Author: Dr. George Georgiou

The Mediterranean diet “is characterized by abundant plant foods (fruit, vegetables, breads, other forms of cereals, beans, nuts and seeds), fresh fruit as the typical daily dessert, olive oil as the principal source of fat, dairy products (principally cheese and yogurt) and fish and poultry consumed in low to moderate amounts, zero to four eggs consumed weekly, red meat consumed in low amounts, and wine consumed in low to moderate amounts, normally with meals. This diet is low in saturated fat (less than or equal to 7-8% of energy) with total fat ranging from less than 25% to greater than 35% of energy throughout the region.”

ANCEL KEYS – ARCHITECT OF THE LIPID HYPOTHESIS
This, according to the Diet Dictocrats, is the diet that we should adopt to protect ourselves from chronic disease, especially heart disease. The author of this theory, and the first to describe the Mediterranean diet in these terms, was Ancel Keys, architect of the lipid hypothesis, namely that heart disease is caused by “the major dietary villain,” saturated fat from meat and dairy products.2 According to Keys, his introduction to the Mediterranean diet began in the early 1950s when he was a visiting professor at Oxford. In 1951, he chaired the first conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations at their headquarters in Rome. “The conference talked only about nutritional deficiencies. When I asked about the diet and the new epidemic of coronary heart disease, Gino Bergami, Professor of Physiology at the University of Naples, said coronary heart disease was no problem in Naples.”

KEY’S FALSE DATA
Dr. Keys returned to Oxford where, as an underpaid visiting professor, he and his wife endured an unheated house and got by on food rations. He then had the brilliant idea of visiting sunny Naples to check out Professor Bergami’s claim. Once there, he discovered the trotterias and dined on “simple pasta and plain pizza.” Keys says he discovered that heart attacks were indeed rare in Naples, “except among the small class of rich people whose diet differed from that of the general population-they ate meat every day instead of very week or two.” His wife amused herself by measuring serum cholesterol concentrations “and found them to be very low except among members of the Rotary Club.” After this exacting research, Keys was able to conclude that “there seemed to be an association between the diet, serum cholesterol and coronary heart disease.” “The heart of what we now consider the Mediterranean diet is mainly vegetarian,” he reports. “Pasta in many forms, leaves sprinkled with olive oil, all kinds of vegetables in season, and often cheese, all finished off with fruit and frequently washed down with wine.”

At first, Dr. Keys’ found little support for his revolutionary theories. But he encountered a sympathetic listener in 1952 when he presented his views to a small audience in New York at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Fred Epstein was convinced by Keys’ data and began spreading the message “with great effect over Europe and America.”

THE SEVEN COUNTRIES STUDY
Keys then published his Seven Countries Study3 in which he claimed a relationship between high rates of coronary heart disease and consumption of saturated fat in seven countries. He was able to do this by handpicking countries where both heart disease and consumption of saturated fats were high and by ignoring countries with the same kind of diet but where heart disease was low.4

Since Keys’ published his “research,” the Mediterranean diet-at least, what is perceived to be the Mediterranean diet-has become government policy. The USDA has immortalized Keys’ fond remembrance of trotteria fare from sunny Naples in the form of a food pyramid, based on lots of white bread and pasta topped with a generous layer of fruits and vegetables. This strangely shaped pizza then gets a splash of olive oil and cheese, an anchovy or two, a pinch of sugar and voila! the dietary solution to rampant chronic disease.

Chronic disease is still rampaging in spite of worldwide acceptance of the food pyramid but Keys, at least, has fared rather well. In 1993, after Fred Epstein gave the summary lecture at the international celebration of the Seven Countries Study in Fukuoka, Japan, and at the fourth annual Ancel Keys Lecture at the 1993 American Heart Association Convention, Keys’ was deluged with requests for interviews and advice. “In May 1993, a crew from an American magazine came to our home Minnelea in Minnesota, bringing a photographer from California to record the scene while I talked abut the Mediterranean diet.”

Dr. Keys no longer has to winter in Minnesota but can escape to his second home in southern Italy. But his vacations to Naples include some sad moments as he observes unfortunate changes in the Mediterranean diet. “The restaurants are increasingly popular but the food they serve is commonly far from the Mediterranean pattern. . . Everything has to be loaded with butter or margarine and ground meat. Serving only fruit for dessert is not common; ice cream or pie is customary. Whereas Italian restaurants brag about the healthy Mediterranean diet, they serve a travesty of it.” Keys does not tell us whether his recent prosperity, which allows him to dine in white-table-cloth restaurants rather than sidewalk cafes, has caused him to abandon his monk-like regimen of “leaves sprinkled with olive oil” and fresh fruit. It must be distressing indeed to observe sophisticated Italians feasting on such travesties as pasta al Fredo, veal scallopini and prosciutto, especially to one who has taken the stringent vows of the diet priesthood.

