Short articles in English

Do Calories Really Count?

Those who write about the worldwide obesity epidemic have focused almost exclusively on life style issues such as consumption of high-calorie junk food and decreases in exercise. These remain plausible interpretations and are certainly contributing factors. But new research opens up an entirely new theory—the disruption of weight regulation by hormone-disrupting contaminants. Japanese researchers have found that exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) in combination with insulin increases the number of fat cells in mouse cell tissue culture, and also causes the enlargement of fat cells (Journal of Lipid Research 2002 May;43(5):676-684). Human exposure is widespread through its use in dental sealants (used on children's teeth to "prevent cavities"), in food storage (BPA is used to line tin cans) and in polycarbonate plastic. Polycarbonate baby bottles heated by the microwave leach BPA into baby's formula, for example. Other environmental toxins, such as 2,4-D, are known to disrupt the regulation of thyroxin leading to hypothyroidism, another cause of weight gain. High-calorie diets were the norm in turn-of-the-century America (see page 22), but obesity was not a problem. The healthy, well-regulated body turns calories from real food into energy, not fat.
Good Bacteria
After years of instilling fear of bacteria in the populace, scientists are coming to a grudging acknowledgment of their benefits. According to research at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, microbes found naturally in the mouse and human gut interact with intestinal cells, called Paneth's cells, to promote the development of blood vessels in the intestinal lining. In mice lacking intestinal bacteria, blood vessel formation stopped early during postnatal development. Remarkably, this developmental program restarted and was completed just ten days after implanting microbes into the bacteria-free mice. "This study provides insights into the mutually beneficial partnership forged between mammals and their native microbes," says principal investigator Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD. "These symbiotic relationships probably are most important in the gut, which contains the largest and most complex collection of bacteria." Other research indicates that declining exposure to "food-borne and orofecal infections" has contributed to the increase in hay fever, asthma and skin diseases in developed countries (J Allergy Clin Immunol 2002;110:381-387). A good source of friendly microbes is, of course, raw and cultured milk, condemned by health officials as a major contributor to disease.
Clouds of Death in Missouri
A new study has found convincing evidence that men in rural areas have lower sperm counts and less vigorous sperm than men in urban areas. Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia and their collaborators believe that environmental factors, such as extensive use of agricultural chemicals, might contribute to these differences. Since the 1930s, there has been considerable interest in semen quality as a key predictor of male reproductive disfunction. However, semen analyses are very sensitive to laboratory methods, the equipment employed and the nature of the population, all of which may vary from one study to another. The detailed and rigorously applied protocol used by the research team supported the differences between geographic areas after adjusting for other factors known to alter sperm quality, such as age, smoking and recent fever (www.ehponline.org/swan2002).With studies like these, farmers are beginning to realize that if they want to have grandchildren, they will need to farm organically.
Vaccine Damage
As the number of required vaccinations increases, and the use of protective fats rich in vitamin A declines, the numbers of vaccine injuries in our children is soaring. According to the Federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, of the 4 million children each year who receive multiple vaccines, about 10,000 have adverse reactions, including high pitched screaming, bowel blockage, seizures, autism, bizarre neurological disorders and complete paralysis. Doctors are discouraged from reporting reactions so this number is probably low. This year a record number of families have filed cases with the nation's Vaccine Compensation Fund on behalf of children who've suffered side effects from their immunizations. Recently a New Jersey girl whose mental development stopped at two months old after an immunization received a $4.7 million settlement from the Fund. Of course, no amount of money can compensate parents for the heartbreak of lifelong brain damage.


Human Milk Banks
There are five human milk banks in the United States today, down from about a dozen several years ago. They operate as nonprofit organizations, raising money to cover the costs of screening, collecting, processing, storing and transporting donated milk. (See www.hmbana.org.) Women donating to a human milk bank get no compensation. The milk banks usually charge about $2.75 an ounce plus 25 cents for shipping. Human milk is extremely costly, but this humanitarian system has saved the lives of thousands of premature babies. Now comes a plan to establish a network of for-profit milk banks. Elana Medo is trying to raise $6 million to launch Prolacta Bioscience, Inc., an enterprise that would establish a web of milk banks to provide breast milk to premies and breast milk derivatives that could be used to treat a variety of diseases. There is just one problem with this scheme. In order to ensure that the milk is "safe from contamination" during this AIDS-fearing era, it will have to be pasteurized. Pasteurization, of course, ruins many of the protective factors in human milk, making it less of a boon to premies. Worse, a for-profit enterprise that insists on pasteurization will have the effect of putting the nonprofit milk banks out of business, or making them conform to new protocols. In the past, donated breast milk was simply frozen and then gently reheated (Washington Post, 9/4/01).
