and promoted to schools; manufacturers of sugar-laden processed foods pay “rebates” (aka “kickbacks”) to food service companies that serve school districts across the United States
You can fight back against soda and junk-food giants by purchasing healthy, locally grown organic foods instead of processed foods and beverages
By Dr. Mercola
Soda, which is loaded with sugar primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup, is a leading contributor to the rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases facing Americans.
So when I say that drinking a can of soda is just as bad for you as smoking a cigarette (and maybe even worse) it is not an exaggeration.
Drinking soda is in many ways worse for you than smoking, and it is only because of massive marketing campaigns from the industry that these sugary beverages are deemed acceptable for our most vulnerable members of society – our kids.
In the 21st century there would indeed be an uproar if tobacco companies attempted to target our kids, but the soda companies do it everyday.
It's time to wake up and face the facts: the soda industry is out for your children, and the message they send is every bit as damaging (and manipulative) as the one spewed by Big Tobacco.
Striking Similarities Between the Soda Industry and Big Tobacco
If I asked you to quickly recall a commercial or slogan from leading soda companies, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, could you do it?
Chances are you'd have no trouble recalling the friendly polar bear commercials or "the real thing" logo, and if you asked your kids, they'd probably come up with a few too.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for how beverage big-wigs have gotten their products firmly embedded into the homes of millions of Americans and others worldwide. Coca-Cola, for instance, spends close to $3 billion a year on advertising. With that amount of money it's no wonder the company has managed to hold on to its wholesome reputation.
They, and other beverage giants, are also in the habit of forming strategic alliances with health organizations that make it appear as though they are looking out for your health, which is about as laughable as Big Tobacco sponsoring a marathon. And like Big Tobacco, they also create front groups to fight anti-soda legislation and science.
For instance, as Time magazine reported:
The American Beverage Association, which represents Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other soft drink producers, has attacked suggestions to tax soda as "discriminatory." Their organization is touted as a "neutral forum," but in reality is devoted to discrediting negative press against soft drinks. For instance, in relation to obesity, ABA states, "All of our industry's beverages can be enjoyed as part of a balanced lifestlye."
The soda industry has created the front group Americans Against Food Taxes, which runs anti-tax campaigns. As Kelly Brownell wrote in Time:
"The name of the group implies a patriotic, grass roots movement, not a highly financed entity initiated and organized by industry."
Another industry-created front group, Foundation for a Healthy America, recently donated $10 million to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to research and prevent childhood obesity! Diet Coke has also teamed up with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to raise awareness for women's heart health programs and was the official "Beverage of Choice" for the 2010 winter Olympics.
The soda industry funds research to discredit links between soda drinking and health problems. Brownwell writes:
"The tobacco industry paid scientists who did research disputing links between smoking and lung cancer, the addictive nature of nicotine, and the dangers of second-hand smoke. The soda industry funds scientists who reliably produce research showing no link between SSB [sugar-sweetened beverage] consumption and health. The tobacco industry bought favor from community and national organizations by giving large donations. In an ironic twist, Coca Cola and PepsiCo are corporate sponsors of the American Dietetic Association."
The Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness (isn't that name an oxymoron?) even creates continuing education courses for registered dietitians!
The Top Reason to Give Soda the Boot …
Some of you reading this are undoubtedly thinking, how bad could soda really be? From my perspective, there is absolutely NO REASON you or your kids should ever drink soda. If you were stranded in the middle of a desert with no other fluid available, then maybe, but other than that … none, nada, zip, zero. No excuses.
From a health perspective, drinking Coke or any soft drink is a disaster. Just one extra can of soda per day can add as much as 15 pounds to your weight over the course of a single year, not to mention increase your risk of diabetes by 85 percent. The primary reason why soda is so dangerous to your health?
Fructose.
The fructose content of the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) used in many popular soda brands has been sorely underestimated. Around 100 years ago the average American consumed a mere 15 grams of fructose a day, primarily in the form of fruit. One hundred years later, one fourth of Americans are consuming more than 135 grams per day, largely in the form of soda.
Fructose at 15 grams a day is harmless (unless you suffer from high uric acid levels). However, at nearly 10 times that amount it becomes a major cause of obesity and nearly all chronic degenerative diseases. Instead of consisting of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, many soda brands, including Coke, Pepsi and Sprite, contain as much as 65 percent fructose, nearly 20 percent higher than originally believed.
According to one study, the mean fructose content of all 23 sodas tested was 59 percent -- higher than claimed by the industry. When you consider that Americans drink an average of 53 to 57 gallons of soda per year (depending on the source of your statistics), this difference in actual fructose content could make a huge difference in your health.
The Down and Dirty About Fructose
The American Beverage Association and other front groups will try to persuade you that fructose in high fructose corn syrup is no worse for you than sugar, but this is not true. ABA also claims there is "no association between high fructose corn syrup and obesity," but a long lineup of scientific studies suggest otherwise.
For example:
Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children's Hospital did a study of the effects of sugar-sweetened drinks on obesity in children. He found that for each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened drink, both body mass index and odds of obesity increased.