THE DIET OF MEDITERRANEAN TEENAGERS
But the life of the missionary is never easy. No, it is a lonesome road, filled with disappointment. Imagine the late-night soul-searching of Dr. Perez-Llamas and his colleagues who set out to study the consumption patterns of a group of adolescents in the region of Murcia, in southeastern Spain.5 Were these Mediterranean teenagers consuming a “balanced diet,” with plenty of vegetables and fruit? Not at all. The naughty youngsters consumed mostly sausage! “The results showed a very low consumption of vegetables, some deficiencies in the intake of the milk and fruits and an excessive intake of fats. . . while the intake of fish and pulses was insufficient in our study.”

Alas, lamented Dr. Perez-Llamas, “the study reveals that although Murcia is a typically Mediterranean region, the characteristics of the diet of Murcian adolescents are quite different in some respects from the typical alimentary habits of the Mediterranean diet.”

Dr. Perez-Llamas proposed to remedy these dietary sins with the modern version of the Spanish inquisition: “. . . nutritional advice was given to mothers and adolescents. The use of Spanish portions from the six basic food groups proved to be a very helpful method to popularize the principles of balanced diet in our population.”

Another group of diet-priests, headed by Dr. Alberti-Fidanza, made a pilgrimage in 1994 to study elderly Italians in the rural areas of Crevalcore and Montegiorgio, two of the districts Keys had included in the Seven Countries Study.6 But the older generation had fallen away! They no longer practiced the food Puritanism that Keys claimed he observed three decades earlier. “In both areas, but particularly in Montegiorgio, these subjects have been abandoning the traditional Mediterranean diet.”

WHAT IS THE TRUE MEDITERRANEAN DIET?
The question that the believers haven’t asked themselves is this: Was the lean, so-called Mediterranean diet they observed after the war the true Mediterranean diet? Or were they observing the tail end of deprivation engendered by half a decade of conflict? Were the inhabitants of Crevalcore and Montegiorgio abandoning the traditional Mediterranean diet, or were they taking it up again? And did Keys miss the sight of Italians enjoying rich food in the early 1950s because Italians had never done such a shameful thing, or was the visiting professor too poor at the time to afford anything more than plain pizza in a sidewalk cafe?

Recipes of All Nations7 was published in 1935, almost two decades before the new diet religion was proclaimed to the suffering millions. Consider the description of food in Sardinia. Grains are certainly a part of their diet, consumed as bread, pasta or polenta, but in most interesting ways. “One of their favorite ways of cooking macaroni is to cook it in either lamb or pork fat . . . with small pieces of either lamb or pork, chopped tomatoes, chopped garlic and curd, mixed with a little water and salt and moistened with a little game stock, if this is obtainable.” Gnocchi is flavored with saffron and “served with a tomato sauce, or with gravy and cheese made from ewe’s milk.” Bland polenta is enlivened with “chopped salt pork, small pieces of sausages and grated cheese.” La Favata is made with “pieces of salt pork, cut in large chunks, ham bone, special homemade sausages, a handful of dried beans, wild fennel, and other herbs and a little water.”

ARE MEDITERRANEAN DIETS LOW IN FAT?
Nothing lowfat so far. But perhaps Keys and his entourage were right when they said that meat is eaten sparingly in the Mediterranean region. Read on. “The Sardinians are great meat eaters, but their methods of cooking various kinds of meat are simple-almost primitive, in fact.” Like most Italians, the Sardinians prefer young animals-lamb, kid or suckling pig-usually roasted in front of a wood fire. “The meat is finally browned by constant basting with hot fat. . . ” The baby pigs “are so tender that even the skin, ears and all can be eaten.” The diet of Corsica “has in no way been subjected to any outside influence. . .” No new catechism, no diet evangelists here. So Corsicans can enjoy the following without guilt: All manner of fish, including small lobster, cuttlefish and shellfish; anchovy paste made with the addition of figs; dried salt cod; beef browned in lard; strips of goat fillet, salted and sun dried; chestnuts mixed with polenta and cream and served with different kinds of meat or black pudding.

