Dietary Enigmas
asking questions about our diet
-
Archive for October, 2007
Killing Germs May Be Hazardous to Your Health
Oh boy - this is another one of those moments in life when you realise that science doesn’t always serve us well. Firstly we have become use to people telling us that ’science has proved it’ and unless we get the scientific approval it can’t be true. Secondly this is what we’ve inherently know is true for years but we’ve not believed it. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should automatically believe that its right to do it. Triclosan is just one such culprit.
Our war on microbes has toughened them. Now, new science tells us we should embrace bacteria.
Oct 20, 2007
Behold yourself, for a moment, as an organism. A trillion cells stuck together, arrayed into tissues and organs and harnessed by your DNA to the elemental goals of survival and propagation. But is that all? An electron microscope would reveal that you are teeming with other life-forms. Any part of your body that comes into contact with the outside world—your skin, mouth, nose and (especially) digestive tract—is home to bacteria, fungi and protozoa that outnumber the cells you call your own by 10, or perhaps a hundred, to one.
Their ancestors began colonizing you the moment you came into the world, inches from the least sanitary part of your mother’s body, and their descendants will have their final feast on your corpse, and join you in death. There are thousands of different species, found in combinations “as unique as our DNA or our fingerprints,” says Stanford biologist David Relman, who is investigating the complex web of interactions microbes maintain with our digestive, immune and nervous systems. Where do you leave off, and they begin? Microbes, Relman holds, are “a part of who we are.”
Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugar
(more…)The Wellness Revolution
This article came across my desk today and it has some real merit. The wellness revolution is probably the biggest trend to ever affect the western world.
Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugarTHE PERFECT STORM
“The future belongs to those who see the possibilities before they become obvious.” So wrote John Sculley, former Apple CEO. What follows is for those who can see the future of health care for the opportunity it is.
Functional Food Hits a New High or Low
We’ve all herd of yogurt with added probiotics, low fat spreads with something else. Well prepare to be amazed - and is it all in the name of health - I’ll let you be the judge?
e mail me
I have access to the best plant sterol product ever made.
Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugar
Dear Reader,Here’s a doctor’s office conversation that might seem a little far fetched…
Doc: Your LDL cholesterol is higher than I’d like to see.
Patient: Is it time for Lipitor?
Doc: Down the road, maybe. But for the time being…
Patient: Don’t tell me I have to exercise!
Doc: No, I’d like you to eat two large bags of tortilla chips every day.
Patient: Are they prescription chips?
Doc: No, they’re available over-the-counter.
Patient: Great! Thanks, Doc!
Doc: We’ll test your blood in six months. Maybe we can cut back to one bag per day.This may sound like a joke, but the folks who make Corazonas tortilla chips probably wouldn’t think so.
Welcome to the wild, wacky world of functional foods.
——————————————–
Hot & spicy
——————————————–How would you like a “toe-tapping, flavor explosion in your mouth”?
That’s how a slightly frightening marketing blurb describes Corazonas Jalapeño Jack tortilla chips, along with this note: “Foods containing at least 0.4 g per serving of plant sterols, eaten twice a day with meals for a daily total intake of at least 0.8 g, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease. A serving of Corazonas supplies 0.4 grams of plant sterols.”
That’s right – Corazonas corn chips may reduce the risk of heart disease. Or rather, the FDA allows them to make that claim based on plant sterol research. I think we can be pretty sure that no one has mounted a double blind, placebo-controlled trial in which half the subjects ate Corazonas chips and half ate a placebo chip.
As I’ve noted in previous e-Alerts, plant sterols actually do help block absorption of dietary cholesterol. But of course, dietary cholesterol intake doesn’t present the major heart disease danger. The true danger comes further along in the cholesterol chain-of-events when the effects of oxidation and inflammation on LDL play a key role in the development of atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries).
So, is there anything in Corazonas chips that might promote inflammation? As a matter of fact… The Corazonas web site (corazonas.com) states that the chips are made with vegetable oil, which may contain safflower, sunflower, and/or canola oil. All three of these oils just happen to have high omega-6 to omega-3 ratios – a common but unhealthy imbalance that promotes inflammation.