The Fizzy Drink Study in Christchurch, England explored the effects on obesity when soda machines were removed from schools for one year. In the schools where the machines were removed, obesity stayed constant. In the schools where soda machines remained, obesity rates continued to rise.
In a 2009 study, 16 volunteers were fed a controlled diet including high levels of fructose. Ten weeks later, the volunteers had produced new fat cells around their hearts, livers and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. A second group of volunteers who were fed a similar diet, but with glucose replacing fructose, did not have these problems.
Fructose is also a likely culprit behind the millions of U.S. children struggling with non-alcoholic liver disease, which is caused by a build-up of fat within liver cells. Fructose is very hard on your liver, in much the same way as drinking alcohol.
Liver burden number one: After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver—ONLY your liver can break it down. This is much different than consuming glucose, in which your liver has to break down only 20 percent, and the remaining 80 percent is immediately metabolized and used by the rest of the cells in your body.
Liver burden number two: Fructose is converted into fat that gets stored in your liver and other tissues as body fat. Part of what makes fructose so bad for your health is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar. For example, if you eat 120 calories of fructose, 40 calories are stored as fat. But if you eat the same amount of glucose, less than one calorie gets stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
Fructose metabolism is very similar to the way alcohol is metabolized, which has a multitude of toxic metabolites that, if consumed in excess, can lead to non-alcoholic liver disease. For a complete discussion of fructose metabolism, see my comprehensive article about this.
Diet Soda is NOT a Safe Alternative to Regular Soda
If you think you're better off drinking diet soda, think again. In fact, if I had to choose between the two, I'd take regular soda over diet. Instead of fructose, diet soda contains artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame or sucralose (Splenda). With all the research now available on aspartame and its various ingredients, it's hard to believe such a chemical would even be allowed into the food supply, but it is, and it's been silently wreaking havoc with people's health for the past 30 years.
Just to refresh your memory, aspartame has been linked to the following health concerns, and Splenda is associated with many similar problems:
Lymphomas, leukemias, and brain cancer Asthma
Neurological symptoms including headaches, depressed and anxious mood, seizures, memory loss, hallucinations, and dizziness Visual changes
Weakness and fatigue Joint pain
Sleep disorders Weight gain and diabetes
Abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea Rashes and hives
Does Soda Actually Cause Violence?
It's a well-known fact that poor diet, particularly one high in sugar, exacts a toll on your emotional health.
For example, one recent study published in the journal Psychology Today found a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia. It's also a well-known fact that chronic inflammation plays a major role in heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and cancer. So consuming excessive amounts of sugary beverages can truly set off an avalanche of negative health events -- both mental and physical.
A diet high in sugar, fructose and sweetened beverages like soda also causes excessive insulin release, which can lead to falling blood sugar levels, or hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia, in turn, causes your brain to secrete glutamate in levels that can cause agitation, depression, anger, anxiety and panic attacks.
One 1985 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that reducing sugar intake had a positive impact on emotions. And another, the Los Angeles Probation Department Diet-Behavior Program: An Empirical Analysis of Six Institutional Settings, published in 1983, documented the results when juvenile delinquents were given a reduced-sugar diet. They saw a 44 percent reduction in the incidence of antisocial behavior during the subsequent 3 months, after the implementation of the revised diet.
So can drinking soda affect your child's behavior?
Yes, it can.
A new study further supported this point, and revealed that frequent soft drink consumption was associated with a 9-15% point increase in the probability of engaging in aggressive actions, even after controlling for gender, age, race, body mass index, typical sleep patterns, tobacco use, alcohol use and having family dinners.
Researchers concluded:
"There was a significant and strong association between soft drinks and violence. There may be a direct cause-and-effect relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks, or there may be other factors, unaccounted for in our analyses, that cause both high soft drink consumption and aggression."
The effect is not a new finding, as in 1979 the now notorious "Twinkie Defense" was used in a murder trial for the first time.
As Discovery News reported:
"In a notorious 1979 San Francisco murder trial, lawyers blamed the killer's actions on his recent switch from a health-food diet to one filled with Coca-Cola and other junk food. Their argument worked. Instead of a homicide ruling, the defendant was convicted of a lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter. The legal strategy became known as the "Twinkie Defense," and the precedent raised a number of questions that persist, despite years of research on the subject."
Processed Food "Rebates" Dominate School Cafeterias
Soda manufacturers are not the only ones scheming for a permanent share of your child's diet. In an article published on La Vida Locavore, Ed Bruske revealed, possibly for the first time, that manufacturers of sugar-laden processed foods pay "rebates" (aka "kickbacks") to food service companies that serve school districts across the United States.
Bruske obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that revealed more than 100 companies paid rebates to Chartwells, a food service management company hired by D.C. Public Schools. As you might suspect, the "rebates" present a conflict of interest that could prompt Chartwells to order food for your children based on the amount of rebate it will receive, versus the food's nutritional value.
The end result?
School lunches that contain heavily processed foods like muffins, pizza, tator tots and flavored milk in lieu of fresh produce.
