Life Extension Update Exclusive
Review finds vitamin D could prevent significant number of cancers...
In a review that will appear in the February 2006 issue of The American Journal of Public Health vitamin D researcher Michael F. Holick and colleagues concluded that improved vitamin D status could significantly cut the risk of colon, breast, ovarian and prostate cancer. A previous review conducted by the team, published in the October 2005 Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology found that consuming 1000 international units (IU) or more of vitamin D per day cut the risk of colon cancer in half.
The team reviewed 63 studies of oral intake or serum levels of vitamin D as related to the risk of cancer published between January 1966 and December 2004. The majority revealed a protective effect for the vitamin. The authors attribute vitamin D’s benefits to its abilities to inhibit the formation of new blood vessels by tumors, stimulate mutual adherence of cells, and enhance intercellular communication. They also note that having higher serum vitamin D levels is associated with reduced proliferation of high-risk epithelial cells in the colon and that the vitamin helps prevent breast epithelial cell mitosis.
The authors observed that vitamin D doses of up to 1000 IU per day are unlikely to produce toxicity and comment that this dose would be consistent with maintaining serum vitamin D levels at or above 30 nanograms per milliliter. Serum levels of vitamin D lower than 30 ng/mL have been associated with double the risk of colon cancer than that experienced by individuals with higher levels.
The review concludes that “Supplemental vitamin D intake could address the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in the United States... The cost of a daily dose of vitamin D3 (1000 IU) is less than 5 cents, which could be balanced against the high human and economic costs of treating cancer attributable to insufficiency of vitamin D.”
Coauthor Cedric F. Garland, who is a professor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, commented, “A preponderance of evidence, from the best observational studies the medical world has to offer, gathered over 25 years, has led to the conclusion that public health action is needed. Primary prevention of these cancers has largely been neglected, but we now have proof that the incidence of colon, breast, and ovarian cancer can be reduced dramatically by increasing the public's intake of vitamin D."
"Many people are deficient in vitamin D,” he added. “A glass of milk, for example, has only 100 IU. Other foods, such as orange juice, yogurt and cheese, are now beginning to be fortified, but you have to work fairly hard to reach 1,000 IU a day. Sun exposure has its own concerns and limitations . . . The easiest and most reliable way of getting the appropriate amount is from food and a daily supplement.
Comment: It seems clear that anyone who is not paying attention to vitamin D status, either for themselves or for patients, is indeed ignoring the evidence. While much research remains to be done, and not all studies have provided positive results, the number of health issues that appear to relate to vitamin D status provides a strong incentive for being concerned. It should be clear that: (a) there is considerable evidence of rather widespread vitamin D deficiency; (b) numerous studies indicate the importance of maintaining high levels of serum 25(OH)D in order to optimize health; and (c) the importance of vitamin D transcends its role in bone health and calcium metabolism. The government mandated fortification of dairy products and cereals is indicative of a general awareness in public health circles of the importance of this vitamin, at least as regards to bone health. But because of the variation in eating patterns, geographical location of residence, sun exposure, and fear of skin cancer, becoming deficient may merely involve following the path of least resistance, since the alternative is to estimate intake from food and supplements, pay attention to levels of fortification, and estimate generation from sunlight, actions that take effort and some knowledge. Furthermore, there is a common opinion among health care professionals that since rickets is rare, there is no vitamin D problem. There is also the commonly held opinion that we get everything we need from food. Neither of these positions appears defensible. If you would like a source of D3 in capsule form, providing 1000 IU's per capsule - email me.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional.
If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Monday, December 26, 2005
Heart disease and high carbohydrate diets
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. Rapidly accumulating evidence points to postprandial lipemia (high cholesterol and triglyceride levels after the intake of a fatty meal) as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease. This has led to a recommendation to reduce the intake of fat and increase the consumption of carbohydrates. A team of medical researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Tokyo Medical and Dental University now questions this recommendation. Recent research has shown that high carbohydrate diets increase fasting plasma triglyceride concentrations and that high fasting triglyceride concentrations tend to correlate with a greater degree of postprandial lipemia. Inasmuch as triglyceride-rich lipoproteins are highly atherogenic (ie. involved in the development of atherosclerosis) it would seem prudent to question the current thinking that high carbohydrate diets help protect against heart disease. The study involved four healthy men and four healthy women (mean age of 57 years). The participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Group 1 consumed a diet containing 40 per cent carbohydrates, 15 per cent protein, and 45 per cent fat while the diet for the second group contained 60 per cent carbohydrate, 15 per cent protein, and 25 per cent fat. The diets contained the same amount of calories and saturated fat was less than 10 per cent of total calories in both. The ratio of polyunsaturated fat to monounsaturated fat was 0.9 in both diets. The participants consumed one of the two diets for 14 days and then switched to the other one after a two-week wash-out period.Cholesterol, lipoprotein, and triglyceride levels were determined at the start of the experiment, on the morning of the 15th day of the two diet periods, and at two-hour intervals during the 15th day. The researchers found that a high carbohydrate diet increases the level of triglycerides, decreases the level of HDL ("good") cholesterol, and markedly increases the level of the so- called RLP (remnant lipoprotein) cholesterol that is believed to be highly atherogenic. They also found that the detrimental changes in lipid profile persisted throughout the day in response to breakfast and lunch. They conclude that substituting carbohydrates for saturated fat leads to lower HDL concentrations and higher triglyceride levels and that a lowering of LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels can be accomplished equally well by replacing saturated fat with monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats as by substituting carbohydrates for saturated fat. Abbasi, Fahim, et al. High carbohydrate diets, triglyceride-rich lipoproteins, and coronary heart disease risk. American Journal of Cardiology, Vol. 85, January 1, 2000, pp. 45-48
Comment: The common conception that carbs should be the bulk of our diet, in the form of grains, cereals & breads, has been promoted for over 35 years by the USDA in what is called The Food Pyramid. The Food Pyramid was not based on true science. Since that time, type 2 diabetes has increased over 35% in this country. It does not appear that their recommendation was good for us, if you study the stats. Also, while Monounsaturated Fats are the best, Saturated Fats have had a bad rap as well. It is my opinion and the opinion of many other researchers, that this increase in type 2 Diabetes as well as the high rate of Heart Disease, should be attributed more to the increased intake of High Glycemic Carbs, so prevalent in the American Diet.
Comment: The common conception that carbs should be the bulk of our diet, in the form of grains, cereals & breads, has been promoted for over 35 years by the USDA in what is called The Food Pyramid. The Food Pyramid was not based on true science. Since that time, type 2 diabetes has increased over 35% in this country. It does not appear that their recommendation was good for us, if you study the stats. Also, while Monounsaturated Fats are the best, Saturated Fats have had a bad rap as well. It is my opinion and the opinion of many other researchers, that this increase in type 2 Diabetes as well as the high rate of Heart Disease, should be attributed more to the increased intake of High Glycemic Carbs, so prevalent in the American Diet.
If you would like to reduce carbs in your diet, but find it too difficult to stop eating enough of them to make a big difference, try another natural approach, NSI Carb Blocker. This product blocks the enzyme responsible for the absorption of carbohydrates.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Saturday, December 24, 2005
How to lower Cholesterol naturally, and prevent chronic disease...
High Insulin & Glucose Levels - The Cause of Many Diseases
High levels of insulin and glucose, the result of eating a high refined carbohydrate diet, can result in heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and cancer. Insulin is produced by the body in response to rising levels of glucose in the blood after a carbohydrate rich meal. The insulin takes the glucose out of the blood and deposits it into glycogen or adipose tissue - usually the latter. Sounds harmless, right? Wrong. The problem is that there are no concentrated sources of glucose in nature. Fruits and vegetables, especially wild ones tend to be low in natural sugars. All of the concentrated sources of glucose, the so called "complex carbohydrates," are found in foods that have to be cooked and/or processed to become edible. Thus, they are not really natural foods, and our bodies weren't designed to cope with large amounts of glucose contained in them. We only have one hormone, insulin, to lower blood sugar levels but four different hormones that raise it. Hence, today we are paying with the above mentioned diseases. How? Well, since insulin is an anabolic hormone, in large amounts it may encourage tumor cell growth. High levels of insulin directly result in increased blood pressure through various mechanisms such as proliferation of arterial smooth muscle cells, which makes the arteries more rigid. It also activates cholesterol synthesis through its stimulating effect on HMG-CoA reductase, the key enzyme in the cholesterol synthesis pathway. The body produces about 5 times or so more cholesterol than ingested by diet. Thus, if you want your cholesterol levels lowered, avoiding that egg won’t do anything, instead avoid refined carbohydrates. (It’s interesting to note that the most effective cholesterol medications in use today, the statins, work by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase.) Furthermore, insulin directly shuts off the fat burning pathways in the body, and turns on those pathways responsible for the production of fat and triglycerides. High levels of insulin and glucose also damage arteries, which can initiate plaque formation, and glucose directly binds to LDL molecules, rendering them unrecognizable to the liver and causing them to be attacked by macrophage cells of the immune system, which also initiates a process leading to plaque formation. Finally, chronic high levels of insulin can lead to the desensitization of the insulin receptor - leading to type II diabetes. (As an aside, the reason that diabetics have such a high incidence of secondary coronary and vascular disease is because of the chronic high levels of glucose in their blood and the relatively high levels of insulin some of them receive through injections to control their blood sugar level.)
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
High levels of insulin and glucose, the result of eating a high refined carbohydrate diet, can result in heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and cancer. Insulin is produced by the body in response to rising levels of glucose in the blood after a carbohydrate rich meal. The insulin takes the glucose out of the blood and deposits it into glycogen or adipose tissue - usually the latter. Sounds harmless, right? Wrong. The problem is that there are no concentrated sources of glucose in nature. Fruits and vegetables, especially wild ones tend to be low in natural sugars. All of the concentrated sources of glucose, the so called "complex carbohydrates," are found in foods that have to be cooked and/or processed to become edible. Thus, they are not really natural foods, and our bodies weren't designed to cope with large amounts of glucose contained in them. We only have one hormone, insulin, to lower blood sugar levels but four different hormones that raise it. Hence, today we are paying with the above mentioned diseases. How? Well, since insulin is an anabolic hormone, in large amounts it may encourage tumor cell growth. High levels of insulin directly result in increased blood pressure through various mechanisms such as proliferation of arterial smooth muscle cells, which makes the arteries more rigid. It also activates cholesterol synthesis through its stimulating effect on HMG-CoA reductase, the key enzyme in the cholesterol synthesis pathway. The body produces about 5 times or so more cholesterol than ingested by diet. Thus, if you want your cholesterol levels lowered, avoiding that egg won’t do anything, instead avoid refined carbohydrates. (It’s interesting to note that the most effective cholesterol medications in use today, the statins, work by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase.) Furthermore, insulin directly shuts off the fat burning pathways in the body, and turns on those pathways responsible for the production of fat and triglycerides. High levels of insulin and glucose also damage arteries, which can initiate plaque formation, and glucose directly binds to LDL molecules, rendering them unrecognizable to the liver and causing them to be attacked by macrophage cells of the immune system, which also initiates a process leading to plaque formation. Finally, chronic high levels of insulin can lead to the desensitization of the insulin receptor - leading to type II diabetes. (As an aside, the reason that diabetics have such a high incidence of secondary coronary and vascular disease is because of the chronic high levels of glucose in their blood and the relatively high levels of insulin some of them receive through injections to control their blood sugar level.)
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
How Vitamin D Protects Your Heart and Your Other Health Issues...
A new study has linked a lack of sunshine, the body's most natural source of vitamin D, to the prevalence of cardiovascular disease.
Factors that affect sunlight, and therefore vitamin D production, are tied to a patient's cardiovascular risks. In other words, the more sunlight you get, the better your cardiovascular health will be. These factors can include time of year, altitude, and geographical location.
There are a number of physiological mechanisms triggered by vitamin D production through sunlight exposure that act to fight heart disease, according to the study:
An increase in the body's natural anti-inflammatory cytokines.
The suppression of vascular calcification.
The inhibition of vascular smooth muscle growth.
British Journal of Nutrition October 2005; 94(4): 483-492
Emerging research indicates that vitamin D is more important to our health than previously thought, leading an increasing number of scientists to challenge whether the fear of sun exposure has made us cover up too much.
Doctors are finding an increase in vitamin D deficiencies, even as researchers discover remarkable results from the vitamin that affects nearly every tissue in the body.
Told their pain and muscle weakness would only get worse, and that they would likely remain in wheelchairs the rest of their lives, five patients in Buffalo, N.Y., decided to take a chance on large doses of vitamin D.
In 4 to 6 weeks they were up and about, saying goodbye to their wheelchairs and back to normal activities, pain free. When women took vitamin D in multivitamin supplements over a long period of time, their risk of developing multiple sclerosis was reduced by 40 percent.
And a disturbing number of children who don't have enough vitamin D in their bodies are showing up with rickets, a crippling bone disorder thought to have been eradicated more than 70 years ago. Dr. Craig Langman, a kidney and mineral metabolism expert at Children's Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University Medical School, sees a new case of rickets every week, triple the rate of five years ago.
"We're finding more and more kids are presenting with evidence of vitamin D malnutrition," said Langman, who noted that includes fractures and bone pain.
Vitamin D is a critical hormone that scientists are discovering helps regulate the health of more than 30 different tissues, from the brain to the prostate. It plays a role in regulating cell growth, the immune system and blood pressure, and in the production of insulin, brain chemicals and bone.
"We thought that vitamin D was a very narrow-acting substance," said Dr. Hector DeLuca of the University of Wisconsin, where vitamin D was first identified in the early 1900s, leading to the fortification of milk and some other foods that eliminated endemic rickets.
"The big surprise is that it's got a lot of important biological effects that probably contribute to our health and we're just now beginning to uncover them," said DeLuca. "Are we getting enough vitamin D? No we're not, especially in the winter."
Vitamin D is one of the body's many control systems. It acts like an emergency brake that helps stop cells from perilously misbehaving, as immune cells can do when they cause such autoimmune diseases as multiple sclerosis and as breast and prostate cells do when they turn cancerous.
This protection declines as vitamin D levels drop. University of Chicago microbiologist Yan Chun Li discovered just how that happens with high blood pressure. Vitamin D helps normalize blood pressure by keeping a pressure-increasing switch called renin in check.
Vitamin D's importance for health goes back more than 750 million years to the earliest life forms that left the ocean for the Earth's surface. All vertebrates today depend on sun exposure for vitamin D production.
The lack of vitamin D is known to cause rickets, osteoporosis and osteomalacia (soft bones). New research indicates that vitamin D malnutrition may also be linked to many chronic diseases such as cancer (breast, ovarian, colon and prostate), chronic pain, weakness, chronic fatigue, autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and Type 1 diabetes, high blood pressure, mental illnesses - depression, seasonal affective disorder and possibly schizophrenia - heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, tuberculosis and inflammatory bowel disease.
"A lot of people with aches and pains and marginal weakness could be helped by vitamin D supplements," said Dr. Paresh Dandona of the State University of New York at Buffalo who reported the first five cases of vitamin D deficient myopathy three years ago in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Undiagnosed pain is the chief complaint of more than one-third of patients. Studying 150 children and adults with undiagnosed pain, Dr. Greg Plotnikoff of the University of Minnesota discovered that 93 percent were severely or profoundly vitamin D deficient. All were put on prescription doses of the vitamin.
Comment: I recommend taking 4,000 IU everyday of Vitamin D3 for adults and 800 IU to 1000 IU for children.
Vitamin D3
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Factors that affect sunlight, and therefore vitamin D production, are tied to a patient's cardiovascular risks. In other words, the more sunlight you get, the better your cardiovascular health will be. These factors can include time of year, altitude, and geographical location.
There are a number of physiological mechanisms triggered by vitamin D production through sunlight exposure that act to fight heart disease, according to the study:
An increase in the body's natural anti-inflammatory cytokines.
The suppression of vascular calcification.
The inhibition of vascular smooth muscle growth.
British Journal of Nutrition October 2005; 94(4): 483-492
Emerging research indicates that vitamin D is more important to our health than previously thought, leading an increasing number of scientists to challenge whether the fear of sun exposure has made us cover up too much.
Doctors are finding an increase in vitamin D deficiencies, even as researchers discover remarkable results from the vitamin that affects nearly every tissue in the body.
Told their pain and muscle weakness would only get worse, and that they would likely remain in wheelchairs the rest of their lives, five patients in Buffalo, N.Y., decided to take a chance on large doses of vitamin D.
In 4 to 6 weeks they were up and about, saying goodbye to their wheelchairs and back to normal activities, pain free. When women took vitamin D in multivitamin supplements over a long period of time, their risk of developing multiple sclerosis was reduced by 40 percent.
And a disturbing number of children who don't have enough vitamin D in their bodies are showing up with rickets, a crippling bone disorder thought to have been eradicated more than 70 years ago. Dr. Craig Langman, a kidney and mineral metabolism expert at Children's Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University Medical School, sees a new case of rickets every week, triple the rate of five years ago.
"We're finding more and more kids are presenting with evidence of vitamin D malnutrition," said Langman, who noted that includes fractures and bone pain.
Vitamin D is a critical hormone that scientists are discovering helps regulate the health of more than 30 different tissues, from the brain to the prostate. It plays a role in regulating cell growth, the immune system and blood pressure, and in the production of insulin, brain chemicals and bone.
"We thought that vitamin D was a very narrow-acting substance," said Dr. Hector DeLuca of the University of Wisconsin, where vitamin D was first identified in the early 1900s, leading to the fortification of milk and some other foods that eliminated endemic rickets.
"The big surprise is that it's got a lot of important biological effects that probably contribute to our health and we're just now beginning to uncover them," said DeLuca. "Are we getting enough vitamin D? No we're not, especially in the winter."
Vitamin D is one of the body's many control systems. It acts like an emergency brake that helps stop cells from perilously misbehaving, as immune cells can do when they cause such autoimmune diseases as multiple sclerosis and as breast and prostate cells do when they turn cancerous.