A beautiful new encyclopedia of traditional foods, You Eat What You Are,8 also gives a rather different view of Italian cuisine than the one proclaimed in the gospel according to Ancel Keys. Author Thelma Barer-Stein notes that butter is the cooking fat of choice in northern Italy, lard in the middle region and olive oil in the south. But pork is consumed throughout the entire peninsula, usually in the form of sausages-which anyone but an American visiting professor could discern are the sin qua non of Italian cuisine. Salami, bologna, mortadella and zamponi-there would be no Italian cuisine without these. Sausage is a way of making innards taste delicious-as in pezzante, an Italian speciality made from sinews, livers and lungs. Cooks use plenty of pancetta (Italian-style bacon) and children love crisp cracklings of pig skin called fritolli, rich in vitamin D. Jews living in Italy made sausage and cold cuts, but they did not use pork. In her book The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews,9 author Edda Servi Machlin remembers her father’s carne secca (salt dried meat) and salsicce de minao (beef sausage.) “Both dishes were renowned and appreciated among the Jewish communities all over Italy.” These foods were made in late winter and hung in “an open north window” for four to six weeks to air dry. Other specialities included lingua salmistrata (pickled beef tongue), the aroma of which would “resuscitate the dead,” and salame d’oca (goose sausage). (See Food Feature, page 48.) These meats were all fermented-and eaten raw.

About eggs, Machlin reports: “Eggs have always been among the most inexpensive of the highly nutritious foods. For us, they were not only a staple, but also a universal remedy for most ailments, real or imaginary, much as vitamins are for many people today. In order to be fully effective, eggs had to be ingested raw and very fresh-in fact, warm, directly from the chicken nest. So, naturally, every family had a small poultry yard in their orchard.”

Italy produces as many kinds of cheese as France, including two of the very best: Parmesan and Gorgonzola, both full fat and creamy rich. Italian cheese garnishes more than pizza. It is used in turnovers, vegetable dishes, salads and sandwiches. A favorite is mozarella, cut into squares, dipped in batter and deep fried.

Italians are masters at preparing every kind of meat-from sweetbreads to knuckle bones. Lean meat gets a cream sauce or stuffing of ham and ricotta cheese. Fish and shellfish of every variety are used in seafood platters, fish soups and fish stews. The Diet Dictocrats, flush with the success of their food pyramid, seem to have missed the ecstatic experience of calamari, dipped in batter, deep fried and served heaped up on platters-a healthy snack as long as traditional fats, not partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, are used in frying. In Naples, where Keys had heard that heart disease was rare, snacks of fresh seafood are as popular as pizzas and small containers of oysters can be eaten on the run. Italians love their vegetables for sure and that’s because they know how to make them taste good. They know that salads taste better with a good dressing of aged vinegar and olive oil; and cooked vegetables blossom when anointed with butter, lard or cream.

Italians don’t generally start with day with eggs but they make up for it later on. Eggs are used in rich sauces and custards, like zabaglione. Soups are often served with poached egg.

And what about ice cream? Is this something new to the Italian diet-an American travesty? Not quite. “The first ice cream shops or gelateria opened in Tuscany in the 1500s, but the Southern Italians are believed to be responsible for the popularity of ice cream in North America.” And no one uses ice cream with greater inventiveness than the Italians, from the spumone of Naples to cassata, a decorative ice cream cake, to semifreddi, “a type of soft foamy ice cream that also comes in many flavors.” It is true, however, that Italians sometimes consume ice cream with fresh fruit.

As it’s clear to anyone who has traveled to Italy or eaten in an Italian restaurant, the backsliding Italians have reverted to the food paganism of their ancestors-if they ever left it. So orthodox nutritionists have recently enshrined the Greek diet as the most virtuous of politically correct Mediterranean cuisines, described as consisting principally of olive oil, bread and tomatoes.

THE CRETIAN MEDITTERANEAN DIET!
Rosemary Barron ran a cooking school on Crete from 1980-1984 and has spent many months living there, as far back as 1963 when she participated in an archeological dig. In 1991 she published Flavors of Greece, which received an “Editor’s Choice” award in the New York Times Book Section.

It is true, she reports, that the Greeks eat lots of bread. In the countryside, family bread is still usually made with stone-ground flour in wood-burning ovens. White bread is found in the stores but there still is a long and strong tradition of all sorts of brown breads, including a fermented “shepherd’s” loaf made with wheat bran, oat bran and whole wheat flour. Much bread is “twice-baked” into rusks, which are normally consumed at breakfast.

