Food and Health Rethought

Most sources of city water use chlorine to disinfect the water. Unfortunately, chlorine in your shower can wreak havoc on your skin—and may have other lasting health effects as well. Because you’re bathing in a hot, steamy environment, your pores open up and actually absorb more chemicals from your water than they normally would. And it’s not just your skin absorbing it—it’s your nose and mouth too. As you inhale, you can take in chlorine and chlorinated by-products called “trihalomethanes (THMs),” which trigger the production of free radicals in your body and have been reported to be carcinogenic in animal studies by the Environmental Protection Agency (and several scientific journals). Worse, once released, these toxins can circulate in your home, particularly if your shower is not well ventilated.

Find the right filter. Not all filters are the same—that’s why it helps to know what’s in your water, so you can match it up with the right filter. To get rid of chlorine, look for NSF/ANSI Standard 46, which means the filter has passed a test to remove chlorine. One study suggests 0.2-µm filters are more effective than those with larger pore sizes.

Choose safe household cleaners. If you’re piling on Tilex in your shower, expect to inhale toxic fumes! Choose safer shower cleaners without harmful ingredients.

Keep your shower area ventilated. Turn on the fan and open a window if it’s warm enough.

Water increased gastric pH by more than 4 after just one minute. In contrast, antacid took 2 minutes, and most of the other drugs took more than two hours.

Wheat contains high amounts of wheat germ agglutinin (WGA); a glycoprotein classified as a lectin, which is largely responsible for many of wheat’s ill effects. Other grains high in lectins include rice, spelt, and rye.

“WGA can pass through the blood brain barrier (BBB) through a process called ‘adsorptive endocytosis’ … WGA may attach to the protective coating on the nerves known as the myelin sheathand is capable of inhibiting nerve growth factor which is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain target neurons. WGA binds to N-Acetylglucosamine which is believed to function as an atypical neurotransmitter functioning in nocioceptive (pain) pathways.”

The traditional ways of addressing many of these anti-nutrients is by sprouting, fermenting and cooking. However, lectins are designed to withstand degradation through a wide range of pH and temperatures. WGA lectin is particularly tough because it’s actually formed by the same disulfide bonds that give strength and resilience to vulcanized rubber and human hair.

Furthermore, because lectins are so small, and hard to digest, they tend to bioaccumulate in your body, where they can interfere with biological processes. WGA is particularly troublesome in this regard. Studies indicate it has a number of health-harming characteristics and activities:

Pro-inflammatory—WGA stimulates the synthesis of pro-inflammatory chemical messengers (cytokines) in intestinal and immune cells, and has been shown to play a causative role in chronic thin gut inflammation.

Immunotoxicity—WGA induces thymus atrophy in rats , and anti-WGA antibodies in human blood have been shown to cross-react with other proteins, indicating that they may contribute to autoimmunity . In fact, WGA appears to play a role in celiac disease (CD) that is entirely distinct from that of gluten, due to significantly higher levels of IgG and IgA antibodies against WGA found in patients with CD, when compared with patients with other intestinal disorders.

Neurotoxicity— WGA can cross your blood brain barrier through a process called “adsorptive endocytosis,” pulling other substances with it. WGA may attach to your myelin sheath and is capable of inhibiting nerve growth factor, which is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain target neurons.

Excitotoxicity— Wheat, dairy, and soy contain exceptionally high levels of glutamic and aspartic acid, which makes them all potentially excitotoxic. Excitotoxicity is a pathological process where glutamic and aspartic acid cause an over-activation of your nerve cell receptors, which can lead to calcium-induced nerve and brain injury. These two amino acids may contribute to neurodegenerative conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Alzhemier’s, Huntington’s disease, and other nervous system disorders such as epilepsy, ADD/ADHD and migraines.

Cytotoxicity—WGA has been demonstrated to be cytotoxic to both normal and cancerous cell lines, capable of inducing either cell cycle arrest or programmed cell death (apoptosis).

Disrupts Endocrine Function—WGA may contribute to weight gain, insulin resistance, and leptin resistance by blocking the leptin receptor in your hypothalamus. It also binds to both benign and malignant thyroid nodules , and interferes with the production of secretin from your pancreas, which can lead to digestive problems and pancreatic hypertrophy.