This protection declines as vitamin D levels drop. University of Chicago microbiologist Yan Chun Li discovered just how that happens with high blood pressure. Vitamin D helps normalize blood pressure by keeping a pressure-increasing switch called renin in check.
Vitamin D's importance for health goes back more than 750 million years to the earliest life forms that left the ocean for the Earth's surface. All vertebrates today depend on sun exposure for vitamin D production.
The lack of vitamin D is known to cause rickets, osteoporosis and osteomalacia (soft bones). New research indicates that vitamin D malnutrition may also be linked to many chronic diseases such as cancer (breast, ovarian, colon and prostate), chronic pain, weakness, chronic fatigue, autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and Type 1 diabetes, high blood pressure, mental illnesses - depression, seasonal affective disorder and possibly schizophrenia - heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, tuberculosis and inflammatory bowel disease.
"A lot of people with aches and pains and marginal weakness could be helped by vitamin D supplements," said Dr. Paresh Dandona of the State University of New York at Buffalo who reported the first five cases of vitamin D deficient myopathy three years ago in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Undiagnosed pain is the chief complaint of more than one-third of patients. Studying 150 children and adults with undiagnosed pain, Dr. Greg Plotnikoff of the University of Minnesota discovered that 93 percent were severely or profoundly vitamin D deficient. All were put on prescription doses of the vitamin.
Comment: I recommend taking 4,000 IU everyday of Vitamin D3 for adults and 800 IU to 1000 IU for children.
Vitamin D3
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Saturday, December 10, 2005
A high quality, mega potency mutivitamin-mineral supplement improves your health
Long term nutrient supplementation improves heart function and quality of life in chronic heart failure patients
From Life Extension Foundation
A report published in the November 2005 issue of European Heart Journal documented the findings of British and German researchers that supplementation with a formula containing a number of nutrients improved heart function and quality of life in older individuals with chronic heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction.
The left and right ventricles of the heart are its pumping stations. Systolic dysfunction of the left ventricle means that not enough blood is being ejected from the heart into the arteries.
The authors introduce their subject by writing, “Recently, there have been moves to tighten control of micronutrient sales directly to the public . . . it seems very important to establish whether micronutrient supplements are an expensive placebo or effective therapy. A major problem with existing supplementation studies is that they tend to focus on just one micronutrient that, owing to complex metabolic pathways, may be ineffective or even exacerbate deficiencies in other pathways. Also, existing studies have not focused on elderly patients with heart failure, those at greatest risk of deficiency and its adverse consequences.”
Thirty-two patients over the age of 70 with stable chronic heart failure confirmed on echocardiography were admitted to the current study. Participants were randomized to receive placebo capsules or capsules that contained 250 milligrams calcium, 150 milligrams magnesium, 15 milligrams zinc, 1.2 milligrams copper, 50 micrograms selenium, 800 micrograms vitamin A, 200 milligrams thiamin, 2 milligrams riboflavin, 200 milligrams vitamin B6, 5 milligrams folate, 200 micrograms vitamin B12, 500 milligrams vitamin C, 400 milligrams vitamin E, 10 micrograms vitamin D, and 150 milligrams coenzyme Q10. Subjects completed quality of life questionnaires, had blood samples drawn for analysis, and underwent cardiac magnetic resonance to assess cardiac function at the study’s onset and conclusion. Participants were followed for an average of 295 days.
At the end of the study, left ventricular end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes had declined, and ejection fraction improved in those who received the nutritional supplements compared to the placebo group. Those who received the nutrients also reported improved quality of life, while those who received the placebo reported a decrease. The major quality of life differences between the two groups were in exertional breathlessness, sleep quality, daytime concentration, and overall quality.
In their discussion of the findings, the authors write that one potential mechanism of nutritional supplementation is the reduction of oxidative stress, markers of which are elevated in heart failure patients. These patients have been found to have low levels of myocardial coenzyme Q10, an antioxidant which, when reduced, has been associated with increase heart failure mortality. They observe that “the reduction of synthesis of coenzyme Q10 by statins seems to be of sufficient concern that regulatory authorities required plasma coenzyme Q10 measurements in a substantial proportion of patient in a large mortality trial of rosuvastatin in heart failure.” The authors additionally note the benefits that have been found on cardiac function resulting from the antioxidant nutrients vitamins C and E, magnesium, selenium and zinc. Selenium can also cause vascular smooth muscle relaxation and vitamin C and vitamin E improve endothelial-dependent vasodilation.
The conclusion of the study is that long term multiple micronutrient supplementation improves heart function and quality of life scores in older heart failure patients. It was noted that the improvements reported in quality of life may be the result of improved cardiac function.
Protocol
Congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy
Congestive heart failure (CHF) occurs when the heart is unable to pump blood throughout the body (but not all patients with heart failure have congestion). There are two categories of congestive heart failure: systolic and diastolic. In the systolic type of the disease, blood coming into the heart from the lungs may be regurgitated so that fluid accumulates in the lungs (pulmonary congestion). In the diastolic type, the heart muscle becomes stiff and cannot relax, leading to an accumulation of fluid in the feet, ankles, legs, and abdomen.
Coenzyme Q10 is a naturally occurring substance that may have considerable value as an adjunct therapy for the treatment of CHF. Clinical studies indicate that coenzyme Q10 can improve the quality of life, allow for a reduction of other pharmacological agents, and decrease the incidence of cardiac complications from CHF. In those patients who receive little benefit from conventional medications, coenzyme Q10 may be a highly effective form of therapy. Because low magnesium levels are associated with frequent arrhythmias and higher mortality in patients with CHF, patients may benefit from magnesium therapy, which improves hemodynamic function and controls arrhythmias. There is little clinical evidence that magnesium therapy alone will provide substantial improvement in the overall condition of patients with CHF. However, in a recent study at the Arizona Heart Institute, patients with CHF who received oral magnesium oxide showed significant improvement in heart rate, mean arterial pressure, and exercise tolerance.
Cardiovascular Supplements
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
From Life Extension Foundation
A report published in the November 2005 issue of European Heart Journal documented the findings of British and German researchers that supplementation with a formula containing a number of nutrients improved heart function and quality of life in older individuals with chronic heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction.
The left and right ventricles of the heart are its pumping stations. Systolic dysfunction of the left ventricle means that not enough blood is being ejected from the heart into the arteries.
The authors introduce their subject by writing, “Recently, there have been moves to tighten control of micronutrient sales directly to the public . . . it seems very important to establish whether micronutrient supplements are an expensive placebo or effective therapy. A major problem with existing supplementation studies is that they tend to focus on just one micronutrient that, owing to complex metabolic pathways, may be ineffective or even exacerbate deficiencies in other pathways. Also, existing studies have not focused on elderly patients with heart failure, those at greatest risk of deficiency and its adverse consequences.”
Thirty-two patients over the age of 70 with stable chronic heart failure confirmed on echocardiography were admitted to the current study. Participants were randomized to receive placebo capsules or capsules that contained 250 milligrams calcium, 150 milligrams magnesium, 15 milligrams zinc, 1.2 milligrams copper, 50 micrograms selenium, 800 micrograms vitamin A, 200 milligrams thiamin, 2 milligrams riboflavin, 200 milligrams vitamin B6, 5 milligrams folate, 200 micrograms vitamin B12, 500 milligrams vitamin C, 400 milligrams vitamin E, 10 micrograms vitamin D, and 150 milligrams coenzyme Q10. Subjects completed quality of life questionnaires, had blood samples drawn for analysis, and underwent cardiac magnetic resonance to assess cardiac function at the study’s onset and conclusion. Participants were followed for an average of 295 days.
At the end of the study, left ventricular end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes had declined, and ejection fraction improved in those who received the nutritional supplements compared to the placebo group. Those who received the nutrients also reported improved quality of life, while those who received the placebo reported a decrease. The major quality of life differences between the two groups were in exertional breathlessness, sleep quality, daytime concentration, and overall quality.
In their discussion of the findings, the authors write that one potential mechanism of nutritional supplementation is the reduction of oxidative stress, markers of which are elevated in heart failure patients. These patients have been found to have low levels of myocardial coenzyme Q10, an antioxidant which, when reduced, has been associated with increase heart failure mortality. They observe that “the reduction of synthesis of coenzyme Q10 by statins seems to be of sufficient concern that regulatory authorities required plasma coenzyme Q10 measurements in a substantial proportion of patient in a large mortality trial of rosuvastatin in heart failure.” The authors additionally note the benefits that have been found on cardiac function resulting from the antioxidant nutrients vitamins C and E, magnesium, selenium and zinc. Selenium can also cause vascular smooth muscle relaxation and vitamin C and vitamin E improve endothelial-dependent vasodilation.
The conclusion of the study is that long term multiple micronutrient supplementation improves heart function and quality of life scores in older heart failure patients. It was noted that the improvements reported in quality of life may be the result of improved cardiac function.
Protocol
Congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy
Congestive heart failure (CHF) occurs when the heart is unable to pump blood throughout the body (but not all patients with heart failure have congestion). There are two categories of congestive heart failure: systolic and diastolic. In the systolic type of the disease, blood coming into the heart from the lungs may be regurgitated so that fluid accumulates in the lungs (pulmonary congestion). In the diastolic type, the heart muscle becomes stiff and cannot relax, leading to an accumulation of fluid in the feet, ankles, legs, and abdomen.
Coenzyme Q10 is a naturally occurring substance that may have considerable value as an adjunct therapy for the treatment of CHF. Clinical studies indicate that coenzyme Q10 can improve the quality of life, allow for a reduction of other pharmacological agents, and decrease the incidence of cardiac complications from CHF. In those patients who receive little benefit from conventional medications, coenzyme Q10 may be a highly effective form of therapy. Because low magnesium levels are associated with frequent arrhythmias and higher mortality in patients with CHF, patients may benefit from magnesium therapy, which improves hemodynamic function and controls arrhythmias. There is little clinical evidence that magnesium therapy alone will provide substantial improvement in the overall condition of patients with CHF. However, in a recent study at the Arizona Heart Institute, patients with CHF who received oral magnesium oxide showed significant improvement in heart rate, mean arterial pressure, and exercise tolerance.
Cardiovascular Supplements
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Is being a vegetarian a healthier lifestyle?
By Paul Chek, HHP, NMTFounder, C.H.E.K Institute
From Mercola.com
People become vegetarians for many reasons. Some people do so for what they believe are sound health reasons. We are, for example, experiencing the greatest occurrence of cancer cases and other chronic diseases in history.
Some people convert because of a growing concern over the health of our ecosystem.
I decided to share my opinions on vegetarianism because in my career I have worked with many unhealthy vegetarians. Often my vegetarian patients were in need of animal nutrition yet, for the above reasons were initially resistant to my suggested inclusion of animal foods for regaining their health.
While I can't address all of the reasons why one might become a vegetarian here, I want to examine a few of the more common arguments that claim vegetarianism is better for your health. In the end, I hope this may clear up some of the dogmatic resistance to a diet that includes meat.
Is Red Meat Really Bad For You?
The most common argument that I hear is that eating red meat is bad for you. In fact, many vegetarians claim their lifestyle is better for your heart and your health in general. We often read and hear the same claim in the news -- eating red meat is unhealthy.
Consider Weston A. Price, who traveled the globe studying the diets of native societies in the 1930s while there were still natives untouched by white man and his processed foods (Nutrition & Physical Degeneration by W.A. Price).
His primary result was to show that wherever natives were exposed to processed foods, such as white flour and sugar, degeneration and disease soon followed. But he also discovered that there were no healthy vegetarian societies or tribes. While he did find some vegetarians, there were always healthier tribes nearby eating meat or animal products.
If you study cultural anthropology, you'll find the amount of meat eaten by any society was determined not by religious beliefs or health fads, but rather by availability alone. A clear example of this can be seen by looking at the diets of traditional Aboriginals in Australia. The inland Aboriginals eat a diet of approximately 75-90 percent vegetable and 10-25 percent animal foods.
The coastal Aboriginals, who have access to fish and larger animals like kangaroo eat about 75 percent animal and 25 percent vegetable foods. (1)
The conclusion that vegetarianism is safer for your heart is an unfounded scare tactic fostered by the processed food industry. The first reported case of a heart attack came only recently in 1921. (2) Hydrogenation of vegetable oils began about 1908 and since that time, consumption of vegetable oils has risen some 400 percent, while saturated animal fat consumption has reduced on the whole.
In short, we've had a reduction of animal fat consumption, an increase in hydrogenated vegetable oils and an increase in heart disease since 1908. It's hard to see how consuming less animal fats has made for healthy hearts. Moreover, statistical analysis of chronic disease shows that we are far worse off with today's dietary recommendations when looked at from a disease perspective.
If viewed from a purely historical perspective, the current dogma over eating meat and heart health is suspect as well. Humans have been eating animal foods as a primary food staple in every part of the world with a winter.
This includes the fish eaten in every region near lakes and oceans. If eating meat were as unhealthy as suggested, we'd never have lasted as long as we have.
Too Much Acid?
A similar argument against eating meat: It makes people too acidic, disrupts the pH of their blood and thereby encourages disease. This argument is just as problematic as the last. In fact, the whole issue of pH balance and diet is very misleading and misrepresented by many who favor vegetarian diets.
First of all, our environment has dramatically influenced our biochemistry, particularly over thousands of years due to the rate of genetic modification.
For example, Eskimos maintain optimal pH balance on a diet of 90 percent animal foods, while some Hindus and inland Aboriginals maintain optimal pH balance of the converse of 90 percent plant foods!
Many "experts" falsely blame high acidity levels on meat eating. This really is just a lot of bunk. pH is specific to body compartment and body fluid. Therefore, when making any reference to pH without making a clear statement as to where the measurement is taking place (urine, venous blood, arterial blood, saliva, and even specific organs) is meaningless.
The stomach, small intestine, and large intestine for example, all have different optimal pH levels. It has also been argued by Rowkowski and others (including very possibly William Wolcott) that sprinting around the block once will produce a far greater shift in pH toward acidity than eating nothing but meat all day long.
I have personally tested my own urine and saliva every hour for days on end and let me assure you, if you were to do the same, you would quickly find that what you do with exercise and how close you are to your needs for water consumption will influence your pH far more than what you eat.
I've knocked my urine pH down from 7 to 5 in 10 minutes of squatting with sets of 10 on a one-minute rest in just a few sets!
The long and short of pH is that different pH levels are appropriate for different people given their genetic heritage and is much more heavily dependent upon variables other than meat.
The Real Reason ...
So what really produces the illusion that vegetarianism is better for you? In many cases, converted vegetarians are eating real food for the first time. They're often cooking fresh food for the first time and eating much more raw food for the first time! Finally, they have stopped eating so much packaged crap.
All this acts to increase one's vitality and mental clarity just like using fresh water will clean your windows much better than dirty water. Vegetarian diets are also very effective detoxification diets across the board, greatly reducing body burden from lifestyles that included prolonged periods of consuming junk food.
Finally, people going on vegan diets are often directed to do so by holistic health professionals who also encourage the use of organic foods.
Since fat stores toxins and commercial farmers make their income by the pound, most farmers stand to benefit from feeding their livestock harmful foods. These harmful foods, in turn, produce livestock with much more fat.
The benefit from going vegan was to avoid those toxic commercial meats and therefore nothing inherent to being a vegan per se. Those eating organic meats will not suffer from the harmful effects of eating commercial meats.
This brief analysis certainly doesn't address all of the reasons why one might go vegetarian, but I hope that it's enough to help you understand the issue isn't so straightforward as some would have you believe. Genuine, organic meat, as Price showed, has been an important component of all healthy societies, so we ought to think twice before giving up on meat.
Paul Chek, Holistic Health Practitioner and certified Neuromuscular Therapist, is the founder of the C.H.E.K Institute in Vista, Calif. He is also a sought-after consultant to sports organizations, and his services have benefited numerous professional sports teams, athletes and individuals seeking optimal health worldwide. Paul has produced more than 60 videos, 17 correspondence courses and is the author of several books, audio programs and articles.
Comment: For more information on the ideal diet, click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
From Mercola.com
People become vegetarians for many reasons. Some people do so for what they believe are sound health reasons. We are, for example, experiencing the greatest occurrence of cancer cases and other chronic diseases in history.
Some people convert because of a growing concern over the health of our ecosystem.
I decided to share my opinions on vegetarianism because in my career I have worked with many unhealthy vegetarians. Often my vegetarian patients were in need of animal nutrition yet, for the above reasons were initially resistant to my suggested inclusion of animal foods for regaining their health.
While I can't address all of the reasons why one might become a vegetarian here, I want to examine a few of the more common arguments that claim vegetarianism is better for your health. In the end, I hope this may clear up some of the dogmatic resistance to a diet that includes meat.
Is Red Meat Really Bad For You?
The most common argument that I hear is that eating red meat is bad for you. In fact, many vegetarians claim their lifestyle is better for your heart and your health in general. We often read and hear the same claim in the news -- eating red meat is unhealthy.
Consider Weston A. Price, who traveled the globe studying the diets of native societies in the 1930s while there were still natives untouched by white man and his processed foods (Nutrition & Physical Degeneration by W.A. Price).
His primary result was to show that wherever natives were exposed to processed foods, such as white flour and sugar, degeneration and disease soon followed. But he also discovered that there were no healthy vegetarian societies or tribes. While he did find some vegetarians, there were always healthier tribes nearby eating meat or animal products.
If you study cultural anthropology, you'll find the amount of meat eaten by any society was determined not by religious beliefs or health fads, but rather by availability alone. A clear example of this can be seen by looking at the diets of traditional Aboriginals in Australia. The inland Aboriginals eat a diet of approximately 75-90 percent vegetable and 10-25 percent animal foods.