A Taste for Fat
How long can medical orthodoxy prop up the lipid hypothesis in the face of contradictory evidence? First comes the realization that mother's milk is rich in fat; then all those less-than-definitive studies; then the French, Spanish, American, Russian and African paradoxes. Now comes another. Scientists have discovered that the human tongue has receptors for fat. Test subjects showed a response in the blood when they tasted potatoes mashed with butter but no response when they tasted mashed potatoes without fat, or mashed potatoes with fat substitutes. The biochemical response was elevated triglycerides, which investigators say is a bad thing. But if the human tongue has a taste for fat, that must mean humans need fat. Perhaps the fat taste buds steer people toward foods that contain essential fatty acids, say puzzled investigators. Buteven natural non-fatty foods contain some essential fatty acids—even potatoes. The most logical conclusion is that the human body knows better than thousands of politically correct nutritionists that humans need high-fat foods, so much so that it is possessed of a highly sensitive instrument for determining which foods contain lots of fats. So precise is the human taste for fat that it can distinguish real fat from imitation fat substitutes like Olestra. And that's what really worries the food processing industry (Washington Post, 9/4/01).
Benign Bacteria
One of the reasons given for the superiority of commercial baby formula is that it is sanitary. But doctors have discovered that exposure to the right kinds of bacteria during the birthing and nursing process can help prevent eczema and asthma in babies. The "dirt hypothesis" suggests that our immune systems fail to develop properly unless they are exposed at birth to common benign bacteria that have lived in the human gut since the dawn of time. Doctors gave women with a family history of eczema, asthma or rhinitis either a dose of lactobacillus rhamnoses or a placebo for six months before giving birth. Infants were then exposed to these bacteria during the birth process and in their mothers' milk. Children of non-breastfeeding mothers received spoonfuls of bacteria or a placebo. Only 23 percent of the children exposed to the common gut bacteria went on to develop eczema, compared with 46 percent of those exposed to a placebo treatment. Formula, of course, is sterile, but raw cow or goat milk is rich in friendly bacteria (The Lancet 357:1057-1076).
Cholesterol and the Elderly
Damage control experts are dealing with yet another study that disproves the theory that high cholesterol levels are a bad thing. Researchers participating in the Honolulu Heart Program measured cholesterol levels in 3572 Japanese American men (aged 71-93) and compared changes in cholesterol levels over 20 years with all-cause mortality. In general, cholesterol levels fell with increasing age, but the researchers were astounded to find that the earlier patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations, the greater the risk of death. Furthermore, those with higher levels of cholesterol had better haemoglobin status and hand grip strength. In other words, when cholesterol levels go down in the elderly, so does physical function and they become frail. "We have been unable to explain our results," said the investigators. They urged "a more conservative approach in this age group." What that means is that it is not a good idea to put the elderly on lowfat diets and cholesterol-lowering drugs, but don't expect to see this translated into medical policy anytime soon (The Lancet 8/4/01 358:351-355).
More Fluoride Folly
Drugs based on fluoride usually have lots of side effects. One of them, a cholesterol-lowering drug called Baycol, was removed from the market after causing a muscle-wasting condition called rhabdomyolysis and at least 31 liver-failure deaths. On June 10, 1999, the FDA issued warnings about Trovan, a fluoride-based antibiotic drug it had approved just a year earlier. The FDA said it was aware of 14 cases of acute liver failure. Six of those patients have died and three required liver transplants. Recently thirty Nigerian families sued Pfizer, the maker of Trovan, saying that the company conducted an unethical clinical trial of the drug on their children in 1996. Eleven of the children in the trial died, while others suffered brain damage, were partly paralyzed or became deaf. A fluorinated drug called Fluconazole has been donated by Pfizer to South Africa, supposedly to treat AIDS-related infections. The medication has been shown to cause craniofacial, skeletal and cardiac anomalies in babies born to mothers who take the drug through the first trimester of pregnancy. Other fluoride-based drugs that have been withdrawn include Cisapride (it caused severe cardiac side effects); Mibedrafil (higher mortality in patients with congestive heart failure); Flosequinan (higher rate of hospitalization); the allergy drug Astemizole (serious life-threatening cardiac adverse events); the weight-loss drug Fenfluramine (caused serious adverse dardiac effects); the diabetic drug Tolrestat (liver toxicity and deaths); Temafloxacin (liver dysfunction and deaths); and Grepafloxacin (serious cardiac events) (www.7amnews.com/2001/features/081801.shtml).