Cardiotoxicity—WGA has a potent, disruptive effect on platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1, which plays a key role in tissue regeneration and safely removing neutrophils from your blood vessels.

Adversely effects gastrointestinal function by causing increased shedding of the intestinal brush border membrane, reducing the surface area, and accelerating cell loss and shortening of villi. It also causes cytoskeleton degradation in intestinal cells, contributing to cell death and increased turnover, and decreases levels of heat shock proteins in gut epithelial cells, leaving them more vulnerable to damage.

Aside from high amounts of WGA, wheat also contains a number of other potentially health-harming components, including:

• Gliadin (an alcohol soluble protein component)
• Gliadomorpin (exorphins, or group of opioid peptides that form during digestion of the gluten protein)
• Enzyme inhibitors

One recent study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology last year, found that even those who do not present symptoms of celiac disease may have antigliadin antibodies, which was found to increase the risk of depression in elderly individuals. “Individuals with recent-onset psychosis and with multi-episode schizophrenia who have increased antibodies to gliadin may share some immunologic features of celiac disease, but their immune response to gliadin differs from that of celiac disease.”

Gliadorphin (also known as gluteomorphin) is an opioid peptide that is formed during digestion of the gliadin component of the gluten protein. It is usually broken down into amino acids by digestion enzymes. It has been hypothesized that children with autism have abnormal leakage from the gut of this compound, which then passes into the brain and disrupts brain function. This is partly the basis for the gluten-free, casein-free diet. Studies of this diet have had important methodological flaws, and the scientific evidence is not adequate to make treatment recommendations.

The hypothesis among the experts was that pornography was progressively desensitizing these men sexually…

Given the desensitization effect on most male subjects, researchers found that they quickly required higher levels of stimulation to achieve the same level of arousal. The experts I interviewed at the time were speculating that porn use was desensitizing healthy young men to the erotic appeal of their own partners.

We now know that porn delivers rewards to the male brain in the form of a short-term dopamine boost, which, for an hour or two afterwards, lifts men’s mood and makes them feel good in general. The neural circuitry is identical to that for other addictive triggers, such as gambling or cocaine.

The addictive potential is also identical: just as gamblers and cocaine users can become compulsive, needing to gamble or snort more and more to get the same dopamine boost, so can men consuming pornography become hooked.

This article retorts :

research suggests both males and females find porn generally enhances their sex lives, it does not effect emotional closeness and it is not linked to risky sexual behaviours

One of its most important functions is reward prediction where midbrain dopamine neurons fire when a big reward is expected even when it doesn’t occur – such as in a near-miss money-loss when gambling – a very unpleasant experience. But what counts as a reward in Wolf’s dopamine system stereotype? Whatever makes the dopamine system fire. This is a hugely circular explanation and it doesn’t account for the huge variation in what we find rewarding and what turns us on.

How to make sense of this? Clearly porn can desensitize, just as over-exposure to any stimulus can desensitize. Both articles actually agree on that, so that’s a relevant point to keep in mind when it comes to porn. Don’t take in too much.

As for the addiction hypothesis, porn is not classically addictive in the sense that it brings a huge expected payoff that the brain desperately strives for. It is simply something that feels good that when consumed to excess can desensitize.

New research study published in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), suggests that the “healthy” ingredient in red wine, resveratrol, may prevent the negative effects that spaceflight and sedentary lifestyles have on people. 

Scientists studied rats that underwent simulated weightlessness by hindlimb tail suspension and were given a daily oral load of resveratrol. The control group showed a decrease in soleus muscle mass and strength, the development of insulin resistance, and a loss of bone mineral density and resistance to breakage. The group receiving resveratrol showed none of these complications. Study results further demonstrated some of the underlying mechanisms by which resveratrol acts to prevent the wasting adaptations to disuse-induced mechanical unloading.

For example, by mashing up a combination of garlic, shallots, hot peppers and citrus skin into a paste. By adding water, these farmers make a natural spray for their vegetables.

It’s good for the environment, and also translates into higher returns. On the market, farmers can demand more than twice the price for organic over conventionally grown produce. What’s more, by eliminating pesticide use, farmers cut costs by 20 to 30 percent.