The coastal Aboriginals, who have access to fish and larger animals like kangaroo eat about 75 percent animal and 25 percent vegetable foods. (1)
The conclusion that vegetarianism is safer for your heart is an unfounded scare tactic fostered by the processed food industry. The first reported case of a heart attack came only recently in 1921. (2) Hydrogenation of vegetable oils began about 1908 and since that time, consumption of vegetable oils has risen some 400 percent, while saturated animal fat consumption has reduced on the whole.
In short, we've had a reduction of animal fat consumption, an increase in hydrogenated vegetable oils and an increase in heart disease since 1908. It's hard to see how consuming less animal fats has made for healthy hearts. Moreover, statistical analysis of chronic disease shows that we are far worse off with today's dietary recommendations when looked at from a disease perspective.
If viewed from a purely historical perspective, the current dogma over eating meat and heart health is suspect as well. Humans have been eating animal foods as a primary food staple in every part of the world with a winter.
This includes the fish eaten in every region near lakes and oceans. If eating meat were as unhealthy as suggested, we'd never have lasted as long as we have.
Too Much Acid?
A similar argument against eating meat: It makes people too acidic, disrupts the pH of their blood and thereby encourages disease. This argument is just as problematic as the last. In fact, the whole issue of pH balance and diet is very misleading and misrepresented by many who favor vegetarian diets.
First of all, our environment has dramatically influenced our biochemistry, particularly over thousands of years due to the rate of genetic modification.
For example, Eskimos maintain optimal pH balance on a diet of 90 percent animal foods, while some Hindus and inland Aboriginals maintain optimal pH balance of the converse of 90 percent plant foods!
Many "experts" falsely blame high acidity levels on meat eating. This really is just a lot of bunk. pH is specific to body compartment and body fluid. Therefore, when making any reference to pH without making a clear statement as to where the measurement is taking place (urine, venous blood, arterial blood, saliva, and even specific organs) is meaningless.
The stomach, small intestine, and large intestine for example, all have different optimal pH levels. It has also been argued by Rowkowski and others (including very possibly William Wolcott) that sprinting around the block once will produce a far greater shift in pH toward acidity than eating nothing but meat all day long.
I have personally tested my own urine and saliva every hour for days on end and let me assure you, if you were to do the same, you would quickly find that what you do with exercise and how close you are to your needs for water consumption will influence your pH far more than what you eat.
I've knocked my urine pH down from 7 to 5 in 10 minutes of squatting with sets of 10 on a one-minute rest in just a few sets!
The long and short of pH is that different pH levels are appropriate for different people given their genetic heritage and is much more heavily dependent upon variables other than meat.
The Real Reason ...
So what really produces the illusion that vegetarianism is better for you? In many cases, converted vegetarians are eating real food for the first time. They're often cooking fresh food for the first time and eating much more raw food for the first time! Finally, they have stopped eating so much packaged crap.
All this acts to increase one's vitality and mental clarity just like using fresh water will clean your windows much better than dirty water. Vegetarian diets are also very effective detoxification diets across the board, greatly reducing body burden from lifestyles that included prolonged periods of consuming junk food.
Finally, people going on vegan diets are often directed to do so by holistic health professionals who also encourage the use of organic foods.
Since fat stores toxins and commercial farmers make their income by the pound, most farmers stand to benefit from feeding their livestock harmful foods. These harmful foods, in turn, produce livestock with much more fat.
The benefit from going vegan was to avoid those toxic commercial meats and therefore nothing inherent to being a vegan per se. Those eating organic meats will not suffer from the harmful effects of eating commercial meats.
This brief analysis certainly doesn't address all of the reasons why one might go vegetarian, but I hope that it's enough to help you understand the issue isn't so straightforward as some would have you believe. Genuine, organic meat, as Price showed, has been an important component of all healthy societies, so we ought to think twice before giving up on meat.
Paul Chek, Holistic Health Practitioner and certified Neuromuscular Therapist, is the founder of the C.H.E.K Institute in Vista, Calif. He is also a sought-after consultant to sports organizations, and his services have benefited numerous professional sports teams, athletes and individuals seeking optimal health worldwide. Paul has produced more than 60 videos, 17 correspondence courses and is the author of several books, audio programs and articles.
Comment: For more information on the ideal diet, click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Oh really ... ya think!!!
Scientists again raise possibility of fructose obesity link
12/8/2005- Researchers have again raised the controversial claim that fructose intake could be linked to rising obesity rates. By tricking people into thinking they are hungrier than you should be, scientists at the University of Florida believe that fructose, found in fruit, honey, table sugar and in many processed foods, could play a role in making people fatter.
Studies in animals have revealed that fructose plays a role in a biochemical chain reaction that triggers weight gain and other features of metabolic syndrome - the main precursor to type 2 diabetes.
In related research, the UF scientists also prevented rats from packing on the pounds by interrupting the way their bodies processed this simple sugar, even when the animals continued to consume it.
The researchers are now studying whether the same mechanism is involved in people.
"There may be more than just the common concept that the reason a person gets fat is because they eat too many calories and they don't do enough exercise," said Richard Johnson, professor of nephrology and chief of nephrology, hypertension and transplantation at UF's College of Medicine.
"Our data suggest certain foods and, in particular, fructose, may actually speed the process for a person to become obese."
The findings, reported in the December issue of Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology and in this month's online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, add to a growing amount of literature that implicates fructose in the obesity epidemic.
For example, a recent University of Cincinnati study asserted that the body processes high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) differently than other sugars due to the fructose content, leading to greater fat storage.
And last year, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health claimed in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that there was a link between consumption of refined carbohydrates and type 2 diabetes.
However Corn Refiners Association managing director Audrae Erickson told FoodNavigator earlier this year that scientists are wrong to draw a direct comparison between experiments on rats and human consumption of fructose in products such as soft drinks.
And Robert Earl, director of nutrition policy at the US National Food Processors Association, has said in the past that it is incorrect and misleading to suggest the consumption of a specific food or food ingredient was the cause of obesity and the rise of type 2 diabetes. Last year, the US-based Center for Food and Nutrition Policy (CFNP) at Virginia Tech said that there was no reason to believe that humans absorb or metabolize high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), used in beverage applications, any differently than sucrose.
However, the new UF research implicates a rise in uric acid in the bloodstream that occurs after fructose is consumed. That temporary spike blocks the action of insulin, which typically regulates how body cells use and store sugar and other food nutrients for energy.
If uric acid levels are frequently elevated, over time features of metabolic syndrome may develop, including high blood pressure, obesity and elevated blood cholesterol levels.
UF researchers are now studying the uric acid pathway in cell cultures in the laboratory, in animals and in people, and are also eyeing it as a possible factor in the development of cardiovascular and kidney diseases because of its effects on blood vessel responses.
"We cannot definitively state that fructose is driving the obesity epidemic," said Johnson. "But we can say that there is evidence supporting the possibility that it could have a contributory role - if not a major role."
Comment: I think we should believe the Corn Refiners, they haven't anything to lose, right.
The evidence is clear to me, and I have been talking about it, blogging about it for a very long time. For more information on how sugar, corn syrup, and high glycemic fruits, grains, and vegetables can cause you to become fat and diseased, click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
12/8/2005- Researchers have again raised the controversial claim that fructose intake could be linked to rising obesity rates. By tricking people into thinking they are hungrier than you should be, scientists at the University of Florida believe that fructose, found in fruit, honey, table sugar and in many processed foods, could play a role in making people fatter.
Studies in animals have revealed that fructose plays a role in a biochemical chain reaction that triggers weight gain and other features of metabolic syndrome - the main precursor to type 2 diabetes.
In related research, the UF scientists also prevented rats from packing on the pounds by interrupting the way their bodies processed this simple sugar, even when the animals continued to consume it.
The researchers are now studying whether the same mechanism is involved in people.
"There may be more than just the common concept that the reason a person gets fat is because they eat too many calories and they don't do enough exercise," said Richard Johnson, professor of nephrology and chief of nephrology, hypertension and transplantation at UF's College of Medicine.
"Our data suggest certain foods and, in particular, fructose, may actually speed the process for a person to become obese."
The findings, reported in the December issue of Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology and in this month's online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, add to a growing amount of literature that implicates fructose in the obesity epidemic.
For example, a recent University of Cincinnati study asserted that the body processes high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) differently than other sugars due to the fructose content, leading to greater fat storage.
And last year, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health claimed in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that there was a link between consumption of refined carbohydrates and type 2 diabetes.
However Corn Refiners Association managing director Audrae Erickson told FoodNavigator earlier this year that scientists are wrong to draw a direct comparison between experiments on rats and human consumption of fructose in products such as soft drinks.
And Robert Earl, director of nutrition policy at the US National Food Processors Association, has said in the past that it is incorrect and misleading to suggest the consumption of a specific food or food ingredient was the cause of obesity and the rise of type 2 diabetes. Last year, the US-based Center for Food and Nutrition Policy (CFNP) at Virginia Tech said that there was no reason to believe that humans absorb or metabolize high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), used in beverage applications, any differently than sucrose.
However, the new UF research implicates a rise in uric acid in the bloodstream that occurs after fructose is consumed. That temporary spike blocks the action of insulin, which typically regulates how body cells use and store sugar and other food nutrients for energy.
If uric acid levels are frequently elevated, over time features of metabolic syndrome may develop, including high blood pressure, obesity and elevated blood cholesterol levels.
UF researchers are now studying the uric acid pathway in cell cultures in the laboratory, in animals and in people, and are also eyeing it as a possible factor in the development of cardiovascular and kidney diseases because of its effects on blood vessel responses.
"We cannot definitively state that fructose is driving the obesity epidemic," said Johnson. "But we can say that there is evidence supporting the possibility that it could have a contributory role - if not a major role."
Comment: I think we should believe the Corn Refiners, they haven't anything to lose, right.
The evidence is clear to me, and I have been talking about it, blogging about it for a very long time. For more information on how sugar, corn syrup, and high glycemic fruits, grains, and vegetables can cause you to become fat and diseased, click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Could Alzheimer's Disease be a form of Metabolic Syndrome?
New study Suggests Brain insulin levels fall as the disease progresses ...
By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter
Could Alzheimer's be a form of diabetes?
That's the tantalizing suggestion from a new study that finds insulin production in the brain declines as Alzheimer's disease advances.
"Insulin disappears early and dramatically in Alzheimer's disease," senior researcher Suzanne M. de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology at Brown University Medical School, said in a prepared statement.
"And many of the unexplained features of Alzheimer's, such as cell death and tangles in the brain, appear to be linked to abnormalities in insulin signaling. This demonstrates that the disease is most likely a neuroendocrine disorder, or another type of diabetes," she added.
The discovery that the brain produces insulin at all is a recent one, and de la Monte's group also found that brain insulin produced by patients with Alzheimer's disease tends to fall below normal levels.
Now her group has discovered that brain levels of insulin and its related cellular receptors fall precipitously during the early stages of Alzheimer's. Insulin levels continue to drop progressively as the disease becomes more severe -- adding to evidence that Alzheimer's might be a new form of diabetes, she said.
In addition, the Brown University team found that low levels of acetylcholine -- a hallmark of Alzheimer's -- are directly linked to this loss of insulin and insulin-like growth factor function in the brain.
The report appears in the November issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
In its study, de la Monte's team autopsied the brain tissue of 45 patients diagnosed with different degrees of Alzheimer's called "Braak Stages." They compared those tissues to samples taken from individuals with no history of the disease.
The team analyzed insulin and insulin receptor function in the frontal cortex of the brain, a major area affected by Alzheimer's. They found that as the severity of Alzheimer's increased, the levels of insulin receptors and the brain's ability to respond to insulin decreased.
"In the most advanced stage of Alzheimer's, insulin receptors were nearly 80 percent lower than in a normal brain," de la Monte said.
In addition, the researchers found two abnormalities related to insulin in Alzheimer's. First, levels of insulin dropped as the disease progressed. Second, insulin and its related protein -- insulin-related growth factor-I -- lose the ability to bind to cell receptors. This creates a resistance to the insulin growth factors, causing the cells to malfunction and die.
"We're able to show that insulin impairment happens early in the disease," de la Monte said. "We're able to show it's linked to major neurotransmitters responsible for cognition. We're able to show it's linked to poor energy metabolism, and it's linked to abnormalities that contribute to the tangles characteristic of advanced Alzheimer's disease. This work ties several concepts together and demonstrates that Alzheimer's disease is quite possibly a Type 3 diabetes," she said.
One expert believes declining insulin levels may be an important feature of Alzheimer's, but not the whole story.
"There is now increasing evidence primarily from observational studies that diabetes, its predecessor metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance are implicated in increasing risk for Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Hugh C. Hendrie. He is a professor of psychiatry and co-director of the Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders at Indiana University Center for Aging Research, in Indianapolis.
This study adds support to these biological hypotheses and has perhaps treatment implications for the use of certain types of anti-diabetes drugs that influence insulin resistance, Hendrie said.
"There are many other factors also implicated in Alzheimer's disease, such as hypertension and inflammation, so I think it's a bit of a stretch at the moment to describe Alzheimer's disease as an endocrinological disorder like diabetes," he said.
Another expert thinks that insulin and insulin-like growth factors may be the key to slowing the progression of Alzheimer's.
"We have shown that insulin-like growth factors regulate learning and memory," said Douglas N. Ishii, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. "We had shown that by blocking insulin-like growth factors in the brain you block learning and memory."
When Ishii's group treated rats with insulin-like growth factors, the researchers found that the intervention prevented the loss of both learning and memory. "In addition, we showed that insulin normally regulates brain weight in adults," he said.
"The clinical potential is that by injecting insulin-like growth factors into patients, one might be able to prevent the loss of learning and memory," Ishii said. "In particular, we have a paper coming out showing that insulin-like growth factors can not only prevent the loss of learning and memory, but prevent the loss of a protein in the brain. This may lead to the slowing down of the progression of C."
Comment: This is an important study as it may indicate that Metabolic Syndrome or Hyperinsulinemia could be the underlining cause Alzheimer's. The author does not make that connection totally, because they say that Hypertension & Inflammation were also present. The cluster of diseases that are implicated by Metabolic Syndrome are many and include these 2 issues. Here is a list of diseases that I know to be caused or influenced by Hyperinsulinemia: Obesity, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Fluid Retention, Heart Disease, Arteriosclerosis (calcium deposits), Atherosclerosis (fat deposits), Acid Reflux, Polycystic Ovarian Disease, Increased Inflammation, Pre-Mature Aging, etc.
For more information on what causes Metabolic Syndrome or Hyperinsulinemia, click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter
Could Alzheimer's be a form of diabetes?
That's the tantalizing suggestion from a new study that finds insulin production in the brain declines as Alzheimer's disease advances.
"Insulin disappears early and dramatically in Alzheimer's disease," senior researcher Suzanne M. de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology at Brown University Medical School, said in a prepared statement.
"And many of the unexplained features of Alzheimer's, such as cell death and tangles in the brain, appear to be linked to abnormalities in insulin signaling. This demonstrates that the disease is most likely a neuroendocrine disorder, or another type of diabetes," she added.
The discovery that the brain produces insulin at all is a recent one, and de la Monte's group also found that brain insulin produced by patients with Alzheimer's disease tends to fall below normal levels.
Now her group has discovered that brain levels of insulin and its related cellular receptors fall precipitously during the early stages of Alzheimer's. Insulin levels continue to drop progressively as the disease becomes more severe -- adding to evidence that Alzheimer's might be a new form of diabetes, she said.
In addition, the Brown University team found that low levels of acetylcholine -- a hallmark of Alzheimer's -- are directly linked to this loss of insulin and insulin-like growth factor function in the brain.
The report appears in the November issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
In its study, de la Monte's team autopsied the brain tissue of 45 patients diagnosed with different degrees of Alzheimer's called "Braak Stages." They compared those tissues to samples taken from individuals with no history of the disease.
The team analyzed insulin and insulin receptor function in the frontal cortex of the brain, a major area affected by Alzheimer's. They found that as the severity of Alzheimer's increased, the levels of insulin receptors and the brain's ability to respond to insulin decreased.
"In the most advanced stage of Alzheimer's, insulin receptors were nearly 80 percent lower than in a normal brain," de la Monte said.
In addition, the researchers found two abnormalities related to insulin in Alzheimer's. First, levels of insulin dropped as the disease progressed. Second, insulin and its related protein -- insulin-related growth factor-I -- lose the ability to bind to cell receptors. This creates a resistance to the insulin growth factors, causing the cells to malfunction and die.
"We're able to show that insulin impairment happens early in the disease," de la Monte said. "We're able to show it's linked to major neurotransmitters responsible for cognition. We're able to show it's linked to poor energy metabolism, and it's linked to abnormalities that contribute to the tangles characteristic of advanced Alzheimer's disease. This work ties several concepts together and demonstrates that Alzheimer's disease is quite possibly a Type 3 diabetes," she said.
One expert believes declining insulin levels may be an important feature of Alzheimer's, but not the whole story.
"There is now increasing evidence primarily from observational studies that diabetes, its predecessor metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance are implicated in increasing risk for Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Hugh C. Hendrie. He is a professor of psychiatry and co-director of the Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders at Indiana University Center for Aging Research, in Indianapolis.
This study adds support to these biological hypotheses and has perhaps treatment implications for the use of certain types of anti-diabetes drugs that influence insulin resistance, Hendrie said.
"There are many other factors also implicated in Alzheimer's disease, such as hypertension and inflammation, so I think it's a bit of a stretch at the moment to describe Alzheimer's disease as an endocrinological disorder like diabetes," he said.
Another expert thinks that insulin and insulin-like growth factors may be the key to slowing the progression of Alzheimer's.
"We have shown that insulin-like growth factors regulate learning and memory," said Douglas N. Ishii, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. "We had shown that by blocking insulin-like growth factors in the brain you block learning and memory."
When Ishii's group treated rats with insulin-like growth factors, the researchers found that the intervention prevented the loss of both learning and memory. "In addition, we showed that insulin normally regulates brain weight in adults," he said.