According to Bruske:
"Manufacturers pay rebates based on large volume purchases -- literally, cash for placing an order. Rebates are said to be worth billions of dollars to the nation's food industry, although manufacturers as well as the food service companies who feed millions of the nation's school children every day -- Chartwells, Sodexo and Aramark -- treat them as a closely-guarded secret.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that food service companies engaged in "cost reimbursable" contracts with schools credit any rebates they receive to their school clients. For more than a year, attorneys for D.C. Public Schools refused to make public an itemized list of rebates collected by Chartwells, claiming the information constituted "trade secrets." The schools were overruled by Mayor Vincent Gray's legal counsel after I filed an administrative appeal.
John Carroll, an assistant New York State attorney general investigating rebating practices there, has said rebates pose "an inherent conflict of interest" in school feeding programs because they favor highly processed industrial foods. In cases where schools pay a food service company a flat rate to provide meals, the companies are not required to disclose the rebates they collect. In those cases, Carroll recently told a U.S. Senate Panel, rebates tend to drive up the cost of food, cheating children out of nutrition they might otherwise have on their lunch trays.
Carroll also described cases where rebates discouraged the use of local farm products in school meals. Produce vendors can't afford to pay a rebate for local apples. But in at least one case, a produce distributor raised the prices of his goods so that he could pay a rebate to a food service company. A Homeland Security sub-committee in the U.S. Senate is investigating possible rebate fraud in contracts across the entire federal government."
The top contributors to Chatwells' rebate dollars included Performance Food Group, which paid more than $400,000 over the last three years, followed by General Mills, Kraft Foods, Country Pure Foods and Jenny-O Turkey. Other companies who made the list include:
ConAgra Otis Spunkmeyer Kellog's
Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up FritoLay Tyson
Nestle Cargill Meat Solutions Campbell's Foodservice
Raising a Life-Long Healthy Eater
Food and beverage companies spend $2 billion a year promoting unhealthy foods to kids, and while ultimately it's the parents' responsibility to feed their children healthy foods, junk food ads make this much more difficult than it should be. As a result, the state of most kids' diets in the United States is not easy to swallow.
As The Interagency Working Group on Foods Marketed to Children (IWG) reported:
Nearly 40% of children's diets come from added sugars and unhealthy fats
Only 21% of youth age 6-19 eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day
This is a veritable recipe for disease, and is a primary reason why today's kids are arguably less healthy than many prior generations. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure -- these are diseases that once appeared only in middle-age and beyond, but are now impacting children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that by 2050, one in three U.S. adults will have diabetes -- one of them could be your child if you do not take steps to cancel out the messages junk-food marketers are sending and instead teach them healthy eating habits.
Make no mistake, the advertisers are doing all they can to lure your child in, just as Big Tobacco did generations ago.
So you need to first educate yourself about proper nutrition and the dangers of junk food and processed foods in order to change the food culture of your entire family. To give your child the best start at life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime, you must lead by example. Children will simply not know which foods are healthy unless you, as a parent, teach it to them first.
My nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now to learn how to make healthy eating decisions for you and your children.
If you want to get involved on a larger scale, the Prevention Institute's "We're Not Buying It" campaign is petitioning President Obama to put voluntary, science-based nutrition guidelines into place for companies that market foods to kids. You can sign this petition now. I also urge you to go a step further and stop supporting the companies that are marketing junk foods and beverages to your children today.
Ideally, you and your family will want to vote with your pocketbook and avoid processed food and sugary sodas while instead choosing unprocessed raw, organic and/or locally grown foods as much as possible. These are the foods your child will thrive on, and it's important they learn what real, healthy food is right from the get-go.
This way, when they become tweens and teenagers, they may eat junk food here and there at a friend's house, but they will return to real food as the foundation of their diet -- and that habit will continue on with them for a lifetime.
Source: Time Magazine October 24, 2011
Source: Discovery News October 24, 2011
Source: La Vida Locavore October 18, 2011
Source: Injury Prevention October 24, 2011
Related Links:
The Dirty Truth Behind Coca Cola
Why Coke’s New ‘Healthy Front’ Could Be Just a Big Bluff…
Stop Junk Food Marketing to Kids
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Surprising Cause of Melanoma (And No, it's Not Too Much Sun)
Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 20 2011 | 46,376 views
Story at-a-glance
The rising rates of melanoma documented over the last three decades are not due to sun exposure as often stated; researchers instead believe they are due to an increase in diagnoses of non-cancerous lesions classified, misleadingly, as “stage 1 melanoma”
Exposure to sunlight, particularly UVB, is protective against melanoma -- or rather, the vitamin D your body produces in response to UVB radiation is protective
Optimizing your vitamin D levels through proper sun exposure or use of a safe tanning bed can reduce your risk of skin cancer and as many as 16 different types of cancer
The sun is your best source of vitamin D because when you expose your skin to sunshine, your skin synthesizes vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water-soluble and can travel freely in your bloodstream, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements
By Dr. Mercola
Rates of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, have been rising for at least the last three decades, and this increase has been largely blamed on exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun.