In the hills of Bali, Rauf and Kusumah have introduced a friendly fungus that eats disease-causing pathogens in the soil. 

Pak Ujang Dayat has been farming for more than 20 years, and he’s never seen anything like this culturable fungus, which is in the Trichoderma genus.

Dayat grows the black fungus in a bag of corn kernels, then combines this with compost and spreads the Trichoderma mix across his fields. With this, he has warded off a damaging root disease.

Treating seeds with Trichoderma seems to provide early protection for crops, and studies show such seeds produce stronger, longer roots that also make them more drought-resistant.

Chris Boyce of the University of Warwick and Alex Wood of the University of Manchester compared large data sets where 1000s of people had reported on their well-being. They then looked at how well-being changed due to therapy compared to getting sudden increases in income, such as through lottery wins or pay rises. They found that a 4 month course of psychological therapy had a large effect on well-being. They then showed that the increase in well-being from an £800 course of therapy was so large that it would take a pay rise of over £25,000 to achieve an equivalent increase in well-being. The research therefore demonstrates that psychological therapy could be 32 times more cost effective at making you happy than simply obtaining more money.

At 18 days old the average roundworm is flabby, ­sluggish and wrinkled. Two days later it will probably be dead. However, Professor Kenyon, based at the University of California, San Francisco, found that damping down the activity of just one of their genes had a dramatic effect.

‘Instead of dying at about 20 days, our first set of mutant worms carried on living to more than 40 days,’ she says. ‘And they weren’t sluggish and worn out — they behaved like youngsters. It was a real shock. In human terms it was the equivalent of talking to someone you thought was about 30 and finding they were actually 60.’ With more sophisticated genetic manipulation, she now has some worms that have lived for an astonishing 144 days. An increase of that proportion would allow humans to live to 450. Scientists already knew how to make laboratory animals live longer and healthier lives — you just cut back their calories to about three-quarters of their normal amount. It’s not a practical solution for humans, because you feel cold and hungry all the time. But what Professor Kenyon found out was why ­drastically reducing calories has such a remarkable effect. She discovered that it changed the way two crucial genes behaved. It turned down the gene that controls insulin, which in turn switched on another gene, which acted like an elixir of life. ‘We jokingly called the first gene the Grim Reaper because when it’s switched on, the lifespan is fairly short,’ she explains. The ­second ‘elixir’ gene seems to bring all the anti-ageing benefits — its proper name is DAF 16, but it was quickly nicknamed ‘Sweet Sixteen’ because it turned the worms into teenagers.

Discovering the Grim Reaper gene has prompted the professor to ­dramatically alter her own diet, ­cutting right back on carbohydrates. That’s because carbs make your body produce more insulin (to mop up the extra blood sugar carbs ­produce); and more insulin means a more active Grim Reaper.

A number of studies have shown that high carbohydrate diets increase plasma triglyceride levels, VLDL cholesterol, insulin and glucose concentrations in NIDDM40,41 and in post-menopausal women

Diets high in saturated fats and trans-fatty acids have been shown to decrease membrane fluidity and decrease insulin receptor binding, thus promoting insulin resistance. Interestingly, a high omega-6:omega-3 EFA diet is also detrimental to insulin receptor sensitivity. …

… Very good studies indicate that trans fats interfere with insulin receptors and therefore with insulin resistance.

Physical activity reduces insulin resistance.

Weight loss reduces insulin resistance.

Alcohol reduces insulin resistance.

Minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc, chromium, and vanadium appear to have associations with insulin resistance or its management. Amino acids, including L-carnitine, taurine, and L-arginine, might also play a role in the reversal of insulin resistance. Other nutrients, including glutathione, coenzyme Q10, and lipoic acid, also appear to have therapeutic potential.?

There is also evidence that the amount and range of carotenoid-like pigments in an individual’s blood is inversely related to fasting serum insulin levels,65 suggesting a diet low in vegetables might contribute to insulin resistance.

Dietary micronutrient deficiencies might also promote insulin resistance. Chief among these deficiencies appear to be minerals including calcium, magnesium, potassium, chromium, vanadium, and zinc.68-74 Intake of sodium, either too high or two low, appears to negatively impact insulin sensitivity.