"The clinical potential is that by injecting insulin-like growth factors into patients, one might be able to prevent the loss of learning and memory," Ishii said. "In particular, we have a paper coming out showing that insulin-like growth factors can not only prevent the loss of learning and memory, but prevent the loss of a protein in the brain. This may lead to the slowing down of the progression of C."
Comment: This is an important study as it may indicate that Metabolic Syndrome or Hyperinsulinemia could be the underlining cause Alzheimer's. The author does not make that connection totally, because they say that Hypertension & Inflammation were also present. The cluster of diseases that are implicated by Metabolic Syndrome are many and include these 2 issues. Here is a list of diseases that I know to be caused or influenced by Hyperinsulinemia: Obesity, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Fluid Retention, Heart Disease, Arteriosclerosis (calcium deposits), Atherosclerosis (fat deposits), Acid Reflux, Polycystic Ovarian Disease, Increased Inflammation, Pre-Mature Aging, etc.
For more information on what causes Metabolic Syndrome or Hyperinsulinemia, click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Paleolithic diet and alpha-lipoic acid for glaucoma
TUCSON, ARIZONA. It is estimated that about 3 million Americans are affected by glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness (after macular degeneration). The main risk factor for glaucoma is an elevation of intraocular eye pressure (IOP) with an IOP of greater than 21 mm Hg being considered indicative of a future risk of glaucoma. Chronically elevated glucose levels, such as found in diabetics, increase the risk of not only glaucoma, but also of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration. There is now evidence that adhering to a Paleolithic diet (lean meat, fish, non-starchy vegetables and nuts with little or no grains, dairy products and potatoes – or other high glycemic index vegetables) can reduce the risk of diabetes and its precursor, Syndrome X. There is also evidence that alpha-lipoic acid, a powerful antioxidant, can reduce glucose levels by facilitating uptake and sensitizing insulin.
Jack Challem, a medical editor in Arizona reports two cases where patients diagnosed with IOPs over 21 mm Hg were able to lower their IOPs to normal levels by switching to a Paleolithic diet and/or supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid. The first patient, a 45-year-old man, switched to a Paleolithic diet and began taking 380 mg/day of alpha-lipoic acid as well as several other supplements (magnesium citrate, chromium, vitamin-E, vitamin-C). In September 1997 his fasting glucose level was 111 mg/dL. By November 1999 this had been reduced to 85 mg/dL and by September 2000 his IOP was 16 mm Hg in both eyes.
The other patient with elevated IOP, an 84-year-old man, began supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid (200 mg 3 times daily after meals) and in less than a year had reduced his IOP to 20 in both eyes. Although anecdotal evidence only, these observations point to the possibility that following a Paleolithic diet and supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid may be helpful in warding off not only glaucoma and other eye diseases, but diabetes as well.Challem, Jack J. Natural therapies for reducing intraocular eye pressure: Rationale and two case reports. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol. 17, No. 4, 4th quarter, 2002, pp. 209-12
Comment: For more information on what the perfect diet looks like click here.
For more information on low glycemic foods click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Jack Challem, a medical editor in Arizona reports two cases where patients diagnosed with IOPs over 21 mm Hg were able to lower their IOPs to normal levels by switching to a Paleolithic diet and/or supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid. The first patient, a 45-year-old man, switched to a Paleolithic diet and began taking 380 mg/day of alpha-lipoic acid as well as several other supplements (magnesium citrate, chromium, vitamin-E, vitamin-C). In September 1997 his fasting glucose level was 111 mg/dL. By November 1999 this had been reduced to 85 mg/dL and by September 2000 his IOP was 16 mm Hg in both eyes.
The other patient with elevated IOP, an 84-year-old man, began supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid (200 mg 3 times daily after meals) and in less than a year had reduced his IOP to 20 in both eyes. Although anecdotal evidence only, these observations point to the possibility that following a Paleolithic diet and supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid may be helpful in warding off not only glaucoma and other eye diseases, but diabetes as well.Challem, Jack J. Natural therapies for reducing intraocular eye pressure: Rationale and two case reports. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol. 17, No. 4, 4th quarter, 2002, pp. 209-12
Comment: For more information on what the perfect diet looks like click here.
For more information on low glycemic foods click here.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Ignorance is bliss for this Registered Dietitian
How to get more cancer-fighting nutrients?
Essential vitamins should come from a healthy diet, not supplements
By Karen Collins, R.D.
Updated: 8:38 a.m. ET Dec. 2, 2005
The latest report card on the nutritional composition of the American diet tells us a lot about the food choices we have been making. If we reshape our eating patterns, we could improve our nutrient intake and lower our risk of cancer and other health problems.
The new publication, which details our nutritional shortcomings, is called What We Eat in America: NHANES 2001-2002. It was based on a federal dietary survey of almost 9,000 people. Almost all of the shortfalls identified in this report can be corrected by eating a balanced, mostly plant-based diet recommended in both the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Institute for Cancer Research's cancer prevention guidelines.
Results of the survey show that almost a third of us get too little vitamin C, almost half get too little vitamin A, more than half get too little magnesium, and at least 92 to 97 percent get too little fiber and potassium.
Since vegetables, fruits and beans are major sources for these nutrients, to end any deficiency we might have, most of us should try to eat three-and-a-half to five cups of vegetables and fruits a day. The survey indicates that all of us need to expand our produce choices and learn to enjoy more dark green and orange vegetables and more fruit.
These particular nutrients are important because they help lower the risk of our major health problems: cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. When we expand the amounts and variety of vegetables, fruits and beans we eat, we get a wide range of natural phytochemicals, along with these nutrients, that seem to keep blood vessels healthy and block several steps in the cancer development process.
By including more whole grains in our choice of breads, cereals, rice and pasta, we can also get more magnesium, potassium and fiber. If we aim for three or four servings of whole grains a day, we can still include a few of the refined grain products that we find hardest to give up. Too many refined carbohydrates can mean too many calories that challenge weight control.
Supplements not a good optionAccording to the survey, vitamin E consumption falls below recommended levels for 93 percent of us. Getting enough of this vitamin poses a challenge, because its major sources are high-fat, high-calorie vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds, although some can be found in dark green leafy vegetables. You can use soft tub margarine and canola or olive oil to add vitamin E to your diet without too much saturated fat. However, people who are trying to cut back on calories may have difficulty getting enough vitamin E this way without exceeding their calorie limit.
Vitamin E supplements aren't a good option, however. New studies confirm past findings that these supplements don't protect against heart disease or cancer. Furthermore, some researchers suggest that the gamma-tocopherol form of vitamin E, which is more abundant in nuts and seeds, may lower cancer risk. Supplements with the alpha-tocopherol form should be considered carefully, because they can reduce blood levels of the gamma form. If you wish to take vitamin E supplements, you should use one with mixed tocopherols.
The only other common nutritional deficiencies found in the survey that can't be fixed by taking the steps above are shortages of calcium and vitamin D. To remedy these shortcomings, from the age of nine onward we need three daily servings of dairy or calcium-fortified juice, cereal, or soymilk. These servings provide the calcium linked with sturdy bones, blood pressure control and possibly less colon cancer. For the elderly and anyone else who is advised to aim for the highest intake levels of vitamin D, a supplement may be needed.
But you shouldn't think immediately of using supplements when you hear about common nutritional problems. By eating a mostly plant-based diet that's recommended for lower cancer risk, your food choices will supply most of the nutrients that are often missing.
Nutrition Notes is provided by the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C.
Comments: She gives a great argument on how deficient we are, but concludes we do not need to supplement. Maybe she needs to go back to 1936 and read what the government concluded in Senate Document No. 264 74th Congress 2nd Session, 1936 :
" Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until the depleted soils from which our foods come are brought into proper mineral balance?
The alarming fact is that foods, fruits and vegetables and grains, now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contains enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us--no matter how much of them we eat!
This talk about minerals is novel and quite startling. In fact, a realization of the importance of minerals in food is so new that the text books on nutritional dietetics contain very little about it. Nevertheless, it is something that concerns all of us, and the further we delve into it the more startling it becomes.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot--that one is about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned? But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet be lacking in the particular mineral element which our system requires and which carrots are supposed to contain.
Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us!)
No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his stomach with the mineral salts he requires for perfect health, because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them! And we are running too big stomachs.
No longer does a balanced and fully nourishing diet consist merely of so many calories or certain vitamins or a fixed proportion of starches, proteins and carbohydrates. We know that our diet must contain in addition something like a score of mineral salts.
It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our lives.
We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of importance for the normal function of some special structure in the body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however that vitamins control the body's appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of mineral's they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless."
--Written and printed by the 74th US Congress
Maybe she should have read a little from this giant, before she made such a ignorant conclusion:
In the 1960's, Professor Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel prizes, proved that there are over 60 deficiency diseases, some as debilitating as arthritis, others as well known as osteoporosis, which can be traced to vitamin & mineral deficiencies alone.
Your choice, listen to the advice of someone who develops hospital diets, (Jello being one of their favorite foods choices) or listen to expert scientists like Linus Pauling... Gee, I think I'll follow Linus.
cw
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Essential vitamins should come from a healthy diet, not supplements
By Karen Collins, R.D.
Updated: 8:38 a.m. ET Dec. 2, 2005
The latest report card on the nutritional composition of the American diet tells us a lot about the food choices we have been making. If we reshape our eating patterns, we could improve our nutrient intake and lower our risk of cancer and other health problems.
The new publication, which details our nutritional shortcomings, is called What We Eat in America: NHANES 2001-2002. It was based on a federal dietary survey of almost 9,000 people. Almost all of the shortfalls identified in this report can be corrected by eating a balanced, mostly plant-based diet recommended in both the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Institute for Cancer Research's cancer prevention guidelines.
Results of the survey show that almost a third of us get too little vitamin C, almost half get too little vitamin A, more than half get too little magnesium, and at least 92 to 97 percent get too little fiber and potassium.
Since vegetables, fruits and beans are major sources for these nutrients, to end any deficiency we might have, most of us should try to eat three-and-a-half to five cups of vegetables and fruits a day. The survey indicates that all of us need to expand our produce choices and learn to enjoy more dark green and orange vegetables and more fruit.
These particular nutrients are important because they help lower the risk of our major health problems: cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. When we expand the amounts and variety of vegetables, fruits and beans we eat, we get a wide range of natural phytochemicals, along with these nutrients, that seem to keep blood vessels healthy and block several steps in the cancer development process.
By including more whole grains in our choice of breads, cereals, rice and pasta, we can also get more magnesium, potassium and fiber. If we aim for three or four servings of whole grains a day, we can still include a few of the refined grain products that we find hardest to give up. Too many refined carbohydrates can mean too many calories that challenge weight control.
Supplements not a good optionAccording to the survey, vitamin E consumption falls below recommended levels for 93 percent of us. Getting enough of this vitamin poses a challenge, because its major sources are high-fat, high-calorie vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds, although some can be found in dark green leafy vegetables. You can use soft tub margarine and canola or olive oil to add vitamin E to your diet without too much saturated fat. However, people who are trying to cut back on calories may have difficulty getting enough vitamin E this way without exceeding their calorie limit.
Vitamin E supplements aren't a good option, however. New studies confirm past findings that these supplements don't protect against heart disease or cancer. Furthermore, some researchers suggest that the gamma-tocopherol form of vitamin E, which is more abundant in nuts and seeds, may lower cancer risk. Supplements with the alpha-tocopherol form should be considered carefully, because they can reduce blood levels of the gamma form. If you wish to take vitamin E supplements, you should use one with mixed tocopherols.
The only other common nutritional deficiencies found in the survey that can't be fixed by taking the steps above are shortages of calcium and vitamin D. To remedy these shortcomings, from the age of nine onward we need three daily servings of dairy or calcium-fortified juice, cereal, or soymilk. These servings provide the calcium linked with sturdy bones, blood pressure control and possibly less colon cancer. For the elderly and anyone else who is advised to aim for the highest intake levels of vitamin D, a supplement may be needed.
But you shouldn't think immediately of using supplements when you hear about common nutritional problems. By eating a mostly plant-based diet that's recommended for lower cancer risk, your food choices will supply most of the nutrients that are often missing.
Nutrition Notes is provided by the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C.
Comments: She gives a great argument on how deficient we are, but concludes we do not need to supplement. Maybe she needs to go back to 1936 and read what the government concluded in Senate Document No. 264 74th Congress 2nd Session, 1936 :
" Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until the depleted soils from which our foods come are brought into proper mineral balance?
The alarming fact is that foods, fruits and vegetables and grains, now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contains enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us--no matter how much of them we eat!
This talk about minerals is novel and quite startling. In fact, a realization of the importance of minerals in food is so new that the text books on nutritional dietetics contain very little about it. Nevertheless, it is something that concerns all of us, and the further we delve into it the more startling it becomes.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot--that one is about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned? But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet be lacking in the particular mineral element which our system requires and which carrots are supposed to contain.
Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us!)
No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his stomach with the mineral salts he requires for perfect health, because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them! And we are running too big stomachs.
No longer does a balanced and fully nourishing diet consist merely of so many calories or certain vitamins or a fixed proportion of starches, proteins and carbohydrates. We know that our diet must contain in addition something like a score of mineral salts.
It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our lives.
We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of importance for the normal function of some special structure in the body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however that vitamins control the body's appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of mineral's they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless."
--Written and printed by the 74th US Congress
Maybe she should have read a little from this giant, before she made such a ignorant conclusion:
In the 1960's, Professor Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel prizes, proved that there are over 60 deficiency diseases, some as debilitating as arthritis, others as well known as osteoporosis, which can be traced to vitamin & mineral deficiencies alone.
Your choice, listen to the advice of someone who develops hospital diets, (Jello being one of their favorite foods choices) or listen to expert scientists like Linus Pauling... Gee, I think I'll follow Linus.
cw
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Fish oil or Omega 3's can shrink cancerous tumors
In 2000, a 78-year-old man was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and told by his doctor he had only a few months to live.
Tumors Down to 10 Percent
Today, the cancerous tumors in his lungs have shrunk to 10 percent of what they were in 2000, according to last year's computed tomography scans. What caused this was not a common medical treatment such as chemotherapy or surgical excision.
An Omega-3 Diet
How is this possible? His neighbor, Ron Pardini, a professor of biochemistry and associate director of the Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station, told him to drastically increase his intake of omega-3 fatty acids, which are often found in fish oil or golden algae oil.
He began to take a high dose of fish oil and golden algae oil capsules daily, while at the same time reducing corn-based foods. Corn contains omega-6 fatty acids, which have been found to increase cancer growth.
Fights Cancer in Mice
Pardini's research showed that omega-3 fatty acids significantly depress the growth of human mammary, ovarian, colon, prostate and pancreatic cancer cells that were injected into mice. His studies also demonstrated that fish oil consumption can improve a mouse's responsiveness to chemotherapy.
Fish oil research began when it was observed that Inuit Eskimo populations suffer from fewer breast and prostate cancer deaths. So far, though, most studies have been limited to animal models.
Medical News Today November 11, 2005
Omega 3 EPA/DHA
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Tumors Down to 10 Percent
Today, the cancerous tumors in his lungs have shrunk to 10 percent of what they were in 2000, according to last year's computed tomography scans. What caused this was not a common medical treatment such as chemotherapy or surgical excision.
An Omega-3 Diet
How is this possible? His neighbor, Ron Pardini, a professor of biochemistry and associate director of the Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station, told him to drastically increase his intake of omega-3 fatty acids, which are often found in fish oil or golden algae oil.
He began to take a high dose of fish oil and golden algae oil capsules daily, while at the same time reducing corn-based foods. Corn contains omega-6 fatty acids, which have been found to increase cancer growth.
Fights Cancer in Mice
Pardini's research showed that omega-3 fatty acids significantly depress the growth of human mammary, ovarian, colon, prostate and pancreatic cancer cells that were injected into mice. His studies also demonstrated that fish oil consumption can improve a mouse's responsiveness to chemotherapy.
Fish oil research began when it was observed that Inuit Eskimo populations suffer from fewer breast and prostate cancer deaths. So far, though, most studies have been limited to animal models.
Medical News Today November 11, 2005
Omega 3 EPA/DHA
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
The harm from a bad diet extends over generations
This may offer new insight into today's insulin resistance etc.
Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)President, Gordon Research Institute
Not only can food effect genes, but the effects can cross generations ...
Type 2 Diabetes May Begin With Grandma's DietAn innovative study published online in The Journal of Physiology in Press provides the first evidence that the insulin resistance typical of type 2 diabetes can be "programmed" across two generations by poor nutrition during a grandmother's pregnancy and lactation. The study, from The University of Texas Health Science Center at SanAntonio and the Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition in Mexico City, showed that grandsons and granddaughters of female rats fed an inadequate diet during pregnancy and/or lactation were more likely to become obese and insulin resistant than grandchildren of females fed an adequate diet. The research dramatically extends previous findings that poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation predisposes the first generation of offspring to diabetes. The study is the first to show that the adverse effects can be passed to adult grandchildren across two generations.Peter W. Nathanielsz, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the newCenter for Pregnancy and Newborn Research at the Health Science Center, explains: "These new findings stretch the unwanted consequences of poor nutrition across generations. It offers us important clues about the origins of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Knowledge of the origins of type 2 diabetes has the potential to improve the health of millions as well as deliver very significant economic savings."The granddaughters were more affected when their maternal grandmothers were undernourished during pregnancy. The grandsons, however, were more affected when their maternal grandmothers were undernourished during lactation. Thus, there are gender differences in the effects on the grandchildren, according to the time of exposure to a poor diet during their grandmothers' own development."Other researchers who have explored the issue have not tried to teaseout the effects of poor nutrition in pregnancy in distinction to lactation. Dr. Nathanielsz said the finding is important because it re-emphasizes the need to provide better maternal care and advice to women about good nutrition both during pregnancy and lactation.Dr. Nathanielsz, who joined the Health Science Center in 2004 from New York University Medical School, is the author of several books, including "Life in the Womb: the Origin of Health and Disease" (Promethean Press, 1999) and "The Prenatal Prescription" (HarperCollins Publishers, 2001). He is a widely quoted authority on fetal and early development. He said the finding that the diets of grandmothers can affect the health of grandchildren is "the confluence of nature and nurture -- it's one of the hottest health care stories there is."