——————————————–
The real deal
——————————————–Of course, I’m not saying that Corazonas chips cause atherosclerosis, but there’s more to heart health than just lacing a snack food with something healthy and then claiming it reduces heart disease risk.
Which begs the question: If you want a snack, and you want something that really does reduce heart disease risk, why not snack on a whole, unprocessed food that naturally contains plant sterols?
There’s a crazy idea!
In the e-Alert “Pillow Talk” (3/20/06), I told you about Virginia Polytechnic Institute study that assessed plant sterol levels in different seeds and nuts. Top of the list: Wheat germ. Okay…admittedly, not very snackable, although you can add wheat germ to many dishes, which will make them healthier and give them a mild nutty taste. (That’s right – you can actually produce “functional” foods in your own home!)
For something closer to the snacking category, the VPI study found sunflower seeds and pistachio nuts to have relatively high plant sterol levels. And although they’re completely useless for dipping salsa, they’re the real deal if you want to enjoy the heart healthy effects of plant sterols.
Sugar Causes Ageing
I saw this article just yesterday and wanted to get it out to you all. It is strange, even weird how the problem (in this case too much sugar - or even compounds that produce only Glucose in the blood.) is often quite close to the solution (Sugar - actually specific plant sugars) - glyconutrients in this case.
The uncanny way glucose knows how to latch onto specific proteins is scary in many ways - what else is too much glucose doing (obesity, diabetes etc)? There is a very safe alternative plant sugar called Trehalose that doesn’t trigger the same problems talked about here.
The other interesting thing here is the thought that we can impact our skin condition by eating antioxidants. We know that eating fruit and vegetables gives us antioxidants that help combat the effects of free radical damage but who’d have thought it could impact the skin condition. One word of caution, make sure that the antioxidants that you use are scientifically proven to enhance the Serum antioxidant Levels - the gold standard here is ORAC βpe a nd there is only one source of these proven products that i know - e mail me for details
Signature
e mail me
Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugarForesight Report On Obesity
The Foresight report, while stating the obvious, is a welcome study of the trends that are affecting our wester diet and lifestyle - but and there is always a but. Who will read the report and more importantly can government and the food industry actually change behaviour - I think it is unlikely. My feeling is that an enormous proportion of the west’s population is now committed to a self indulgent, ostrich like existence that believes either there is no point in making any changes or that any changes are futile. The slope we are sitting on is slippery and comfortable but we are inexorably sliding towards an obesity epidemic, a diabetes epidemic and a chronic illness epidemic that will ultimately demand rationing of health care resources. I read in a book recently by Marcus Buckingham (the Galup Organisation) that the choices we make today inevitably detrmine our future - if only we could see it. The slight Edge by Jeff Olson talks about the small choices we make every day being what influences our future - we don’t get sick today by making one bad choice - they accumulate over years. We do have a choice - but we have to act from a place of education not ignorance and comfort.
Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugarTo Read the report in full Click here
Over half Obese by 2050
I’ve often wondered if the data collected in these studies and extrapolated into the future is a reliable way to predict the future? The UK Government is now suggesting that by 2050 over half the UK population will be clinically obese. What does that really mean? Is it meant to scare us into action? Is it meant to absolve them of any responsibility? Is it designed to encourage the pharmaceutical lobby to come up with solutions? So many questions and so few answers.
lets get on thing straight. I think the figures are probably an underestimate. Just look at the number of children, as young as 2 and 3 years old, who are already obese. We have to get back to what are the root causes and deal with them from within the family - after all who trusts what the Government tells us anymore.
It is all about personal responsibility and family values. There is a gene defect that causes people to put on weight but it is over used as an excuse to be obese.
Some simple rules (ok suggestions):
1. don’t eat highly processed food at every meal.
2. take more exercise - 10 minute walk every day is a good start.
3. avoid simple starch like the plague it is. By the way alcohol is classified as simple carbohydrate and is a real killer.
Enough then to be going on with. Seriously implement the above 3 ideas and the weight will fall off slowly and you’ll get your health back. You might even get your life back.