Linoleic acid, the major n-6 fatty acid, is metabolized into pro-inflammatory arachidonic acid, which, in turn, gives rise to leukotrienes and protaglandins. N-3 fatty acids, found in plants and in fish, reduce the levels of arachidonic acid, thereby lowering inflammatory mediator concentrations and increasing insulin sensitization.

a saturated fat metabolite called ceramide contributes to the development of insulin resistance. … Ceramide is a lipid molecule made in the body from something called sphingosine and a fatty acid (which could be oleic acid, a so-called good fatty acid). This molecule is used to make sphingomyelin, which is one of the structural elements in the lipid bilayer, as well as being a cellular signal molecule. Sphingomyelin is one of the lipid building blocks of the myelin sheath so important for nerves.

flavonoids and limonoids – nutrient-packed pigments that give color and taste to fruit – may work against cancer in any of three ways: prevent it from forming, slow the growth of existing cancer, or kill cancer cells.

“The limonoids, which differ structurally from flavonoids, seem to do all three,” he said of tests in his lab by one of Patil’s graduate students, Shibu Poulose, who also worked in Harris’ College Station lab. Their work emphasized the compounds’ ability to kill existing the neuroblastoma cells with the rationale that if the method and time limonoids take to obliterate the cancer could be found, perhaps scientists could exploit it to help cure the disease.

Limonoids are in citrus fruit. 

a man over 40 is almost six times as likely as a man under 30 to father an autistic child. Since then, research has shown that a man’s chances of fathering offspring with schizophrenia double when he hits 40 and triple at age 50. The incidence of bipolarity, epilepsy, prostate cancer and breast cancer also increases in children born to men approaching 40. Both dwarfism and Marfan syndrome (a disorder of the connective tissue) have been linked to older fathers, and according to research published in 1996 in the journal Nature Genetics, Apert syndrome (a disorder characterized by malformations of the skull, face, hands and feet) is a mutation caused exclusively by advanced paternal age. A 2009 study at the University of Queensland, Australia, found a correlation between advanced paternal age and poorer performance by children on intelligence tests (the children of older mothers actually performed better). And when researchers at King’s College, London, bred mice from fathers of differing ages, the offspring of older fathers exhibited significant deficits in social and exploratory behavior.

Dairy foods increase growth hormones.

The most powerful of these hormones is called insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). When cow’s milk is fed to people, IGF-1 levels also increase. Studies funded by the dairy industry show a 10% increase in IGF-1 levels in adolescent girls from one pint daily and the same 10% increase for postmenopausal women from 3 servings per day of nonfat milk or 1% milk.4,5

IGF-1 promotes undesirable growth too—like cancer growth and accelerated aging. IGF-1 is one of the most powerful promoters of cancer growth ever discovered for cancers of the breast, prostate, lung, and colon.6

Overstimulation of growth by IGF-1 leads to premature aging too—and reducing IGF-1 levels is “anti-aging.”

The environmental toxins in the shoes can spread to people and to the environment as the shoes become worn. 

The analyses showed that 17 of the 27 shoes that were tested contained one or more of the tested phthalates.  The phthalate DEHP, which is harmful to reproductive systems, was present in various amounts in all 17 of these products.

This is one of the themes of this site: your skin is like a second mouth. What you put on your skin can be easily absorbed, and go directly into your bloodstream.

This article mentions phthalates which cause a lot of reproductive problems and disrupt hormones in general. 

Push your tongue against the top of your mouth and place a finger between your eyebrows and apply pressure. Hold it for about 20 seconds and your sinuses will begin to drain

curious to try this.

Awesome if you know anyone who’s ever had any body image issues…or anyone who’s ever been on a ridiculous diet primarily for the sake of changing their appearance.

great read :)

The data below underscores how often doctors fail. It really indicates that if you have any type of serious ailment and any doubts about your doctor’s recommendations, a second opinion is critical. Doctors should be required to better keep up with the latest medical evidence and should be required to take tougher annual tests to ensure they are indeed up to date with reality.