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)President, Gordon Research Institute
Not only can food effect genes, but the effects can cross generations ...
Type 2 Diabetes May Begin With Grandma's DietAn innovative study published online in The Journal of Physiology in Press provides the first evidence that the insulin resistance typical of type 2 diabetes can be "programmed" across two generations by poor nutrition during a grandmother's pregnancy and lactation. The study, from The University of Texas Health Science Center at SanAntonio and the Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition in Mexico City, showed that grandsons and granddaughters of female rats fed an inadequate diet during pregnancy and/or lactation were more likely to become obese and insulin resistant than grandchildren of females fed an adequate diet. The research dramatically extends previous findings that poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation predisposes the first generation of offspring to diabetes. The study is the first to show that the adverse effects can be passed to adult grandchildren across two generations.Peter W. Nathanielsz, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the newCenter for Pregnancy and Newborn Research at the Health Science Center, explains: "These new findings stretch the unwanted consequences of poor nutrition across generations. It offers us important clues about the origins of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Knowledge of the origins of type 2 diabetes has the potential to improve the health of millions as well as deliver very significant economic savings."The granddaughters were more affected when their maternal grandmothers were undernourished during pregnancy. The grandsons, however, were more affected when their maternal grandmothers were undernourished during lactation. Thus, there are gender differences in the effects on the grandchildren, according to the time of exposure to a poor diet during their grandmothers' own development."Other researchers who have explored the issue have not tried to teaseout the effects of poor nutrition in pregnancy in distinction to lactation. Dr. Nathanielsz said the finding is important because it re-emphasizes the need to provide better maternal care and advice to women about good nutrition both during pregnancy and lactation.Dr. Nathanielsz, who joined the Health Science Center in 2004 from New York University Medical School, is the author of several books, including "Life in the Womb: the Origin of Health and Disease" (Promethean Press, 1999) and "The Prenatal Prescription" (HarperCollins Publishers, 2001). He is a widely quoted authority on fetal and early development. He said the finding that the diets of grandmothers can affect the health of grandchildren is "the confluence of nature and nurture -- it's one of the hottest health care stories there is."
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Paradigms and Paradoxes about Vitamin D
Reprinted from...
John Cannell, MD The Vitamin D Council
Last month, Dr. Armin Zittermann, of Ruhr University in Germany, published the best vitamin D paper of the month. He reviewed the mounting evidence that vitamin D deficiency is a major cause of heart disease.
Br J Nutr. 2005 Oct;94(4):483-92.
Before we start, let’s talk about paradigms and paradoxes. A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality. The current paradigm is that heart disease is caused by a combination of genetics, hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol, smoking, obesity, inactivity, and diet. A paradox is a fact that contradicts the paradigm.
The Framingham Risk Equation is an attempt to use the most reliable risk factors in the paradigm to predict who will get heart disease. When they applied it to British men for ten years, they found 84% of the heart disease occurred in the men classified as low risk! Furthermore, 75% of the men classified as high risk were still free of heart disease ten years later. It seems the equation is missing a few variables.
BMJ. 2003 Nov 29;327(7426):1267.
There are several interesting heart disease paradoxes. How well do you know them? Good time for another quiz.
1. The French Paradox is the observation that cardiovascular disease is relatively low in France, despite high intakes of saturated fats.
A. True
B. False
True. Perhaps the best known of the cardiovascular disease paradoxes, the most common explanation is that the French love red wine and the antioxidants it contains. It was first described in 1987, before the dermatologists scared the French out of their bikinis. The rates of cardiovascular mortality in France are much lower in the South and West than in the North. One of the world’s best vitamin D researchers, Dr. Marie Chapuy, found that vitamin D levels of healthy adults in France follow that same pattern, with a mean level of 38 ngs/ml in the sunnier and drier South and West, but less than half that (17ngs/ml) in the colder, rainier, and more polluted, North.
Arch Mal Coeur Vaiss. 1987 Apr;80 Spec No:17-21.
Hypertension. 2005 Oct;46(4):645-6. Epub 2005 Sep 12.
Hypertension. 2005 Oct;46(4):645-6. Epub 2005 Sep 12.
Osteoporos Int. 1997;7(5):439-43.
2. The Israeli Paradox is the observation that cardiovascular disease is high in Israel despite a high consumption of polyunsaturated omega-6 fats.
A. True
B. False
True. According to the current paradigm, polyunsaturated fats contained in vegetable seed oils are supposed to lower the risk of heart disease. However, high consumption of these oils doesn’t appear to prevent the Israelis from dying from heart attacks. Israel does, despite its sunny weather, have a high incidence of vitamin D deficiency. Average vitamin D levels among healthy adults in Lebanon, right next door, are only 9.7 ngs/ml - dangerously low. Healthy Jewish mothers, especially orthodox ones, have low vitamin D levels. (If you are wondering how the pro-inflammatory omega-6 oils could ever help heart disease, one possibility is these oils dissociate vitamin D from its binding protein, making more free vitamin D available. Apparently, the Israelis don’t have enough vitamin D in their blood to dissociate).
Isr J Med Sci. 1996 Nov;32(11):1134-43.
Isr Med Assoc J. 2004 Feb;6(2):82-7.
J Bone Miner Res. 2000 Sep;15(9):1856-62.
Isr Med Assoc J. 2001 Jun;3(6):419-21.
J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 1992 Sep;42(8):855-61.
3 The Italian Paradox is the observation that a population of heavy smokers has a low incidence of cardiovascular disease.
A. True
B. False
True. The overall death rate from cardiovascular disease in Italy, a country of heavy smokers, is relatively low. Before you say it is the olive oil and wine, ask yourself where olive trees and grapevines grow – in the sun. However, at least two good studies show vitamin D levels in Europe are a paradox, the closer a European lives to the equator, the lower their vitamin D level. Nevertheless, an Italian study showed healthy Roman blood donors had robust vitamin D levels of 48 ngs/ml in the summer. Even average postmenopausal Italian women reached 36 ng/ml in the summer. Anyone who has traveled in Italy, know that most Italians love the sun. As the old Italian proverb points out: “Where the sun does not go, the doctor does.”
QJM. 2000 Jun;93(6):375-83.
Br J Nutr. 1999 Feb;81(2):133-7.
4. The Northern Ireland Paradox is the observation that a population with a very high incidence of coronary heart disease does not have high rates of the expected risk factors.
A. True
B. False
True. In fact, the age adjusted mortality for coronary artery disease was more than four times higher in Belfast than in Toulouse, France, despite almost identical coronary risk factors. There were 761 deaths per 100,000 in Belfast compared to 175 in Toulouse. This is hard to explain, given the current paradigm of heart disease. Of interest, Belfast is at 54 degrees latitude, at sea level, and has 257 rainy days per year. Toulouse is eleven degrees closer to the equator, its altitude is 500 feet closer to the sun, and Toulouse only has 74 rainy days per year. Lots more vitamin D in Toulouse!
QJM. 1995 Jul;88(7):469-77.
QJM. 1998 Oct;91(10):667-76.
Weatherbase, Belfast
Weatherbase, Toulouse
5. The Indian Paradox is the observation that a high prevalence of coronary artery disease in urban Indians is associated with low saturated fat intake.
A. True
B. False
True. Researchers found that a low saturated fat diet did not prevent heart disease in the citizens of the brass-works-polluted city of Moradabad in northern India. The authors did not mention that air pollution dramatically lowers vitamin D levels.
J Am Coll Nutr. 1998 Aug;17(4):342-50.
Arch Dis Child. 2002 Aug;87(2):111-3.
6. The Swedish Paradox is the observation that the strong association between cold weather and heart disease in Sweden is not explained by the usual risk factors.
A. True
B. False
True. Researchers tried to explain why higher annual cardiac mortality is associated with residence in colder regions of Sweden. Try as they might, the authors could not support the current paradigm for heart disease. They failed to mention that cold weather is a marker for low vitamin D levels, as outdoor activity in cold weather is both curtailed and requires extensive clothing.
Scott Med J. 1991 Dec;36(6):165-8.
The point of these six paradoxes is simple. Our current paradigm for understanding heart disease is incomplete. One or more major causes of heart disease remain unknown. One theory - the theory that vitamin D deficiency is a major cause of heart disease – may explain these paradoxes.
7. Robert Scragg, Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Auckland, first proposed that vitamin D deficiency plays a role in cardiovascular disease.
A. True
B. False
True. For the last 25 years, Dr. Scragg has been trying to convince anyone who would listen that vitamin D explains many of observations about heart disease. These include the facts that heart disease is higher at higher latitudes, lower altitudes, in the winter, in African Americans, in older, inactive, and in more obese patients. Remember, vitamin D blood levels are lower at higher latitudes, lower altitudes, in the winter, in African Americans, in older, inactive, and in more obese patients. Altitude is the least known of these associations. The age adjusted mortality for heart disease in the USA showed a striking inverse correlation with altitude in 1979, before the sun scare. American populations at the highest altitude had about half the heart disease of sea level populations. Thirty-five years ago, Leaf observed that most of the long-lived populations in the world reside at high altitude.
Int J Epidemiol. 1981 Dec;10(4):337-41.
J Chronic Dis. 1979;32(1-2):157-62.
Sci Am. 1973 Sep;229(3):44-52.
8. Dr. Scragg showed that higher vitamin D levels are associated with lower risk for heart attack.
A. True
B. False
True. In 1979, the Tromso Heart Study found corrected vitamin D levels showed the same thing.
Int J Epidemiol. 1990 Sep;19(3):559-63.
Br Med J. 1979 Jul 21;2(6183):176.
9. Dr. Scragg is such a good scientist, he then published a study which seemed to disprove his theory.
A. True
B. False
True. He discovered that a single oral dose of 100,000 units of vitamin D had no effect on risk factors (serum cholesterol or blood pressure) five weeks later. This seemed to disprove his theory, but he published the data anyway, always a mark of a good scientist. We now know that 100,000 units are a small dose and that such “stoss” therapy is not physiological. Such a small single dose will raise vitamin D levels for a month or two, but then they rapidly fall towards baseline and would have little physiological effect five weeks later.
Eur J Clin Nutr. 1995 Sep;49(9):640-6.
10. Zittermann points out that vitamin D reduces vascular smooth muscle proliferation, reduces vascular calcification, decreases parathormone levels, reduces C reactive protein (CRP) and other markers of inflammation, and decreases renin, all of which should prevent or treat heart disease.
A. True
B. False
True. He discusses most of the evidence that exists, tying heart disease to vitamin D deficiency. A vitamin D theory of heart disease explains the excess cardiovascular deaths at high latitude, low altitude and during the winter. Furthermore, it explains the higher incidence of heart disease in African Americans, older, inactive, and obese individuals as these groups have significantly lower vitamin D blood levels.
Br J Nutr. 2005 Oct;94(4):483-92.
11. In 2003, Zittermann discovered that patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) have very low levels of vitamin D.
A. True
B. False
True. Furthermore, he found that a protein (NT-proANP), which is a predictor of CHF severity, was inversely associated with vitamin D levels.
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2003 Jan 1;41(1):105-12.
12. Blood cholesterol measurements are worse at higher latitudes, lower altitudes and in the winter.
A. True
B. False
True. The effects of latitude on cholesterol seen in the first study are quite remarkable. In the Greek study, total serum cholesterol for both men and women were significantly lower at higher altitude in spite of similar diets. The seasonal variations in cholesterol are well known and not explained by seasonal dietary changes.
QJM. 1996 Aug;89(8):579-89.
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2005 Apr;59(4):274-8.
J Clin Epidemiol. 1988;41(7):679-89.
Chronobiol Int. 2001 May;18(3):541-57.
13. Blood pressure is higher at higher latitudes, lower altitudes, in the winter, in African Americans, in the aged, and in the obese.
A. True
B. False
True. High blood pressure is one of the strongest predictors of heart disease. Here, six facts about hypertension can be explained by one theory: vitamin D.
Hypertension. 1997 Aug;30(2 Pt 1):150-6.
Ann Hum Biol. 2000 Jan-Feb;27(1):19-28.
Harv Health Lett. 2005 Sep;30(11):8.
14. Diabetes is more common at higher latitudes, at lower altitudes, in African Americans, in the aged and the obese. Both blood sugar and hemoglobin A1C are higher in the winter.
A. True
B. False
True. Six final facts that can be explained with one theory: vitamin D.
Eur J Epidemiol. 1991 Jan;7(1):55-63.
Nutrition. 2001 Apr;17(4):305-9.
Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2005 Aug;69(2):169-74. Epub 2005 Jan 12.
Diabetologia. 1982 Apr;22(4):250-3.
Am J Epidemiol. 2005 Mar 15;161(6):565-74.
15. Two studies show vitamin D significantly reduces C reactive protein (CRP), which may be a better predictor of heart disease than LDL cholesterol.
A. True
B. False
True. The Belgian study found a significant effect on CRP even though their high-dose vitamin D group only got 500 units a day.
QJM. 2002 Dec;95(12):787-96.
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Oct;88(10):4623-32.
16. The risk for total mortality is significantly lower in subjects with high vitamin D levels.
A. True
B. False
True. However, the study is in Finnish and has not been translated into English (author communication).
Seppanen R, Marniemi J, Alanen E, Impivaara O, Jarvislo J, Ronnemaa T, et al. Ravinnon ja seerumin vitamiinit ja kivennaisaineet vanhusten kuolleisuuden ennustajina. Suom Laakaril 2000;42:4255-60 [Finnish]. Reported in Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2005 Jun;15(3):188-97.
17. It is now a proven scientific fact that vitamin D both prevents and treats heart disease.
A. True
B. False
False. Like so may other fields of vitamin D research, we lack the definitive interventional trials that would settle the point. It would be simple for the National Institutes of Health to fund a study giving physiological doses of real vitamin D (5,000 units of cholecalciferol) to heart disease patients for a year and see if CRP, proinsulin, blood pressure, cholesterol, body weight, heart attacks, or death rate decreases.
We will have to wait years for science to find out if vitamin D prevents and/or treats heart disease. While you are waiting, you have a choice. You can wait vitamin D deficient (levels less than 40 ngs/ml) or you can wait vitamin D sufficient (levels around 40-60 ngs/ml). The choice is yours - another Pascal’s Wager - this time you are betting your heart.
Also, while you wait for more studies, remember that vitamin D should be obtained daily, not monthly or weekly. It should be obtained physiologically, not in an all-then-none manner, as would happen if you took 100,000 units one day a month and nothing the other 29 days. It appears likely that high blood levels followed by low blood levels may do harm. The reason is that falling blood levels reset the enzymes maintaining intracellular levels of activated vitamin D, resulting in low intracellular levels.
Int J Cancer. 2004 Sep 1;111(3):468; author reply 469.
Vitamin D should be consumed the way the human genome consumed it during its evolution in subequatorial Africa, a steady amount every day. If you live down south, you can go in the sun for a few minutes every day. If you live up north you can sun in the warmer months and use a sunlamp or take real vitamin D (cholecalciferol) in the winter. Adults in the north could take one 5,000 unit capsule a day in late fall, winter, and early spring, less in the late spring and early fall, and none in the summer months - depending on your sunning habits. Children over 50 pounds need two of the 1,000 unit capsules every day in the colder months while children under 50 pounds need about 1,000 units in the colder months. Few people need to take oral vitamin D in the summer unless you are a sunphobe. Get enough vitamin D every day to maintain stable vitamin D blood levels (25-hydroxy-vitamin D) around 50 ngs/ml, year-around.
Last question: should patients dying from heart disease be allowed to die vitamin D deficient? According to the current paradigm, the answer is yes. At least, none of the cardiologists I know even bother to check a vitamin D level. Given the scientific literature, that’s a bit paradoxical.
Comment: Don't wait for final proof, do it...
Vitamin D3
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
John Cannell, MD The Vitamin D Council
Last month, Dr. Armin Zittermann, of Ruhr University in Germany, published the best vitamin D paper of the month. He reviewed the mounting evidence that vitamin D deficiency is a major cause of heart disease.
Br J Nutr. 2005 Oct;94(4):483-92.
Before we start, let’s talk about paradigms and paradoxes. A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality. The current paradigm is that heart disease is caused by a combination of genetics, hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol, smoking, obesity, inactivity, and diet. A paradox is a fact that contradicts the paradigm.
The Framingham Risk Equation is an attempt to use the most reliable risk factors in the paradigm to predict who will get heart disease. When they applied it to British men for ten years, they found 84% of the heart disease occurred in the men classified as low risk! Furthermore, 75% of the men classified as high risk were still free of heart disease ten years later. It seems the equation is missing a few variables.
BMJ. 2003 Nov 29;327(7426):1267.
There are several interesting heart disease paradoxes. How well do you know them? Good time for another quiz.
1. The French Paradox is the observation that cardiovascular disease is relatively low in France, despite high intakes of saturated fats.
A. True
B. False
True. Perhaps the best known of the cardiovascular disease paradoxes, the most common explanation is that the French love red wine and the antioxidants it contains. It was first described in 1987, before the dermatologists scared the French out of their bikinis. The rates of cardiovascular mortality in France are much lower in the South and West than in the North. One of the world’s best vitamin D researchers, Dr. Marie Chapuy, found that vitamin D levels of healthy adults in France follow that same pattern, with a mean level of 38 ngs/ml in the sunnier and drier South and West, but less than half that (17ngs/ml) in the colder, rainier, and more polluted, North.
Arch Mal Coeur Vaiss. 1987 Apr;80 Spec No:17-21.
Hypertension. 2005 Oct;46(4):645-6. Epub 2005 Sep 12.
Hypertension. 2005 Oct;46(4):645-6. Epub 2005 Sep 12.
Osteoporos Int. 1997;7(5):439-43.
2. The Israeli Paradox is the observation that cardiovascular disease is high in Israel despite a high consumption of polyunsaturated omega-6 fats.