However, research published in the British Journal of Dermatology shows that the sun is likely nothing more than a scapegoat in the development of melanoma, and the sharp increase may actually be "an artifact caused by diagnostic drift."
Melanoma Increases Due to Benign Disease, Not Sunlight
Diagnostic drift, according to the study, refers to a hefty increase in disease that is being fueled by non-cancerous lesions.
In fact, during the study period from 1991 to 2004, there were nearly 4,000 cases of melanoma included in the report, with an annual increase of 9.39 to 13.91 cases per 100,000 per year.
The researchers revealed that, rather than being fueled by increasing exposure to sunlight as is commonly suggested, the increased incidence was almost entirely due to minimal, stage 1 disease.
They noted:
"There was no change in the combined incidence of the other stages of the disease, and the overall mortality only increased from 2.16 to 2.54 cases per 100,000 per year … We therefore conclude that the large increase in reported incidence is likely to be due to diagnostic drift, which classifies benign lesions as stage 1 melanoma."
In other words, people are being diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer even when they have only a minimal, non-cancerous lesion, and these diagnoses appear to be skewing disease rates significantly. Further, adding even more credence to the growing body of evidence showing sun exposure is not the primary cause of melanoma, the researchers noted that the distribution of the lesions reported did not correspond to the sites of lesions caused by sun exposure.
They concluded:
"These findings should lead to a reconsideration of the treatment of 'early' lesions, a search for better diagnostic methods to distinguish them from truly malignant melanomas, re-evaluation of the role of ultraviolet radiation and recommendations for protection from it, as well as the need for a new direction in the search for the cause of melanoma."
Is Lack of Sunlight a More Likely Culprit?
Despite all the bad press linking sun exposure to skin cancer, there's almost no evidence at all to support it. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary. Over the years, several studies have confirmed that appropriate sun exposure actually helps prevent skin cancer. In fact, melanoma occurrence has been found to decrease with greater sun exposure, and can be increased by sunscreens.
One of the most important facts you should know is that an epidemic of the disease has in fact broken out among indoor workers. These workers get three to nine times LESS solar UV exposure than outdoor workers get, yet only indoor workers have increasing rates of melanoma -- and the rates have been increasing since before 1940.
There are two major factors that help explain this, and the first has to do with the type of UV exposure.
There are two primary types of UV rays from sunlight, the vitamin-D-producing UVB rays and the skin-damaging UVA light. Both UVA and UVB can cause tanning and burning, although UVB does so far more rapidly. UVA, however, penetrates your skin more deeply than UVB, and may be a much more important factor in photoaging, wrinkles and skin cancers.
A study in Medical Hypotheses suggested that indoor workers may have increased rates of melanoma because they're exposed to sunlight through windows, and only UVA light, unlike UVB, can pass through window glass. At the same time, these indoor workers are missing out on exposure to the beneficial UVB rays, and have lower levels of vitamin D.
Researchers wrote:
"We hypothesize that one factor involves indoor exposures to UVA (321–400nm) passing through windows, which can cause mutations and can break down vitamin D3 formed after outdoor UVB (290–320nm) exposure, and the other factor involves low levels of cutaneous vitamin D3.
After vitamin D3 forms, melanoma cells can convert it to the hormone, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, or calcitriol, which causes growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death in vitro and in vivo.
… We agree that intense, intermittent outdoor UV overexposures and sunburns initiate CMM [cutaneous malignant melanoma]; we now propose that increased UVA exposures and inadequately maintained cutaneous levels of vitamin D3 promotes CMM."
To put it simply, UVB appears to be protective against melanoma -- or rather, the vitamin D your body produces in response to UVB radiation is protective.
As written in The Lancet:
"Paradoxically, outdoor workers have a decreased risk of melanoma compared with indoor workers, suggesting that chronic sunlight exposure can have a protective effect."
Vitamin D Helps Protect You Against Cancer
Vitamin D is a steroid hormone that influences virtually every cell in your body, and is easily one of nature's most potent cancer fighters. So I want to stress again that if you are shunning all sun exposure, you are missing out on this natural cancer protection.
Your organs can convert the vitamin D in your bloodstream into calcitriol, which is the hormonal or activated version of vitamin D. Your organs then use it to repair damage, including damage from cancer cells and tumors. Vitamin D's protective effect against cancer works in multiple ways, including:
Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous
This applies not only to skin cancer but other types of cancer as well. Theories linking vitamin D to certain cancers have been tested and confirmed in more than 200 epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory studies, according to epidemiologist Cedric Garland, DrPH, professor of family and preventive medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Here are just a few highlights into some of the most noteworthy findings:
Some 600,000 cases of breast and colorectal cancers could be prevented each year if vitamin D levels among populations worldwide were increased, according to previous research by Dr. Garland and colleagues.
Optimizing your vitamin D levels could help you to prevent at least 16 different types of cancer including pancreatic, lung, ovarian, prostate, and skin cancers.