The plain fact is that many clinical decisions made by physicians appear to be arbitrary, uncertain and variable. Reams of research point to the same finding: physicians looking at the same thing will disagree with each other, or even with themselves, from 10 percent to 50 percent of the time during virtually every aspect of the medical-care process—from taking a medical history to doing a physical examination, reading a laboratory test, performing a pathological diagnosis and recommending a treatment. Physician judgment is highly variable. 

Here is what Eddy has found in his research. Give a group of cardiologists high-quality coronary angiograms (a type of radiograph or x-ray) of typical patients and they will disagree about the diagnosis for about half of the patients. They will disagree with themselves on two successive readings of the same angiograms up to one-third of the time. Ask a group of experts to estimate the effect of colon-cancer screening on colon-cancer mortality and answers will range from five percent to 95 percent. 

Ask fifty cardiovascular surgeons to estimate the probabilities of various risks associated with xenografts (animal-tissue transplant) versus mechanical heart valves and you’ll get answers to the same question ranging from zero percent to about 50 percent. (Ask about the 10-year probability of valve failure with xenografts and you’ll get a range of three percent to 95 percent.) 

Give surgeons a written description of a surgical problem, and half of the group will recommend surgery, while the other half will not. Survey them again two years later and as many as 40 percent of the same surgeons will disagree with their previous opinions and change their recommendations. Research studies back up all of these findings, according to Eddy.

On average, Americans only receive about half of recommended medical care for common illnesses, according to research led by Elizabeth McGlynn, PhD, director of Rand’s Center for Research on Quality in Health Care. That means the average American receives care that fails to meet professional evidence-based standards about half of the time.

McGlynn and her colleagues examined thousands of patient medical records from around the country for physician performance on 439 indicators of quality of care for thirty acute and chronic conditions as well as preventive care, making the Rand study one of the largest of its kind ever undertaken.

Even though clinical guidelines exist for practices like these, McGlynn and her colleagues found something shocking: physicians get it right about 55 percent of the time across all medical conditions. In other words, patients receive recommended care only about 55 percent of the time, on average. It doesn’t matter whether that care is acute (to treat current illnesses), chronic (to treat and manage conditions that cause recurring illnesses, like diabetes and asthma) or preventive (to avert acute episodes like heart attack and stroke).

How well physicians did for any particular condition varied substantially, ranging from about 79 percent of recommended care delivered for early-stage cataracts to about 11 percent of recommended care for alcohol dependence. Physicians prescribe the recommended medication about 69 percent of the time, follow appropriate lab-testing recommendations about 62 percent of the time and follow appropriate surgical guidelines 57 percent of the time. Physicians adhere to recommended care guidelines 23 percent of the time for hip fracture, 25 percent of the time for atrial fibrillation, 39 percent for community-acquired pneumonia, 41 percent for urinary-tract infection and 45 percent for diabetes mellitus. 

Underuse of recommended services was actually more common than overuse: about 46 percent of patients did not receive recommended care, while about 11 percent of participants received care that was not recommended and was potentially harmful. 

Here is disturbing proof that physicians often fail to follow solid scientific evidence of what “quality care” is in providing common care that any of us might need:

• Only one-quarter of diabetes patients received essential blood-sugar tests. 
• Patients with hypertension failed to receive one-third the recommended care. 
• Coronary-artery-disease patients received only about two-thirds of the recommended care. 
• Just under two-thirds of eligible heart-attack patients received aspirin, which is proven to reduce the risk of death and stroke. 
• Only about two-thirds of elderly patients had received or been offered a pneumococcal vaccine (to help prevent them from developing pneumonia). 
• Scarcely more than one-third of eligible patients had been screened for colorectal cancer. 

Here’s a counterintuitive consequence: the more years of practice experience a physician has, the more out-of-date his or her practice patterns may be.

Many doctors are incompetent, or at the very least have recommended things to me or my family which were simply wrong - or disagreed with the opinions of better doctors who were subsequently proved to be correct. This article validates that feeling I have with data, so it’s nice on some level to see that… On the other hand, some doctors, are brilliant wonderful geniuses, so it’s important to know which sort of doctor you are dealing with, and even then, it’s important to be careful.

via twilightfades