A. True
B. False
True. According to the current paradigm, polyunsaturated fats contained in vegetable seed oils are supposed to lower the risk of heart disease. However, high consumption of these oils doesn’t appear to prevent the Israelis from dying from heart attacks. Israel does, despite its sunny weather, have a high incidence of vitamin D deficiency. Average vitamin D levels among healthy adults in Lebanon, right next door, are only 9.7 ngs/ml - dangerously low. Healthy Jewish mothers, especially orthodox ones, have low vitamin D levels. (If you are wondering how the pro-inflammatory omega-6 oils could ever help heart disease, one possibility is these oils dissociate vitamin D from its binding protein, making more free vitamin D available. Apparently, the Israelis don’t have enough vitamin D in their blood to dissociate).
Isr J Med Sci. 1996 Nov;32(11):1134-43.
Isr Med Assoc J. 2004 Feb;6(2):82-7.
J Bone Miner Res. 2000 Sep;15(9):1856-62.
Isr Med Assoc J. 2001 Jun;3(6):419-21.
J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 1992 Sep;42(8):855-61.
3 The Italian Paradox is the observation that a population of heavy smokers has a low incidence of cardiovascular disease.
A. True
B. False
True. The overall death rate from cardiovascular disease in Italy, a country of heavy smokers, is relatively low. Before you say it is the olive oil and wine, ask yourself where olive trees and grapevines grow – in the sun. However, at least two good studies show vitamin D levels in Europe are a paradox, the closer a European lives to the equator, the lower their vitamin D level. Nevertheless, an Italian study showed healthy Roman blood donors had robust vitamin D levels of 48 ngs/ml in the summer. Even average postmenopausal Italian women reached 36 ng/ml in the summer. Anyone who has traveled in Italy, know that most Italians love the sun. As the old Italian proverb points out: “Where the sun does not go, the doctor does.”
QJM. 2000 Jun;93(6):375-83.
Br J Nutr. 1999 Feb;81(2):133-7.
4. The Northern Ireland Paradox is the observation that a population with a very high incidence of coronary heart disease does not have high rates of the expected risk factors.
A. True
B. False
True. In fact, the age adjusted mortality for coronary artery disease was more than four times higher in Belfast than in Toulouse, France, despite almost identical coronary risk factors. There were 761 deaths per 100,000 in Belfast compared to 175 in Toulouse. This is hard to explain, given the current paradigm of heart disease. Of interest, Belfast is at 54 degrees latitude, at sea level, and has 257 rainy days per year. Toulouse is eleven degrees closer to the equator, its altitude is 500 feet closer to the sun, and Toulouse only has 74 rainy days per year. Lots more vitamin D in Toulouse!
QJM. 1995 Jul;88(7):469-77.
QJM. 1998 Oct;91(10):667-76.
Weatherbase, Belfast
Weatherbase, Toulouse
5. The Indian Paradox is the observation that a high prevalence of coronary artery disease in urban Indians is associated with low saturated fat intake.
A. True
B. False
True. Researchers found that a low saturated fat diet did not prevent heart disease in the citizens of the brass-works-polluted city of Moradabad in northern India. The authors did not mention that air pollution dramatically lowers vitamin D levels.
J Am Coll Nutr. 1998 Aug;17(4):342-50.
Arch Dis Child. 2002 Aug;87(2):111-3.
6. The Swedish Paradox is the observation that the strong association between cold weather and heart disease in Sweden is not explained by the usual risk factors.
A. True
B. False
True. Researchers tried to explain why higher annual cardiac mortality is associated with residence in colder regions of Sweden. Try as they might, the authors could not support the current paradigm for heart disease. They failed to mention that cold weather is a marker for low vitamin D levels, as outdoor activity in cold weather is both curtailed and requires extensive clothing.
Scott Med J. 1991 Dec;36(6):165-8.
The point of these six paradoxes is simple. Our current paradigm for understanding heart disease is incomplete. One or more major causes of heart disease remain unknown. One theory - the theory that vitamin D deficiency is a major cause of heart disease – may explain these paradoxes.
7. Robert Scragg, Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Auckland, first proposed that vitamin D deficiency plays a role in cardiovascular disease.
A. True
B. False
True. For the last 25 years, Dr. Scragg has been trying to convince anyone who would listen that vitamin D explains many of observations about heart disease. These include the facts that heart disease is higher at higher latitudes, lower altitudes, in the winter, in African Americans, in older, inactive, and in more obese patients. Remember, vitamin D blood levels are lower at higher latitudes, lower altitudes, in the winter, in African Americans, in older, inactive, and in more obese patients. Altitude is the least known of these associations. The age adjusted mortality for heart disease in the USA showed a striking inverse correlation with altitude in 1979, before the sun scare. American populations at the highest altitude had about half the heart disease of sea level populations. Thirty-five years ago, Leaf observed that most of the long-lived populations in the world reside at high altitude.
Int J Epidemiol. 1981 Dec;10(4):337-41.
J Chronic Dis. 1979;32(1-2):157-62.
Sci Am. 1973 Sep;229(3):44-52.
8. Dr. Scragg showed that higher vitamin D levels are associated with lower risk for heart attack.
A. True
B. False
True. In 1979, the Tromso Heart Study found corrected vitamin D levels showed the same thing.
Int J Epidemiol. 1990 Sep;19(3):559-63.
Br Med J. 1979 Jul 21;2(6183):176.
9. Dr. Scragg is such a good scientist, he then published a study which seemed to disprove his theory.
A. True
B. False
True. He discovered that a single oral dose of 100,000 units of vitamin D had no effect on risk factors (serum cholesterol or blood pressure) five weeks later. This seemed to disprove his theory, but he published the data anyway, always a mark of a good scientist. We now know that 100,000 units are a small dose and that such “stoss” therapy is not physiological. Such a small single dose will raise vitamin D levels for a month or two, but then they rapidly fall towards baseline and would have little physiological effect five weeks later.
Eur J Clin Nutr. 1995 Sep;49(9):640-6.
10. Zittermann points out that vitamin D reduces vascular smooth muscle proliferation, reduces vascular calcification, decreases parathormone levels, reduces C reactive protein (CRP) and other markers of inflammation, and decreases renin, all of which should prevent or treat heart disease.
A. True
B. False
True. He discusses most of the evidence that exists, tying heart disease to vitamin D deficiency. A vitamin D theory of heart disease explains the excess cardiovascular deaths at high latitude, low altitude and during the winter. Furthermore, it explains the higher incidence of heart disease in African Americans, older, inactive, and obese individuals as these groups have significantly lower vitamin D blood levels.
Br J Nutr. 2005 Oct;94(4):483-92.
11. In 2003, Zittermann discovered that patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) have very low levels of vitamin D.
A. True
B. False
True. Furthermore, he found that a protein (NT-proANP), which is a predictor of CHF severity, was inversely associated with vitamin D levels.
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2003 Jan 1;41(1):105-12.
12. Blood cholesterol measurements are worse at higher latitudes, lower altitudes and in the winter.
A. True
B. False
True. The effects of latitude on cholesterol seen in the first study are quite remarkable. In the Greek study, total serum cholesterol for both men and women were significantly lower at higher altitude in spite of similar diets. The seasonal variations in cholesterol are well known and not explained by seasonal dietary changes.
QJM. 1996 Aug;89(8):579-89.
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2005 Apr;59(4):274-8.
J Clin Epidemiol. 1988;41(7):679-89.
Chronobiol Int. 2001 May;18(3):541-57.
13. Blood pressure is higher at higher latitudes, lower altitudes, in the winter, in African Americans, in the aged, and in the obese.
A. True
B. False
True. High blood pressure is one of the strongest predictors of heart disease. Here, six facts about hypertension can be explained by one theory: vitamin D.
Hypertension. 1997 Aug;30(2 Pt 1):150-6.
Ann Hum Biol. 2000 Jan-Feb;27(1):19-28.
Harv Health Lett. 2005 Sep;30(11):8.
14. Diabetes is more common at higher latitudes, at lower altitudes, in African Americans, in the aged and the obese. Both blood sugar and hemoglobin A1C are higher in the winter.
A. True
B. False
True. Six final facts that can be explained with one theory: vitamin D.
Eur J Epidemiol. 1991 Jan;7(1):55-63.
Nutrition. 2001 Apr;17(4):305-9.
Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2005 Aug;69(2):169-74. Epub 2005 Jan 12.
Diabetologia. 1982 Apr;22(4):250-3.
Am J Epidemiol. 2005 Mar 15;161(6):565-74.
15. Two studies show vitamin D significantly reduces C reactive protein (CRP), which may be a better predictor of heart disease than LDL cholesterol.
A. True
B. False
True. The Belgian study found a significant effect on CRP even though their high-dose vitamin D group only got 500 units a day.
QJM. 2002 Dec;95(12):787-96.
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Oct;88(10):4623-32.
16. The risk for total mortality is significantly lower in subjects with high vitamin D levels.
A. True
B. False
True. However, the study is in Finnish and has not been translated into English (author communication).
Seppanen R, Marniemi J, Alanen E, Impivaara O, Jarvislo J, Ronnemaa T, et al. Ravinnon ja seerumin vitamiinit ja kivennaisaineet vanhusten kuolleisuuden ennustajina. Suom Laakaril 2000;42:4255-60 [Finnish]. Reported in Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2005 Jun;15(3):188-97.
17. It is now a proven scientific fact that vitamin D both prevents and treats heart disease.
A. True
B. False
False. Like so may other fields of vitamin D research, we lack the definitive interventional trials that would settle the point. It would be simple for the National Institutes of Health to fund a study giving physiological doses of real vitamin D (5,000 units of cholecalciferol) to heart disease patients for a year and see if CRP, proinsulin, blood pressure, cholesterol, body weight, heart attacks, or death rate decreases.
We will have to wait years for science to find out if vitamin D prevents and/or treats heart disease. While you are waiting, you have a choice. You can wait vitamin D deficient (levels less than 40 ngs/ml) or you can wait vitamin D sufficient (levels around 40-60 ngs/ml). The choice is yours - another Pascal’s Wager - this time you are betting your heart.
Also, while you wait for more studies, remember that vitamin D should be obtained daily, not monthly or weekly. It should be obtained physiologically, not in an all-then-none manner, as would happen if you took 100,000 units one day a month and nothing the other 29 days. It appears likely that high blood levels followed by low blood levels may do harm. The reason is that falling blood levels reset the enzymes maintaining intracellular levels of activated vitamin D, resulting in low intracellular levels.
Int J Cancer. 2004 Sep 1;111(3):468; author reply 469.
Vitamin D should be consumed the way the human genome consumed it during its evolution in subequatorial Africa, a steady amount every day. If you live down south, you can go in the sun for a few minutes every day. If you live up north you can sun in the warmer months and use a sunlamp or take real vitamin D (cholecalciferol) in the winter. Adults in the north could take one 5,000 unit capsule a day in late fall, winter, and early spring, less in the late spring and early fall, and none in the summer months - depending on your sunning habits. Children over 50 pounds need two of the 1,000 unit capsules every day in the colder months while children under 50 pounds need about 1,000 units in the colder months. Few people need to take oral vitamin D in the summer unless you are a sunphobe. Get enough vitamin D every day to maintain stable vitamin D blood levels (25-hydroxy-vitamin D) around 50 ngs/ml, year-around.
Last question: should patients dying from heart disease be allowed to die vitamin D deficient? According to the current paradigm, the answer is yes. At least, none of the cardiologists I know even bother to check a vitamin D level. Given the scientific literature, that’s a bit paradoxical.
Comment: Don't wait for final proof, do it...
Vitamin D3
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Friday, November 18, 2005
Changing diet will cut cancer deaths
Changing diet will cut cancer deaths perhaps in half:
18/11/2005- More than a third of the world's cancer deaths can be blamed on nine modifiable risk factors, including diet and obesity, shows a new study out today. The report, published in tomorrow's issue of The Lancet (vol 366, no 9499), estimates that 2.43 million, or 35 per cent of the 7 million deaths from cancer in 2001 were caused by a lifestyle that could have been changed.
The Harvard University researchers based their findings on a comprehensive review of scientific studies and other sources such as government reports.
Smoking, alcohol use, and low fruit and vegetable intake were the leading risk factors for death from cancer worldwide and in low-and-middle-income countries.
In high-income countries, smoking, alcohol use, and overweight and obesity were the most important causes of cancer.
The charity Cancer Research UK estimates that around half of all cancers in the UK could be prevented by changes to lifestyle.
Comment: While I believe this information is true, there is more that people can do besides just changing diet. Bruce N. Ames, professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley says that DNA damage from micro nutrient deficiencies is likely to be a major cause of cancer. A deficiency of any of the micro nutrients: folic acid, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6, niacin, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, iron, or zinc, mimics radiation in damaging DNA by causing single- and double-strand breaks, oxidative lesions, or both. For example, the percentage of the US population that has a low intake (<50%>20%. A level of folate deficiency causing chromosome breaks was present in approximately 10% of the US population, and in a much higher percentage of the poor. Folate deficiency causes extensive incorporation of uracil into human DNA (4 million/cell), leading to chromosomal breaks. This mechanism is the likely cause of the increased colon cancer risk associated with low folate intake. Some evidence, and mechanistic considerations, suggest that Vitamin B12 (14% US elderly) and B6 (10% of US) deficiencies also cause high uracil and chromosome breaks. Micro nutrient deficiency may explain, in good part, why the quarter of the population that eats the fewest fruits and vegetables (five portions a day is advised) has about double the cancer rate for most types of cancer when compared to the quarter with the highest intake. For example, 80% of American children and adolescents and 68% of adults do not eat five portions a day. Common micro nutrient deficiencies are likely to damage DNA by the same mechanism as radiation and many chemicals, appear to be orders of magnitude more important, and should be compared for perspective. Remedying micro nutrient deficiencies should lead to a major improvement in health and an increase in longevity at low cost.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
18/11/2005- More than a third of the world's cancer deaths can be blamed on nine modifiable risk factors, including diet and obesity, shows a new study out today. The report, published in tomorrow's issue of The Lancet (vol 366, no 9499), estimates that 2.43 million, or 35 per cent of the 7 million deaths from cancer in 2001 were caused by a lifestyle that could have been changed.
The Harvard University researchers based their findings on a comprehensive review of scientific studies and other sources such as government reports.
Smoking, alcohol use, and low fruit and vegetable intake were the leading risk factors for death from cancer worldwide and in low-and-middle-income countries.
In high-income countries, smoking, alcohol use, and overweight and obesity were the most important causes of cancer.
The charity Cancer Research UK estimates that around half of all cancers in the UK could be prevented by changes to lifestyle.
Comment: While I believe this information is true, there is more that people can do besides just changing diet. Bruce N. Ames, professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley says that DNA damage from micro nutrient deficiencies is likely to be a major cause of cancer. A deficiency of any of the micro nutrients: folic acid, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6, niacin, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, iron, or zinc, mimics radiation in damaging DNA by causing single- and double-strand breaks, oxidative lesions, or both. For example, the percentage of the US population that has a low intake (<50%>20%. A level of folate deficiency causing chromosome breaks was present in approximately 10% of the US population, and in a much higher percentage of the poor. Folate deficiency causes extensive incorporation of uracil into human DNA (4 million/cell), leading to chromosomal breaks. This mechanism is the likely cause of the increased colon cancer risk associated with low folate intake. Some evidence, and mechanistic considerations, suggest that Vitamin B12 (14% US elderly) and B6 (10% of US) deficiencies also cause high uracil and chromosome breaks. Micro nutrient deficiency may explain, in good part, why the quarter of the population that eats the fewest fruits and vegetables (five portions a day is advised) has about double the cancer rate for most types of cancer when compared to the quarter with the highest intake. For example, 80% of American children and adolescents and 68% of adults do not eat five portions a day. Common micro nutrient deficiencies are likely to damage DNA by the same mechanism as radiation and many chemicals, appear to be orders of magnitude more important, and should be compared for perspective. Remedying micro nutrient deficiencies should lead to a major improvement in health and an increase in longevity at low cost.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Supplementation could improve life and save Billions...
Study concludes omega-3, lutein/zeaxanthin supplement use could help seniors maintain independence, save billions... From Life Extension Foundation
Readers of Life Extension Update may recall the September 27 2004 issue which reported the conclusion of the Lewin Group that consumption of certain dietary supplements by Americans could save the U.S. billions of dollars. In a new Lewin Group report dated November 2, 2005, it was revealed that the regular intake of omega-3 fatty acids and the combination of lutein with zeaxanthin could help older individuals maintain their independence and save an estimated 5.6 billion dollars over a five year period.
The Lewin Group was commissioned by the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance (DSEA) to review research publications for validity, impact and applicability of the findings for omega-3 fatty acids and lutein and zeaxanthin as associated with producing health care savings and maintaining independence for men and women over the age of 65. Several hundred studies dating back nearly thirty years concerning omega-3 fatty acid use among older adults were reviewed, along with studies dating back fifteen years for lutein and zeaxanthin.
The impact of taking 1800 milligrams omega-3 fatty acids per day on coronary heart disease (CHD) prevention was estimated by the Lewin Group to have the potential of avoiding 384,303 hospitalizations and saving 3.1 billion dollars in hospital and physician service fees over five years. For lutein with zeaxanthin, taking 6 to 10 milligrams per day could prevent the loss of independence resulting from visual impairment due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) of 98,219 individuals, while saving 2.5 billion dollars.
The authors observed, “As the population lives longer, reducing the level of disability caused by age-related diseases is becoming ever more important . . . Potential savings could be achieved through a reduction in hospitalizations and physician services for CHD, and a reduction in the transition to greater dependency from loss of central vision due to advanced AMD.”
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Readers of Life Extension Update may recall the September 27 2004 issue which reported the conclusion of the Lewin Group that consumption of certain dietary supplements by Americans could save the U.S. billions of dollars. In a new Lewin Group report dated November 2, 2005, it was revealed that the regular intake of omega-3 fatty acids and the combination of lutein with zeaxanthin could help older individuals maintain their independence and save an estimated 5.6 billion dollars over a five year period.