Plant Sugars Forum
Trehalose -the safe sugar
Help for Huntingtons“It’s OK” they said - the’re tested by the government
I, like many others, watched the channel 4 UK television programme last night on the toxic chemicals in cosmetics, cleaners and surprisingly foodstuff. Three ladies, including the presenter, tested blood and urine for Triclosan and Parabens (they could have checked for many other) and found disturbingly high levels of the primary 2 they were testing for and identified exposure to over 5000 separate chemicals. They then changed their products for ones without these chemicals and 8 days later were tested again. Wow the results were surprising even for me. After 8 days Parabens were out of the system and Triclosan was also much lower. The point is this - just because these compounds and chemicals are tested by the Government and given the ’safe’ tag why should we believe them. They also said DDT was safe and PCBs and pesticides. Don’t blindly accept what you hear from ‘experts’ they may be being funded by the very people who make these chemicals.
My advice, for what it’s worth, LIVE LIFE WITHOUT CHEMICALS and READ THE LABELS. If there are chemicals that you can’t say the name easily don’t put them in your body or on your on your skin.
For paraben free water based skin care please e mail me
Trehalose - the safe alternative to sugar and its all natural
Dietary Myths and Fat
For all of you out there who are interested in a fascinating read and a whole new perspective on diet I recommend Weston A. Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. I would say that the sister-book to this would be Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions (which i adore).
I for one am not a fan of the blood type diet, so much. And anyone who has read these books or at least one of them would know why. After reading dozens of nutrition and health books Weston Price is by far the one who has hit it on the nose, he truly unlocked what it is we are missing.SO Here we Go - Truth or Fiction
1.All traditional diets contain some form of animal protein-even the “vegetarian” ones ate insects.
2.All traditional cultures consumed a portion of their animal protein raw
3.Seeds ,grains, and nuts were soaked, sprouted, fermented or naturally leavened to neutralize naturally occurring anti=nutrients such as enzyme inhibitors, tannins, and phytic acid.( this is part of the reason so many people can’t digest these..they are poorly prepared)
4.TOTAL fat content of all traditional diets varied from 30% to 80% or calories but only 4% of those calories came from polyunsaturates that naturally occur in grain, legumes, nuts, fish, and vegetables. The balance of fat was nearly always in the form of saturated and monounsaturates.
5.Traditional diets contained nearly equal amounts of omega 6 and 3
6.ALL traditional diets contained some salt
7. All traditional cultures made use of animal bones usually in the form of gelatin rich bone broths.
8. The diets of healthy nonindustralized people contained at least TEN times the amount of FAT soluble vitamins found in animal fat.
Trehalose - the safe sugar alternative
Red Wine Good - Red Wine Bad!!!
OK where do we go from here - it sounds like the so common complaint from people these days who say ‘first they tell me it’s good for me - then someone else says its bad for me’.
What do we believe - who is telling the truth. Quite simply they both are, but truth is a very subjective thing. There is no absolute truth anymore - just truth as an individual sees it. So what is my take - cut out the hype and get to the bottom of the real issue. What specifically is the good thing in wine that helps my health - cut out the alcohol and go for the compound that helps. In this case something called an antioxidant from the skin of a grape. Its called Resveratrol, the best form of which is extracted from Grape skin, and believe it or not several companies who produce food supplements have antioxidant supplements that already have it incorporated.
Acid Refulx in Children - what chance have they got?
As someone who suffered with heartburn and acid reflux for 27 years (FROM AGE 17) this story below rings a few bells. I have had direct contact with so many men and women over the last few years who have suffered from Esophageal cancer as a direct result of the constant reflux from the stomach. I was told by my Dr that i was at very high risk of developing the problem at such an early age. what chance do these children have today?
I stumbled upon a safe natural solution that keeps everything in check for me - it might work for you or someone you know. I even understand the science now and biologically what happened to me. It is really easy - call me on US 615 692 1173 or UK +44 1752 769090 or skype me on the link below.
Warm Regards Paul barton paul@sugars4life.com