A large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled study on vitamin D and cancer showed that vitamin D can cut overall cancer risk by as much as 60 percent. This was such groundbreaking news that the Canadian Cancer Society has actually begun endorsing the vitamin as a cancer-prevention therapy.
Light-skinned women who had high amounts of long-term sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer (cancer that spreads beyond your breast) as women with lower amounts of regular sun exposure, according to a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
A study by Dr. William Grant, Ph.D., internationally recognized research scientist and vitamin D expert, found that about 30 percent of cancer deaths -- which amounts to 2 million worldwide and 200,000 in the United States -- could be prevented each year with higher levels of vitamin D.
When Using the Sun to Fight Cancer, the Dose is What Matters
When I recommend using the sun therapeutically, this means getting the proper dosage to optimize your vitamin D levels. This typically means exposing enough of your unclothed skin surface to get a slight pink color on your skin. Your exact time will vary radically depending on many variables, such as you skin color, time of day, season, clouds, altitude and age. The key principle is to never get burned, while still spending as much time as you can in the sun during the peak hours, as it is virtually impossible to overdose as long as you don't get burned.
A common myth is that occasional exposure of your face and hands to sunlight is "sufficient" for vitamin D nutrition. For most of us, this is an absolutely inadequate exposure to move vitamin D levels to the healthy range. Further, if you use sunscreen, you will block your body's ability to produce vitamin D!
And, contrary to popular belief, the best time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is actually as near to solar noon as possible which is 1 PM in the summer for most (due to Daylight Saving Time).. The more damaging UVA rays are quite constant during ALL hours of daylight, throughout the entire year -- unlike UVB, which are low in morning and evening and high at midday.
When using the sun to maximize your vitamin D production and minimize your risk of malignant melanoma, the middle of the day (roughly between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.) is the best and safest time. During this time you need the shortest exposure time to produce vitamin D because UVB rays are most intense at this time. Plus, when the sun goes down toward the horizon, the UVB is filtered out much more than the dangerous UVA.
Once you reach this point your body will peak at about 10,000-40,000 units of vitamin D. Any additional exposure will only cause harm and damage to your skin. Most people with fair skin will max out their vitamin D production in just 10-20 minutes, or, again, when your skin starts turning the lightest shade of pink. Some will need less, others more. The darker your skin, the longer exposure you will need to optimize your vitamin D production.
Why Not Just Take Vitamin D from a Supplement?
Download Interview Transcript
You can get vitamin D3 in supplement form, and if sunlight or a safe tanning bed is not an option, this is a better choice than getting no vitamin D at all. If you do use a supplement, it now appears as though most adults need about 8,000 IU's of vitamin D a day in order to get their serum levels above 40 ng/ml.
However, sunlight is really the superior source for vitamin D, as when you expose your skin to sunshine, your skin synthesizes vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water soluble, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements, which is unsulfated. The water-soluble form can travel freely in your bloodstream, whereas the unsulfated form needs LDL (the so-called "bad" cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport.
The oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D may not provide all of the same benefits as the vitamin D created in your skin from sun exposure, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate.
I believe this is a very compelling reason to really make a concerted effort to get your vitamin D requirements from exposure to sunshine, or by using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields). Safe tanning beds also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight. If neither of these are feasible options, then you should take an oral vitamin D3 supplement.
What Should Your Vitamin D Levels be for Cancer Protection?
In 2007 the recommended level was between 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). Since then, the optimal vitamin D level has been raised to 50-70 ng/ml, and when treating cancer or heart disease, as high as 70-100 ng/ml.
I recommend you have your levels tested and regularly monitored to make sure they are in the therapeutic range. Your physician can do this for you, or another alternative is to join the D*Action study. D*Action is a worldwide public health campaign aiming to solve the vitamin D deficiency epidemic through focus on testing, education, and grassroots word of mouth.
When you join D*action, you agree to test your vitamin D levels twice a year during a five-year program, and share your health status to demonstrate the public health impact of this nutrient. There is a $60 fee each 6 months ($120/year) for your sponsorship of the project, which includes a complete new test kit to be used at home, and electronic reports on your ongoing progress.
You will get a follow up email every six months reminding you "it's time for your next test and health survey." To join now, please follow this link to the sign up form.
Natural Treatment for Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer
Melanoma skin cancer is the deadliest form, but far more common are non-melanoma skin cancers, which impact millions of Americans every year.
If you or someone you love is affected, a cream containing eggplant extract, known as BEC and BEC5, appears to cure and eliminate most non-melanoma skin cancers in several weeks time. Unlike conventional skin-cancer treatment, which is often surgery, the eggplant-extract cream leaves no scarring and no visible sign a tumor or lesion was ever present. The eggplant extract appears to be exceptionally safe and only kills cancerous cells, leaving healthy cells untouched, and causes only minor side effects, such as itching and burning.
The leading researcher in this area today is Dr. Bill E. Cham, who reported as early as 1991 in Cancer Letters that:
"A cream formulation containing high concentrations (10%) of a standard mixture of solasodine glycosides (BEC) has been shown to be effective in the treatment of malignant and benign human skin tumors.