The Lewin Group was commissioned by the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance (DSEA) to review research publications for validity, impact and applicability of the findings for omega-3 fatty acids and lutein and zeaxanthin as associated with producing health care savings and maintaining independence for men and women over the age of 65. Several hundred studies dating back nearly thirty years concerning omega-3 fatty acid use among older adults were reviewed, along with studies dating back fifteen years for lutein and zeaxanthin.
The impact of taking 1800 milligrams omega-3 fatty acids per day on coronary heart disease (CHD) prevention was estimated by the Lewin Group to have the potential of avoiding 384,303 hospitalizations and saving 3.1 billion dollars in hospital and physician service fees over five years. For lutein with zeaxanthin, taking 6 to 10 milligrams per day could prevent the loss of independence resulting from visual impairment due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) of 98,219 individuals, while saving 2.5 billion dollars.
The authors observed, “As the population lives longer, reducing the level of disability caused by age-related diseases is becoming ever more important . . . Potential savings could be achieved through a reduction in hospitalizations and physician services for CHD, and a reduction in the transition to greater dependency from loss of central vision due to advanced AMD.”
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Another study supporting the benefits of higher intakes of Vit D
Vitamin D appears more important than high calcium for bones...
09/11/2005-
Consuming more than 800 mg of calcium per day may be unnecessary for bone health if the body has enough vitamin D, say Icelandic researchers. Using food consumption records from more than 900 adults, the researchers determined that sufficient vitamin D levels can ensure an ideal level of parathyroid hormone (PTH) - a measure of calcium metabolism - even when calcium intake is less than 800 mg per day.
But consuming more than 1200 mg of calcium daily is not enough to maintain ideal PTH if the vitamin D status is insufficient.
The study is part of a growing body of work that points to the important role of vitamin D, and not just calcium alone, in bone health.
Bone health is a growing concern as the numbers affected by osteoporosis continue to rise, and an increasing elderly population suggests that these will grow further in the future. In Europe, osteoporosis causes around 1.1 million fractures each year.
In light of recent research, and predicting future health problems, some researchers have called for recommended intake of vitamin D to be raised but the adequate amounts needed in the diet are still not known.
The new study, published in today’s issue of JAMA (vol 294, no 18, pp2336-2341), underlines the need to do further work on the RDA for this vitamin.
Nevertheless, the authors, Dr Laufey Steingrimsdottir and colleagues from Landspitali-University Hospital in Reykjavik, write that "there is already sufficient evidence from numerous studies for physicians and general practitioners to emphasise to a much greater extent the importance of vitamin D status and recommend vitamin D supplements for the general public, when sun exposure and dietary sources are insufficient".
The team's findings were derived from nutrient intake data obtained from 944 healthy Icelandic adults recruited between 2001-2003.
The participants were divided into groups according to calcium intake (less than 800 mg/d, 800-1200 mg/d, and greater than1200 mg/d) and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level (less than 10 ng/mL, 10-18 ng/mL, and greater than 18 ng/mL). Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D is a generally accepted indicator of vitamin D status.
After adjusting for relevant factors, the researchers found that serum intact PTH was lowest in the group with a vitamin D level of more than 18 ng/mL but highest in the group with a vitamin D level of less than 10 ng/mL.
An inverse relationship between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and serum PTH is well established. PTH is a major hormone maintaining normal serum concentrations of calcium and phosphate and is itself regulated through levels of calcitriol and serum calcium. An insufficiency of vitamin D or calcium is generally associated with an increase in PTH.
But the researchers also observed that in people with a calcium intake of more than 1200 mg per day, there was still a significant difference in PTH between the lowest and highest vitamin D groups.
The researchers added: "The significance of our study was demonstrated by the strong negative association between sufficient serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and PTH, with calcium intake varying from less than 800 mg/d to more than 1200 mg/d."
“Our results suggest that vitamin D sufficiency can ensure ideal serum PTH values even when the calcium intake level is less than 800 mg/d, while high calcium intake (greater than 1200 mg/d) is not sufficient to maintain ideal serum PTH, as long as vitamin D status is insufficient," they write.
The authors said that although this cross-sectional study is not sufficient to demonstrate causality, “the association between vitamin D status, calcium intake, and the interaction between these two with serum PTH levels is a strong indication of the relative importance of these nutrients”.
Vitamin D may have a calcium sparing effect, explained the researchers, and as long as vitamin D status is ensured, calcium intake levels of more than 800 mg daily may be unnecessary for maintaining calcium metabolism.
Some countries, such as the UK and Denmark, have recently begun recommending that specific groups of the population take vitamin D supplements to ensure adequate vitamin D status during periods when there is little exposure to sunshine.
But data on the market for bone health supplements shows that the vitamin is still considered to have minor importance for this application. With a mere 4 per cent share of the overall vitamins market, vitamin D comes a long way behind calcium in bone supplement sales, according to a recent Frost & Sullivan report.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
09/11/2005-
Consuming more than 800 mg of calcium per day may be unnecessary for bone health if the body has enough vitamin D, say Icelandic researchers. Using food consumption records from more than 900 adults, the researchers determined that sufficient vitamin D levels can ensure an ideal level of parathyroid hormone (PTH) - a measure of calcium metabolism - even when calcium intake is less than 800 mg per day.
But consuming more than 1200 mg of calcium daily is not enough to maintain ideal PTH if the vitamin D status is insufficient.
The study is part of a growing body of work that points to the important role of vitamin D, and not just calcium alone, in bone health.
Bone health is a growing concern as the numbers affected by osteoporosis continue to rise, and an increasing elderly population suggests that these will grow further in the future. In Europe, osteoporosis causes around 1.1 million fractures each year.
In light of recent research, and predicting future health problems, some researchers have called for recommended intake of vitamin D to be raised but the adequate amounts needed in the diet are still not known.
The new study, published in today’s issue of JAMA (vol 294, no 18, pp2336-2341), underlines the need to do further work on the RDA for this vitamin.
Nevertheless, the authors, Dr Laufey Steingrimsdottir and colleagues from Landspitali-University Hospital in Reykjavik, write that "there is already sufficient evidence from numerous studies for physicians and general practitioners to emphasise to a much greater extent the importance of vitamin D status and recommend vitamin D supplements for the general public, when sun exposure and dietary sources are insufficient".
The team's findings were derived from nutrient intake data obtained from 944 healthy Icelandic adults recruited between 2001-2003.
The participants were divided into groups according to calcium intake (less than 800 mg/d, 800-1200 mg/d, and greater than1200 mg/d) and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level (less than 10 ng/mL, 10-18 ng/mL, and greater than 18 ng/mL). Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D is a generally accepted indicator of vitamin D status.
After adjusting for relevant factors, the researchers found that serum intact PTH was lowest in the group with a vitamin D level of more than 18 ng/mL but highest in the group with a vitamin D level of less than 10 ng/mL.
An inverse relationship between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and serum PTH is well established. PTH is a major hormone maintaining normal serum concentrations of calcium and phosphate and is itself regulated through levels of calcitriol and serum calcium. An insufficiency of vitamin D or calcium is generally associated with an increase in PTH.
But the researchers also observed that in people with a calcium intake of more than 1200 mg per day, there was still a significant difference in PTH between the lowest and highest vitamin D groups.
The researchers added: "The significance of our study was demonstrated by the strong negative association between sufficient serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and PTH, with calcium intake varying from less than 800 mg/d to more than 1200 mg/d."
“Our results suggest that vitamin D sufficiency can ensure ideal serum PTH values even when the calcium intake level is less than 800 mg/d, while high calcium intake (greater than 1200 mg/d) is not sufficient to maintain ideal serum PTH, as long as vitamin D status is insufficient," they write.
The authors said that although this cross-sectional study is not sufficient to demonstrate causality, “the association between vitamin D status, calcium intake, and the interaction between these two with serum PTH levels is a strong indication of the relative importance of these nutrients”.
Vitamin D may have a calcium sparing effect, explained the researchers, and as long as vitamin D status is ensured, calcium intake levels of more than 800 mg daily may be unnecessary for maintaining calcium metabolism.
Some countries, such as the UK and Denmark, have recently begun recommending that specific groups of the population take vitamin D supplements to ensure adequate vitamin D status during periods when there is little exposure to sunshine.
But data on the market for bone health supplements shows that the vitamin is still considered to have minor importance for this application. With a mere 4 per cent share of the overall vitamins market, vitamin D comes a long way behind calcium in bone supplement sales, according to a recent Frost & Sullivan report.
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Vit D may help you and your family survive the Bird Flu Pandemic, when it comes...
I receive a newsletter from an organization called The Vitamin D Council. This is a periodic publication, from a non-profit group trying to end the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency.
I have reprinted the whole article for you here, but it is very long and scientific in nature, so I will put the most important points in bold so you can read all or part as you have time, but I have been researching vit D for many years and I know that most Americans are low in this inportant nutrient, so please take this information to heart.
cw
HERE IS THE ARTICLE:
As we wait for this year’s influenza epidemic, keep in mind we are also waiting for the big one, the pandemic (pan: all, demic: people). A severe pandemic will kill many more Americans than died in the World Trade Centers, the Iraq war, the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina combined. Perhaps a million or two in the USA alone. Such a disaster would tear the fabric of our society. Our entire country would resemble New Orleans after Katrina.
Also, it’s only a question of when it will come, not if it will come. Pandemics come every 25 years or so, severe ones every hundred years or so. The last pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, occurred in 1968, killing 34,000 Americans. In 1918, the Spanish flu killed more than 500,000 Americans. So many millions died in other countries, they couldn’t bury the bodies.
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918
Young healthy adults, in the prime of their lives in the morning, drowning in their own inflammation by noon, grossly discolored by sunset, were dead at midnight. An overwhelming immune response to the influenza virus - macrophages releasing large amounts of inflammatory agents called cytokines and chemokines into the lung of the afflicted - resulted in millions of deaths in 1918.
Nature. 2004 Oct 7;431(7009):703-7.
Keep in mind, that the Germans recently discovered that vitamin D is intimately involved in reining in the macrophages, holding their cytokine production back, so they don’t overshoot, and kill their owner along with the invader.
Blood. 2005 Aug 23; [Epub ahead of print]
Your annual flu shot won’t help when the big one hits, the antigenic shift one. Once the pandemic starts, a new vaccine, specific to the new virus must be manufactured and that takes time. You can and should get some antiviral drugs from your doctor in advance. Once the pandemic starts –this year, or ten years from now - the supply of antivirals may be limited and the lines will be long.
It may surprise you that influenza remains an enigma. Current theory holds that influenza infects like measles, one person gets it, gives it to others, in a chain of infectious events. That theory has some problems. For example, Dr. Carolyn Buxton Bridges, of the CDC, recently published a review paper on the transmission of influenza. She noted, "Our review found no human experimental studies published in the English-language literature delineating person-to-person transmission of influenza."
Clin Infect Dis. 2003 Oct 15;37(8):1094-101
Most experts also think pandemic strains originate in birds or other animals. Dr. Ann Reid and Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology recently wrote, "it is important to recognize that the mechanisms by which pandemic strains originate have not been explained yet." Furthermore, there is a persistent theory that influenza lies dormant in humans, not birds or swine, where it mutates into a killer strain.
J Gen Virol. 2003 Sep;84(Pt 9):2285-92.
Vaccine. 2002 Aug 19;20(25-26):3068-87.
So, get your flu shot for this year’s flu, stock up on some antivirals, and let’s go looking for some ignored facts that might improve your family’s chances when the pandemic comes. Last month we saw that aggressive treatment of vitamin D deficiency prevented children from getting infections. Dr. Rehman didn’t differentiate between viral and bacterial infections but most of the illnesses vitamin D prevented were probably viral.
J Trop Pediatr. 1994 Feb;40(1):58.
When looking for ignored facts, one should always start with epidemiology, the detective branch of medicine. Epidemiologists look for clues, clues that lead to theories, theories that can be tested, and, if true, save your family’s lives. One of the world’s pioneering epidemiologists died recently, R. Edward Hope-Simpson. He used meticulous, and solitary, detective work to discover that the chickenpox virus was reactivated in adults, causing shingles. Dr. Hope-Simpson became famous.
Proc R Soc Med. 1965 Jan;58:9-20.
In 1979, he turned his attention to influenza A. He studied two remote populations, one in Wales and the other in England. He found that most affected households had only one case of influenza. Furthermore, no serial time intervals could be identified in cumulative household outbreaks, that is, different families didn’t get sick one after another, but around the same time. He discovered other facts that just didn’t fit with the theory that influenza A is primarily spread by person-to-person transmission of this year’s virus.
J Hyg (Lond). 1979 Aug;83(1):11-26.
Then he spent the rest of his life trying to alert us to one of the basic facts of influenza. It is distinctly seasonal. All theories about its transmission must take into account its seasonality. Hope-Simpson reminded us what Davenport said, "Epidemiological hypotheses must provide satisfactory explanations for all the known findings – not just for a convenient subset of them."
Going back to 1945, he discovered that influenza epidemics above 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres occurred during the six months of least solar radiation. Outbreaks in the tropics almost always occur during the rainy season. Hope-Simpson concluded, "Latitude alone broadly determines the timing of the epidemics in the annual cycle, a relationship that suggests a rather direct effect of some component of solar radiation acting positively or negatively upon the virus, the humans host or their interaction." That is, something may be regularly reducing our immunity every fall and winter.
J Hyg (Lond). 1981 Feb;86(1):35-47.
In 2003, researchers confirmed that influenza epidemics in the tropics occur, with few exceptions, during the rainy season - when vitamin D levels should be falling.
Paediatr Respir Rev. 2003 Jun;4(2):105-11.
Furthermore, in his 1981 paper, Hope-Simpson wondered how the same virus could cause influenza outbreaks at exactly the same time (middle of winter) over a six-year period (1969 - 1974) in two widely separated areas (Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Cirencester, England). Surely, during the middle of the Cold War, infected people did not arrive at two locations hundreds of miles apart, in the middle of winter, for five years in a row to infect the well people. On thing Prague and Cirencester do have in common, they are both at 50 degrees latitude.
In 1990, researchers confirmed a relative lack of country-to-country transmission, by looking at two countries with heavy tourist traffic between them.
J Hyg Epidemiol Microbiol Immunol. 1990;34(3):283-8
Hope-Simpson rejected the theory that this year’s virus is only transmitted from actively infected persons to well persons, concluding instead the facts were more consistent with transmission by symptomless carriers who become contagious when the sun is either in the other hemisphere or obscured by the rainy season. He theorized that annual movement of the sun caused a "seasonal stimulus that reactivates latent virus in the innumerable carriers who are everywhere present, so creating the opportunity for epidemics to occur in the wake of its passage." And thus the celebrated scientist committed heresy.
Everyone knows influenza transmission is direct; the ill people infect the well people. The accepted theory of pandemics is that the virus first spreads in birds, perhaps jumps to a mammal (pigs in 1918), then jumps to humans already infected with a common influenza strain. There it combines and mutates (reassortment) to a hybrid virus in the index case and that single person spreads it to others who spread it to others, etc. No, said Hope-Simpson, the epidemiology just does not fit that theory. Heresy, said the experts.
Hope-Simpson practiced medicine in a small village in southwest England, Cirencester. He went back and looked at 16 years of his medical records and found evidence of 20 influenza outbreaks, spaced over those 16 years. In every outbreak, he found young children were the most frequently affected but in none of the 20 outbreaks did the children appear to be major disseminators of the influenza virus. Furthermore, all ages seemed to get sick around the same time. He concluded, "Such age-patterns are not those caused by a highly infectious immunizing virus surviving by means of direct transmissions from the sick, whose prompt development of the disease continues endless chains of transmissions."
J Hyg (Lond). 1984 Jun;92(3):303-36.
No one listened. Everyone knew, and still knows: influenza only occurs when sick people infect well people, who in turn infect other well people. I don’t think so, said Hope-Simpson. In search of more evidence, he went to all the parishes in Gloucestershire, separated by many miles. He looked at burial records for the last 500 years and found evidence of repeated influenza epidemics. He concluded, "In each century, influenzal excess mortalities in Gloucestershire parishes coincided with the date of the relevant influenza epidemic as recorded from widely different parts of Britain." That is, long before modern rapid transit, everyone in Britain got the flu around the same time! How could one person come down with the flu, infect others, etc, when everyone in Britain got sick at the same time, long before modern rapid transit?
J Hyg (Lond). 1983 Oct;91(2):293-308.
In fact, after studying influenza epidemics in schools, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe also decided that direct spread by infected children could not explain what was happening. They theorized that influenza viral precursors were reaching earth from outer space!
Nature. 1987 Jun 25-Jul 1;327(6124):664.
Content to stay on earth, Hope-Simpson published a detailed theory of influenza’s infectivity in 1987, based on the facts he observed. Right or wrong, Hope-Simpson’s paper is wonderful reading for anyone interested in influenza. Here is a great mind at work. He noted any theory of influenza must explain a number of facts:
"Vast explosions of disease which may attack 15% or more of a large community within six weeks and then cease,"
"Successive outbreaks of type A influenza in small relatively remote communities often coincide closely season after season with those of the country as a whole and, although the virus changes, the identical strains of virus appear contemporaneously in the two situations,"
"Cessation of epidemics despite abundant available non-immune subjects,"
household outbreaks occur all at once, not one after another,
"Low secondary attack rates within households,"
"epidemic patterns of influenza have not changed in four centuries . . . and does not seem to have altered with the increasing speed and complexity of human communications."
Epidemiol Infect. 1987 Aug;99(1):5-54.
Hope Simpson proposed that symptomless carriers became infective in response to a seasonal stimulus and then infect others causing simultaneous explosions of disease in widely different areas. Furthermore, he concluded that those who got sick were not particularly contagious. He proposed that the stimulus for infection "is dependent on variations in solar radiation, an extraterrestrial influence unaffected by the rapidity of human travel. The rapidity of influenza spread was as rapid in previous centuries as it is at present because it does not depend on case-to-case transfer."