More and more evidence is emerging about the dangers of fluoride—fluoride depresses thyroid function, inhibits numerous enzymes and has been associated with increased levels of hip fractures, dental fluorosis and cancer. But our government is still pushing fluorides as beneficial. According to Jeffrey Koplan, MD, director of the Centers for Disease Control, "many areas of the country don't receive the benefits of fluoridated water." The CDC recently issued new guidelines on fluoride in response to widespread use of bottled water. Key recommendations include the expansion of water fluoridation efforts, frequent use of fluoride products such as toothpaste and professionally applied gels, and labeling bottled water with fluoride amounts. The new guidelines are available at www2.cdc.gov/mmwr.
More Poisons in Soy
A new toxin has been added to the long list of antinutrients in soy foods. In addition to phytic acid, isoflavones, protease inhibitors, nitrates, lysinalanene, aluminum, fluoride and MSG, soy also contains a human carcinogen called 3-MCPD. The substance is created during the manufacture of soy sauce and hydrolysed vegetable protein (HVP). The New Zealand Ministry of Health and other health agencies worldwide have acted to withdraw several brands of soy sauce from sale because of the presence of 3-MCPD. It is also present in soy sausages and other imitation foods. Tests showed that consumption of just one sausage by a 25-pound child could result in exposure above the safe level (soyonlineservice.co.nz).
Present in numerous plant foods, oxalate is a compound that can bind with calcium in the kidney to form kidney stones. People prone to kidney stones are advised to avoid high-oxalate foods such as spinach and rhubarb. Scientists at Washington State University in Spokane tested 13 types of soy-based foods and found they contained enough oxalate to cause problems for people with a history of kidney stones. Some of the foods contained 50 times more than the suggested limit of 10 mg per serving. According to Linda Massey, PhD, head of the study, "Under these guidelines, no soybean or soy-food tested could be recommended for consumption by patients with a personal history of kidney stones" (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 9/2001).
And More Bad News for Soy
A stinging editorial in British Medical Journal says that estrogen compounds in soy have no proven benefit in the treatment of hot flashes. "Phytoestrogens have not been shown to improve other symptoms that characterize the menopausal transition, such as anxiety, mood changes, arthralgia, myalgia and headaches." The report also dismissed claims that soy protects against osteoporosis and heart disease. Said the authors, "That phytoestrogens prevent breast cancer also cannot be substantiated" (8/18/2001 323:354-355).
Bad Fats, Bad Advice
It is extremely difficult for researchers to determine accurate measures of food intake in test subjects, especially over a period of many months. But the fatty acids in the fat tissue taken from the buttock reflect the dietary intake of fatty acids over the previous year. Investigators in Norway analyzed the buttock fat of 100 heart attack patients and an equal number of controls. Those with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids had only a 20 percent risk of heart disease. Those with high levels of trans fat had double the risk. The problem is that people wishing to avoid saturated fats—as medical science advises them to do—are much more likely to consume trans fats. And saturated fats work synergistically with omega-3 fatty acids, helping to maintain them in the tissues where they belong. So, while dietary trials can be fudged and tweaked to get politically correct results, analysis of buttock fat tells it like it is—for protection against heart disease eat saturated fats and take fish oils. . . and avoid imitation foods loaded with trans fatty acids (European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 8/2000).
New Guidelines
The US government will be issuing new dietary guidelines later on this year. The last guidelines, issued in 1995, simply recommended that Americans "choose a diet low in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol." "The scientific evidence that has accumulated since the guidelines were last issued shows that a diet low in total fat is not necessarily the best way to remain healthy," concluded the expert panel convened to write the new guidelines. "Recommending a diet low in total fat may have backfired in some ways by prompting people to consume more calories overall," said Professor Cutberto Garza, chairman of the panel. Unfortunately, the new guidelines may also backfire as they continue to be based on the premise that saturated fats are bad. At least the experts finally admit that trans fats should be avoided. The new guidelines recommend more fats "such as those in olive oil, fresh fish, lean meat and poultry, and lowfat dairy products." Confused by this last statement? We think the experts are confused and predict that revisions will continue to be needed until they all go back and study basic, correct nutrition (Washington Post 2/2/01).