We now report that a preparation … which contains very low concentrations of BEC (0.005%) is effective in the treatment of keratoses, basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) and squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) of the skin of humans. In an open study, clinical and histological observations indicated that all lesions (56 keratoses, 39 BCCs and 29 SCCs) treated with [the preparation] had regressed."
Dr. Cham's latest study was published in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine this year. The paper includes two impressive case reports of 60-something men who were suffering from large basal cell carcinoma (BCC) or squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), which had plagued them for years. The results upon treatment with a cream formulation of BEC (eggplant extract) twice a day are astounding, and you can view the pictures here.
Unfortunately, simply eating eggplant, tomatoes, peppers or similar veggies, while beneficial for many reasons, will not induce this same effect because the active components are not able to effectively penetrate your cells. This requires the addition of glycosides, molecules with various simple sugars attached to them that can latch on to receptors found on skin cancer cells.
Simple Skin Cancer Prevention Strategies
What's even better than an inexpensive, safe and natural cure for skin cancer is, of course, preventing it in the first place. Your body is made to be in the sun, and, when done properly, sun exposure will be one of the best ways you can help reduce your risk of skin, and many other forms of, cancer. Along with optimizing your vitamin D levels, the carotenoid astaxanthin has also piqued the interest of researchers due to its ability to reduce signs of aging by helping protect your skin from sun damage. I personally take 8 mg every day to help limit any potential damage from sun exposure as most of the year I am able to spend one to two hours a day in the sun.
Consuming a healthy diet full of natural antioxidants is another useful strategy to avoid sun damage to your skin, as fresh, raw, unprocessed foods deliver the nutrients that your body needs to maintain a healthy balance of omega-6 and omega-3 oils in your skin, which is your first line of defense against sunburn.
Fresh, raw vegetables also provide your body with an abundance of powerful antioxidants that will help you fight the free radicals caused by sun damage that can lead to burns and cancer.
Source: British Journal of Dermatology September 2009; 161(3): 630-634
Related Links:
Does Sun Exposure Really Cause Melanoma?
Sun CAN Actually Help Protect You Against Skin Cancer
How Supermodel Gisele Bundchen "Infuriated Cancer Experts"...
Story at-a-glance
The rising rates of melanoma documented over the last three decades are not due to sun exposure as often stated; researchers instead believe they are due to an increase in diagnoses of non-cancerous lesions classified, misleadingly, as “stage 1 melanoma”
Exposure to sunlight, particularly UVB, is protective against melanoma -- or rather, the vitamin D your body produces in response to UVB radiation is protective
Optimizing your vitamin D levels through proper sun exposure or use of a safe tanning bed can reduce your risk of skin cancer and as many as 16 different types of cancer
The sun is your best source of vitamin D because when you expose your skin to sunshine, your skin synthesizes vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water-soluble and can travel freely in your bloodstream, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements
By Dr. Mercola
Rates of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, have been rising for at least the last three decades, and this increase has been largely blamed on exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun.
However, research published in the British Journal of Dermatology shows that the sun is likely nothing more than a scapegoat in the development of melanoma, and the sharp increase may actually be "an artifact caused by diagnostic drift."
Melanoma Increases Due to Benign Disease, Not Sunlight
Diagnostic drift, according to the study, refers to a hefty increase in disease that is being fueled by non-cancerous lesions.
In fact, during the study period from 1991 to 2004, there were nearly 4,000 cases of melanoma included in the report, with an annual increase of 9.39 to 13.91 cases per 100,000 per year.
The researchers revealed that, rather than being fueled by increasing exposure to sunlight as is commonly suggested, the increased incidence was almost entirely due to minimal, stage 1 disease.
They noted:
"There was no change in the combined incidence of the other stages of the disease, and the overall mortality only increased from 2.16 to 2.54 cases per 100,000 per year … We therefore conclude that the large increase in reported incidence is likely to be due to diagnostic drift, which classifies benign lesions as stage 1 melanoma."
In other words, people are being diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer even when they have only a minimal, non-cancerous lesion, and these diagnoses appear to be skewing disease rates significantly. Further, adding even more credence to the growing body of evidence showing sun exposure is not the primary cause of melanoma, the researchers noted that the distribution of the lesions reported did not correspond to the sites of lesions caused by sun exposure.
They concluded:
"These findings should lead to a reconsideration of the treatment of 'early' lesions, a search for better diagnostic methods to distinguish them from truly malignant melanomas, re-evaluation of the role of ultraviolet radiation and recommendations for protection from it, as well as the need for a new direction in the search for the cause of melanoma."
Is Lack of Sunlight a More Likely Culprit?
Despite all the bad press linking sun exposure to skin cancer, there's almost no evidence at all to support it. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary. Over the years, several studies have confirmed that appropriate sun exposure actually helps prevent skin cancer. In fact, melanoma occurrence has been found to decrease with greater sun exposure, and can be increased by sunscreens.
One of the most important facts you should know is that an epidemic of the disease has in fact broken out among indoor workers. These workers get three to nine times LESS solar UV exposure than outdoor workers get, yet only indoor workers have increasing rates of melanoma -- and the rates have been increasing since before 1940.