He added, "The primary agency mediating seasonal control remains unidentified." That is, something is weakening our immune system, every year, as regularly as changing of the leaves and declining vitamin D levels, but he didn’t know what it was. Hope-Simpson’s 1987 paper was his last. In 1992, he compiled all his work on influenza into a book. He died in 2003, at the age of 95.
The Transmission of Epidemic Influenza (The Language of Science)
I wish Hope-Simpson could have lived a while longer, to read Dr. Colleen Hayes and her colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is one of the brightest vitamin D researchers out there. In 2003, she reviewed the profound effect vitamin D has on the immune system, including the role vitamin D plays in fighting infections.
Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand). 2003 Mar;49(2):277-300.
Yes, as regularly as the flu season, vitamin D levels plummet in the fall and winter. Yes, vitamin D has profound effects on the immune system. Yes vitamin D may be involved in the epidemiology of influenza. But is there any direct evidence?
Two animal studies showed vitamin D prevents the flu and one showed it does not. Nothing after 1956. If you obtain and read the first citation below, you’ll see the very first animal paper indicting vitamin D protected rats from influenza was published in Japan during World War II, apparently part of Japan’s biological weapons research. The CIA confiscated the paper after the war.
Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1949 Dec;72(3):695-7.
Virology. 1956 Jun;2(3):415-29.
One last thing, when you give flu shots to hemodialysis patients, those taking activated vitamin D develop significantly better immunity.
Nephron. 2000 Sep;86(1):56-61.
Will normal vitamin D levels protect your family against the flu? No one knows. It would be nice if we had a report from a big hospital, were some patients were on vitamin D and some who weren’t and see what happened when the flu struck the hospital. Were the patients on vitamin D less likely to get the flu?
In the meantime, it seems to me the smart thing to do is to take enough real vitamin D (cholecalciferol) or get enough UVB light to get and keep your 25-hydroxy-vitamin D level at about 50 ng/ml. Of course, it is a good idea to keep your level around 50 ng/ml year around even if you don’t fear the coming influenza pandemic. 50 ng/ml is the normal human level and protects the owner from a myriad of chronic diseases.
J Nutr. 2005 Feb;135(2):317-22.
Eur J Clin Invest. 2005 May;35(5):290-304.
Also, don’t depend on high levels in the summer being stored and used in the winter. Vieth believes that the intracellular kinetics of vitamin D metabolism means that declining vitamin D blood levels may cause rapidly declining intracellular levels. That is, declining levels in the autumn may be as dangerous as low levels in the winter.
Int J Cancer. 2004 Sep 1;111(3):468
Professor Robert Heaney believes healthy blood levels may require up to 4,000 units a day for those with no sun exposure. Most people need to take more in the winter than the summer. Big people need more than little people. African Americans need more than whites. Sunphobes need more than those who enjoy God’s invention.
J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2005 Jul 15
Children over 50 pounds need up to 2,000 units a day. Under 50 pounds, about 1,000 units a day. There is no way to know for sure how much you need without a blood test, called a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. That test should be conducted in the late winter, when your levels are the lowest, and at the beginning of fall, when your levels are the highest. Then you can figure out how much you need to take to keep stable levels. Or adults can simply take 4,000 units a day, every day, except for those late spring, summer, and early fall days when you go into the sun.
It might be a good idea to keep pharmacological doses (50,000 units) of vitamin D next to your antivirals and take a 50,000 unit capsule at the first sign of the flu, although there is not one study to support such a practice. It might help tame those unchained macrophages and save your life or it might not help at all. You can buy 50,000 unit capsules from Bio-Tech-Pharm . Single administrations of ten times that amount have repeatedly been found to be safe and are routinely used in Europe as stoss therapy.
So, maybe vitamin D will help your family survive the coming influenza pandemic, maybe not. Let’s gamble. Ever heard of the vitamin D variation of Pascal’s wager ?
"If you erroneously believe vitamin D helps influenza, you lose nothing, whereas if you correctly believe vitamin D helps influenza, your family may live. But if you correctly disbelieve in vitamin D, you gain nothing, whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in vitamin D, your family may die."
John Cannell, MD
The Vitamin D Council
9100 San Gregorio Road
Atascadero, CA 93422
Vitamin D3
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
I have reprinted the whole article for you here, but it is very long and scientific in nature, so I will put the most important points in bold so you can read all or part as you have time, but I have been researching vit D for many years and I know that most Americans are low in this inportant nutrient, so please take this information to heart.
cw
HERE IS THE ARTICLE:
As we wait for this year’s influenza epidemic, keep in mind we are also waiting for the big one, the pandemic (pan: all, demic: people). A severe pandemic will kill many more Americans than died in the World Trade Centers, the Iraq war, the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina combined. Perhaps a million or two in the USA alone. Such a disaster would tear the fabric of our society. Our entire country would resemble New Orleans after Katrina.
Also, it’s only a question of when it will come, not if it will come. Pandemics come every 25 years or so, severe ones every hundred years or so. The last pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, occurred in 1968, killing 34,000 Americans. In 1918, the Spanish flu killed more than 500,000 Americans. So many millions died in other countries, they couldn’t bury the bodies.
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918
Young healthy adults, in the prime of their lives in the morning, drowning in their own inflammation by noon, grossly discolored by sunset, were dead at midnight. An overwhelming immune response to the influenza virus - macrophages releasing large amounts of inflammatory agents called cytokines and chemokines into the lung of the afflicted - resulted in millions of deaths in 1918.
Nature. 2004 Oct 7;431(7009):703-7.
Keep in mind, that the Germans recently discovered that vitamin D is intimately involved in reining in the macrophages, holding their cytokine production back, so they don’t overshoot, and kill their owner along with the invader.
Blood. 2005 Aug 23; [Epub ahead of print]
Your annual flu shot won’t help when the big one hits, the antigenic shift one. Once the pandemic starts, a new vaccine, specific to the new virus must be manufactured and that takes time. You can and should get some antiviral drugs from your doctor in advance. Once the pandemic starts –this year, or ten years from now - the supply of antivirals may be limited and the lines will be long.
It may surprise you that influenza remains an enigma. Current theory holds that influenza infects like measles, one person gets it, gives it to others, in a chain of infectious events. That theory has some problems. For example, Dr. Carolyn Buxton Bridges, of the CDC, recently published a review paper on the transmission of influenza. She noted, "Our review found no human experimental studies published in the English-language literature delineating person-to-person transmission of influenza."
Clin Infect Dis. 2003 Oct 15;37(8):1094-101
Most experts also think pandemic strains originate in birds or other animals. Dr. Ann Reid and Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology recently wrote, "it is important to recognize that the mechanisms by which pandemic strains originate have not been explained yet." Furthermore, there is a persistent theory that influenza lies dormant in humans, not birds or swine, where it mutates into a killer strain.
J Gen Virol. 2003 Sep;84(Pt 9):2285-92.
Vaccine. 2002 Aug 19;20(25-26):3068-87.
So, get your flu shot for this year’s flu, stock up on some antivirals, and let’s go looking for some ignored facts that might improve your family’s chances when the pandemic comes. Last month we saw that aggressive treatment of vitamin D deficiency prevented children from getting infections. Dr. Rehman didn’t differentiate between viral and bacterial infections but most of the illnesses vitamin D prevented were probably viral.
J Trop Pediatr. 1994 Feb;40(1):58.
When looking for ignored facts, one should always start with epidemiology, the detective branch of medicine. Epidemiologists look for clues, clues that lead to theories, theories that can be tested, and, if true, save your family’s lives. One of the world’s pioneering epidemiologists died recently, R. Edward Hope-Simpson. He used meticulous, and solitary, detective work to discover that the chickenpox virus was reactivated in adults, causing shingles. Dr. Hope-Simpson became famous.
Proc R Soc Med. 1965 Jan;58:9-20.
In 1979, he turned his attention to influenza A. He studied two remote populations, one in Wales and the other in England. He found that most affected households had only one case of influenza. Furthermore, no serial time intervals could be identified in cumulative household outbreaks, that is, different families didn’t get sick one after another, but around the same time. He discovered other facts that just didn’t fit with the theory that influenza A is primarily spread by person-to-person transmission of this year’s virus.
J Hyg (Lond). 1979 Aug;83(1):11-26.
Then he spent the rest of his life trying to alert us to one of the basic facts of influenza. It is distinctly seasonal. All theories about its transmission must take into account its seasonality. Hope-Simpson reminded us what Davenport said, "Epidemiological hypotheses must provide satisfactory explanations for all the known findings – not just for a convenient subset of them."
Going back to 1945, he discovered that influenza epidemics above 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres occurred during the six months of least solar radiation. Outbreaks in the tropics almost always occur during the rainy season. Hope-Simpson concluded, "Latitude alone broadly determines the timing of the epidemics in the annual cycle, a relationship that suggests a rather direct effect of some component of solar radiation acting positively or negatively upon the virus, the humans host or their interaction." That is, something may be regularly reducing our immunity every fall and winter.
J Hyg (Lond). 1981 Feb;86(1):35-47.
In 2003, researchers confirmed that influenza epidemics in the tropics occur, with few exceptions, during the rainy season - when vitamin D levels should be falling.
Paediatr Respir Rev. 2003 Jun;4(2):105-11.
Furthermore, in his 1981 paper, Hope-Simpson wondered how the same virus could cause influenza outbreaks at exactly the same time (middle of winter) over a six-year period (1969 - 1974) in two widely separated areas (Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Cirencester, England). Surely, during the middle of the Cold War, infected people did not arrive at two locations hundreds of miles apart, in the middle of winter, for five years in a row to infect the well people. On thing Prague and Cirencester do have in common, they are both at 50 degrees latitude.
In 1990, researchers confirmed a relative lack of country-to-country transmission, by looking at two countries with heavy tourist traffic between them.
J Hyg Epidemiol Microbiol Immunol. 1990;34(3):283-8
Hope-Simpson rejected the theory that this year’s virus is only transmitted from actively infected persons to well persons, concluding instead the facts were more consistent with transmission by symptomless carriers who become contagious when the sun is either in the other hemisphere or obscured by the rainy season. He theorized that annual movement of the sun caused a "seasonal stimulus that reactivates latent virus in the innumerable carriers who are everywhere present, so creating the opportunity for epidemics to occur in the wake of its passage." And thus the celebrated scientist committed heresy.
Everyone knows influenza transmission is direct; the ill people infect the well people. The accepted theory of pandemics is that the virus first spreads in birds, perhaps jumps to a mammal (pigs in 1918), then jumps to humans already infected with a common influenza strain. There it combines and mutates (reassortment) to a hybrid virus in the index case and that single person spreads it to others who spread it to others, etc. No, said Hope-Simpson, the epidemiology just does not fit that theory. Heresy, said the experts.
Hope-Simpson practiced medicine in a small village in southwest England, Cirencester. He went back and looked at 16 years of his medical records and found evidence of 20 influenza outbreaks, spaced over those 16 years. In every outbreak, he found young children were the most frequently affected but in none of the 20 outbreaks did the children appear to be major disseminators of the influenza virus. Furthermore, all ages seemed to get sick around the same time. He concluded, "Such age-patterns are not those caused by a highly infectious immunizing virus surviving by means of direct transmissions from the sick, whose prompt development of the disease continues endless chains of transmissions."
J Hyg (Lond). 1984 Jun;92(3):303-36.
No one listened. Everyone knew, and still knows: influenza only occurs when sick people infect well people, who in turn infect other well people. I don’t think so, said Hope-Simpson. In search of more evidence, he went to all the parishes in Gloucestershire, separated by many miles. He looked at burial records for the last 500 years and found evidence of repeated influenza epidemics. He concluded, "In each century, influenzal excess mortalities in Gloucestershire parishes coincided with the date of the relevant influenza epidemic as recorded from widely different parts of Britain." That is, long before modern rapid transit, everyone in Britain got the flu around the same time! How could one person come down with the flu, infect others, etc, when everyone in Britain got sick at the same time, long before modern rapid transit?
J Hyg (Lond). 1983 Oct;91(2):293-308.
In fact, after studying influenza epidemics in schools, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe also decided that direct spread by infected children could not explain what was happening. They theorized that influenza viral precursors were reaching earth from outer space!
Nature. 1987 Jun 25-Jul 1;327(6124):664.
Content to stay on earth, Hope-Simpson published a detailed theory of influenza’s infectivity in 1987, based on the facts he observed. Right or wrong, Hope-Simpson’s paper is wonderful reading for anyone interested in influenza. Here is a great mind at work. He noted any theory of influenza must explain a number of facts:
"Vast explosions of disease which may attack 15% or more of a large community within six weeks and then cease,"
"Successive outbreaks of type A influenza in small relatively remote communities often coincide closely season after season with those of the country as a whole and, although the virus changes, the identical strains of virus appear contemporaneously in the two situations,"
"Cessation of epidemics despite abundant available non-immune subjects,"
household outbreaks occur all at once, not one after another,
"Low secondary attack rates within households,"
"epidemic patterns of influenza have not changed in four centuries . . . and does not seem to have altered with the increasing speed and complexity of human communications."
Epidemiol Infect. 1987 Aug;99(1):5-54.
Hope Simpson proposed that symptomless carriers became infective in response to a seasonal stimulus and then infect others causing simultaneous explosions of disease in widely different areas. Furthermore, he concluded that those who got sick were not particularly contagious. He proposed that the stimulus for infection "is dependent on variations in solar radiation, an extraterrestrial influence unaffected by the rapidity of human travel. The rapidity of influenza spread was as rapid in previous centuries as it is at present because it does not depend on case-to-case transfer."
He added, "The primary agency mediating seasonal control remains unidentified." That is, something is weakening our immune system, every year, as regularly as changing of the leaves and declining vitamin D levels, but he didn’t know what it was. Hope-Simpson’s 1987 paper was his last. In 1992, he compiled all his work on influenza into a book. He died in 2003, at the age of 95.
The Transmission of Epidemic Influenza (The Language of Science)
I wish Hope-Simpson could have lived a while longer, to read Dr. Colleen Hayes and her colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is one of the brightest vitamin D researchers out there. In 2003, she reviewed the profound effect vitamin D has on the immune system, including the role vitamin D plays in fighting infections.
Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand). 2003 Mar;49(2):277-300.
Yes, as regularly as the flu season, vitamin D levels plummet in the fall and winter. Yes, vitamin D has profound effects on the immune system. Yes vitamin D may be involved in the epidemiology of influenza. But is there any direct evidence?
Two animal studies showed vitamin D prevents the flu and one showed it does not. Nothing after 1956. If you obtain and read the first citation below, you’ll see the very first animal paper indicting vitamin D protected rats from influenza was published in Japan during World War II, apparently part of Japan’s biological weapons research. The CIA confiscated the paper after the war.
Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1949 Dec;72(3):695-7.
Virology. 1956 Jun;2(3):415-29.
One last thing, when you give flu shots to hemodialysis patients, those taking activated vitamin D develop significantly better immunity.
Nephron. 2000 Sep;86(1):56-61.
Will normal vitamin D levels protect your family against the flu? No one knows. It would be nice if we had a report from a big hospital, were some patients were on vitamin D and some who weren’t and see what happened when the flu struck the hospital. Were the patients on vitamin D less likely to get the flu?
In the meantime, it seems to me the smart thing to do is to take enough real vitamin D (cholecalciferol) or get enough UVB light to get and keep your 25-hydroxy-vitamin D level at about 50 ng/ml. Of course, it is a good idea to keep your level around 50 ng/ml year around even if you don’t fear the coming influenza pandemic. 50 ng/ml is the normal human level and protects the owner from a myriad of chronic diseases.
J Nutr. 2005 Feb;135(2):317-22.
Eur J Clin Invest. 2005 May;35(5):290-304.
Also, don’t depend on high levels in the summer being stored and used in the winter. Vieth believes that the intracellular kinetics of vitamin D metabolism means that declining vitamin D blood levels may cause rapidly declining intracellular levels. That is, declining levels in the autumn may be as dangerous as low levels in the winter.
Int J Cancer. 2004 Sep 1;111(3):468
Professor Robert Heaney believes healthy blood levels may require up to 4,000 units a day for those with no sun exposure. Most people need to take more in the winter than the summer. Big people need more than little people. African Americans need more than whites. Sunphobes need more than those who enjoy God’s invention.
J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2005 Jul 15
Children over 50 pounds need up to 2,000 units a day. Under 50 pounds, about 1,000 units a day. There is no way to know for sure how much you need without a blood test, called a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. That test should be conducted in the late winter, when your levels are the lowest, and at the beginning of fall, when your levels are the highest. Then you can figure out how much you need to take to keep stable levels. Or adults can simply take 4,000 units a day, every day, except for those late spring, summer, and early fall days when you go into the sun.
It might be a good idea to keep pharmacological doses (50,000 units) of vitamin D next to your antivirals and take a 50,000 unit capsule at the first sign of the flu, although there is not one study to support such a practice. It might help tame those unchained macrophages and save your life or it might not help at all. You can buy 50,000 unit capsules from Bio-Tech-Pharm . Single administrations of ten times that amount have repeatedly been found to be safe and are routinely used in Europe as stoss therapy.
So, maybe vitamin D will help your family survive the coming influenza pandemic, maybe not. Let’s gamble. Ever heard of the vitamin D variation of Pascal’s wager ?
"If you erroneously believe vitamin D helps influenza, you lose nothing, whereas if you correctly believe vitamin D helps influenza, your family may live. But if you correctly disbelieve in vitamin D, you gain nothing, whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in vitamin D, your family may die."
John Cannell, MD
The Vitamin D Council
9100 San Gregorio Road
Atascadero, CA 93422
Vitamin D3
CW
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
Visit our website at: www.cwiechert.com
Have your nutritional questions answered by e-mail: www.cwiechert.com/QAMAIL.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)