There are two major factors that help explain this, and the first has to do with the type of UV exposure.
There are two primary types of UV rays from sunlight, the vitamin-D-producing UVB rays and the skin-damaging UVA light. Both UVA and UVB can cause tanning and burning, although UVB does so far more rapidly. UVA, however, penetrates your skin more deeply than UVB, and may be a much more important factor in photoaging, wrinkles and skin cancers.
A study in Medical Hypotheses suggested that indoor workers may have increased rates of melanoma because they're exposed to sunlight through windows, and only UVA light, unlike UVB, can pass through window glass. At the same time, these indoor workers are missing out on exposure to the beneficial UVB rays, and have lower levels of vitamin D.
Researchers wrote:
"We hypothesize that one factor involves indoor exposures to UVA (321–400nm) passing through windows, which can cause mutations and can break down vitamin D3 formed after outdoor UVB (290–320nm) exposure, and the other factor involves low levels of cutaneous vitamin D3.
After vitamin D3 forms, melanoma cells can convert it to the hormone, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, or calcitriol, which causes growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death in vitro and in vivo.
… We agree that intense, intermittent outdoor UV overexposures and sunburns initiate CMM [cutaneous malignant melanoma]; we now propose that increased UVA exposures and inadequately maintained cutaneous levels of vitamin D3 promotes CMM."
To put it simply, UVB appears to be protective against melanoma -- or rather, the vitamin D your body produces in response to UVB radiation is protective.
As written in The Lancet:
"Paradoxically, outdoor workers have a decreased risk of melanoma compared with indoor workers, suggesting that chronic sunlight exposure can have a protective effect."
Vitamin D Helps Protect You Against Cancer
Vitamin D is a steroid hormone that influences virtually every cell in your body, and is easily one of nature's most potent cancer fighters. So I want to stress again that if you are shunning all sun exposure, you are missing out on this natural cancer protection.
Your organs can convert the vitamin D in your bloodstream into calcitriol, which is the hormonal or activated version of vitamin D. Your organs then use it to repair damage, including damage from cancer cells and tumors. Vitamin D's protective effect against cancer works in multiple ways, including:
Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous
This applies not only to skin cancer but other types of cancer as well. Theories linking vitamin D to certain cancers have been tested and confirmed in more than 200 epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory studies, according to epidemiologist Cedric Garland, DrPH, professor of family and preventive medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Here are just a few highlights into some of the most noteworthy findings:
Some 600,000 cases of breast and colorectal cancers could be prevented each year if vitamin D levels among populations worldwide were increased, according to previous research by Dr. Garland and colleagues.
Optimizing your vitamin D levels could help you to prevent at least 16 different types of cancer including pancreatic, lung, ovarian, prostate, and skin cancers.
A large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled study on vitamin D and cancer showed that vitamin D can cut overall cancer risk by as much as 60 percent. This was such groundbreaking news that the Canadian Cancer Society has actually begun endorsing the vitamin as a cancer-prevention therapy.
Light-skinned women who had high amounts of long-term sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer (cancer that spreads beyond your breast) as women with lower amounts of regular sun exposure, according to a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
A study by Dr. William Grant, Ph.D., internationally recognized research scientist and vitamin D expert, found that about 30 percent of cancer deaths -- which amounts to 2 million worldwide and 200,000 in the United States -- could be prevented each year with higher levels of vitamin D.
When Using the Sun to Fight Cancer, the Dose is What Matters
When I recommend using the sun therapeutically, this means getting the proper dosage to optimize your vitamin D levels. This typically means exposing enough of your unclothed skin surface to get a slight pink color on your skin. Your exact time will vary radically depending on many variables, such as you skin color, time of day, season, clouds, altitude and age. The key principle is to never get burned, while still spending as much time as you can in the sun during the peak hours, as it is virtually impossible to overdose as long as you don't get burned.
A common myth is that occasional exposure of your face and hands to sunlight is "sufficient" for vitamin D nutrition. For most of us, this is an absolutely inadequate exposure to move vitamin D levels to the healthy range. Further, if you use sunscreen, you will block your body's ability to produce vitamin D!
And, contrary to popular belief, the best time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is actually as near to solar noon as possible which is 1 PM in the summer for most (due to Daylight Saving Time).. The more damaging UVA rays are quite constant during ALL hours of daylight, throughout the entire year -- unlike UVB, which are low in morning and evening and high at midday.
When using the sun to maximize your vitamin D production and minimize your risk of malignant melanoma, the middle of the day (roughly between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.) is the best and safest time. During this time you need the shortest exposure time to produce vitamin D because UVB rays are most intense at this time. Plus, when the sun goes down toward the horizon, the UVB is filtered out much more than the dangerous UVA.
Once you reach this point your body will peak at about 10,000-40,000 units of vitamin D. Any additional exposure will only cause harm and damage to your skin. Most people with fair skin will max out their vitamin D production in just 10-20 minutes, or, again, when your skin starts turning the lightest shade of pink. Some will need less, others more. The darker your skin, the longer exposure you will need to optimize your vitamin D production.
Why Not Just Take Vitamin D from a Supplement?
Download Interview Transcript
You can get vitamin D3 in supplement form, and if sunlight or a safe tanning bed is not an option, this is a better choice than getting no vitamin D at all. If you do use a supplement, it now appears as though most adults need about 8,000 IU's of vitamin D a day in order to get their serum levels above 40 ng/ml.
However, sunlight is really the superior source for vitamin D, as when you expose your skin to sunshine, your skin synthesizes vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water soluble, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements, which is unsulfated. The water-soluble form can travel freely in your bloodstream, whereas the unsulfated form needs LDL (the so-called "bad" cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport.
The oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D may not provide all of the same benefits as the vitamin D created in your skin from sun exposure, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate.
I believe this is a very compelling reason to really make a concerted effort to get your vitamin D requirements from exposure to sunshine, or by using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields). Safe tanning beds also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight. If neither of these are feasible options, then you should take an oral vitamin D3 supplement.
What Should Your Vitamin D Levels be for Cancer Protection?
In 2007 the recommended level was between 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). Since then, the optimal vitamin D level has been raised to 50-70 ng/ml, and when treating cancer or heart disease, as high as 70-100 ng/ml.
I recommend you have your levels tested and regularly monitored to make sure they are in the therapeutic range. Your physician can do this for you, or another alternative is to join the D*Action study. D*Action is a worldwide public health campaign aiming to solve the vitamin D deficiency epidemic through focus on testing, education, and grassroots word of mouth.
When you join D*action, you agree to test your vitamin D levels twice a year during a five-year program, and share your health status to demonstrate the public health impact of this nutrient. There is a $60 fee each 6 months ($120/year) for your sponsorship of the project, which includes a complete new test kit to be used at home, and electronic reports on your ongoing progress.
You will get a follow up email every six months reminding you "it's time for your next test and health survey." To join now, please follow this link to the sign up form.
Natural Treatment for Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer
Melanoma skin cancer is the deadliest form, but far more common are non-melanoma skin cancers, which impact millions of Americans every year.
If you or someone you love is affected, a cream containing eggplant extract, known as BEC and BEC5, appears to cure and eliminate most non-melanoma skin cancers in several weeks time. Unlike conventional skin-cancer treatment, which is often surgery, the eggplant-extract cream leaves no scarring and no visible sign a tumor or lesion was ever present. The eggplant extract appears to be exceptionally safe and only kills cancerous cells, leaving healthy cells untouched, and causes only minor side effects, such as itching and burning.
The leading researcher in this area today is Dr. Bill E. Cham, who reported as early as 1991 in Cancer Letters that:
"A cream formulation containing high concentrations (10%) of a standard mixture of solasodine glycosides (BEC) has been shown to be effective in the treatment of malignant and benign human skin tumors.
We now report that a preparation … which contains very low concentrations of BEC (0.005%) is effective in the treatment of keratoses, basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) and squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) of the skin of humans. In an open study, clinical and histological observations indicated that all lesions (56 keratoses, 39 BCCs and 29 SCCs) treated with [the preparation] had regressed."
Dr. Cham's latest study was published in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine this year. The paper includes two impressive case reports of 60-something men who were suffering from large basal cell carcinoma (BCC) or squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), which had plagued them for years. The results upon treatment with a cream formulation of BEC (eggplant extract) twice a day are astounding, and you can view the pictures here.
Unfortunately, simply eating eggplant, tomatoes, peppers or similar veggies, while beneficial for many reasons, will not induce this same effect because the active components are not able to effectively penetrate your cells. This requires the addition of glycosides, molecules with various simple sugars attached to them that can latch on to receptors found on skin cancer cells.
Simple Skin Cancer Prevention Strategies
What's even better than an inexpensive, safe and natural cure for skin cancer is, of course, preventing it in the first place. Your body is made to be in the sun, and, when done properly, sun exposure will be one of the best ways you can help reduce your risk of skin, and many other forms of, cancer. Along with optimizing your vitamin D levels, the carotenoid astaxanthin has also piqued the interest of researchers due to its ability to reduce signs of aging by helping protect your skin from sun damage. I personally take 8 mg every day to help limit any potential damage from sun exposure as most of the year I am able to spend one to two hours a day in the sun.
Consuming a healthy diet full of natural antioxidants is another useful strategy to avoid sun damage to your skin, as fresh, raw, unprocessed foods deliver the nutrients that your body needs to maintain a healthy balance of omega-6 and omega-3 oils in your skin, which is your first line of defense against sunburn.
Fresh, raw vegetables also provide your body with an abundance of powerful antioxidants that will help you fight the free radicals caused by sun damage that can lead to burns and cancer.
Source: British Journal of Dermatology September 2009; 161(3): 630-634
Related Links:
Does Sun Exposure Really Cause Melanoma?
Sun CAN Actually Help Protect You Against Skin Cancer
How Supermodel Gisele Bundchen "Infuriated Cancer Experts"...
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