Rosemary estimates that Cretans probably eat several pounds of cheese per week, providing about 600 calories of fat per day, or 25% of calories in a 2400-calorie diet, just from cheese alone. Since the fat in goat milk cheese is almost 70% saturated, one-half pound of cheese per day would supply about 18% of calories as saturated fat, more than twice as much of that “dietary villain” as sanctioned by the diet-priests.

Other sources of saturated fat include yogurt, milk and small amounts of butter, used in pastries. Olive oil is the preferred fat for cooking and salads. It is used very generously, providing lots more fat calories, including some calories as saturated fat.

And there’s also plenty of saturated fat from meat in the Cretan diet. Lamb or kid is eaten in the spring and goat throughout the year. Pork is eaten frequently, either as chops or roast, and old hens and roosters are served up boiled. The most common meat of all is game in season-birds, rabbit and hare. Tiny birds grilled and wrapped in vine leaves are popular. Thin smoked sausages serve as appetizers and garnishes.

Egg consumption averages about ten per week, used as ingredients in omelets, cakes, savory dishes and avgolemono, an egg-lemon sauce. Rosemary remembers her surprise on cracking her first Cretan egg-the yolk was bright orange, so bright that the scrambled eggs she made with it were also orange.

Cretans love unusual foods like snails and organ meats-kidneys, liver and spleen. Fish roe is considered a delicacy and may be made into small cakes and fried in oil, or into taramosalata, a paste served as an appetizer. Those who live near the coast eat fresh seafood every day-including shellfish, sea urchins, octopus, squid and cuttlefish. Until recently, the only transport was by donkey and there were no refrigerators. This meant that unless you lived by the sea, you rarely ate fresh seafood. Cretans had several methods for preserving fish by salting or smoking, and for creating odorous sauces from rotting fish. Smaller fish were placed in earthenware jars and covered with herbs and olive oil. Donkeys then carried these “fish up the path” to the interior.

EXCELLENT SOURCES OF VITAMINS A & D
All of these animal foods, including the orange egg yolks, are excellent sources of vitamins A and D, the fat-soluble vitamins Weston Price discovered to be vital for good looks and robust health. When foods rich in these fat-soluble activators are abandoned, subsequent generations have more narrow faces, more tooth decay and more disease. They are less attractive and less strong. The presence of adequate amounts of vitamins A and D in the Cretan diet is probably what protects populations throughout the Mediterranean from the high amount of bread or pasta and frequent use of sweets.

Cooking is simple on Crete and throughout most of Greece. Rather than make stock or broth, Cretans cook meat and fish with the bones. In fact, traditionally no meat or fish was sold without bones, as bones are a proof of freshness. Even today most food on Crete is cooked in communal ovens. Thus the typical meal is prepared in a shallow casserole that can be carried to the ovens. Good fish and tender cuts of meat are cooked on outdoor grills.

Wonderful fresh vegetables, including artichokes and eggplant, luscious fruits, almonds, pistachios, lentils and chick-peas all contribute to this delicious Mediterranean cuisine. The preferred beverage is homemade wine.

The main meal in most of Greece is lunch, eaten at home and consisting of a main course, usually a stew or casserole containing meat, along with vegetables, salad, bread and cheese. Then everything shuts down until about 5 PM. Dinner is late by our standards, preceded by a few hours of mezedes (little nibbles) taken in a cafe, or at home with a drink. Mezedes might be bits of cucumber, tomato, cheese, olives, seafood or slices of sausage. In a typical village scene, the men sit in cafes for a couple of hours and the women sit outside their houses, chatting to each other. The men then come home to dinner about 10 PM. Desserts like ice cream and pastries are eaten in cafes during family outings and at home on feast days.

The European Union is a breeding ground for zealots of food Puritanism so the Greeks are being pressured to conform. No more long lunches and leisurely hors d’oeuvres. Greece has to follow the same hours as the rest of Europe-and eat the same foods, like standardized lowfat factory-made cheeses, white bread, lean meat packaged without the bone, commercial baked goods based on vegetable oils and soft drinks. These are the real travesty of the modern Mediterranean diet, not foods rich in animal fats, and this garbage is much easier to sell when doctors say that it’s better for your health than the traditional foods of your ancestors.

The people of Greece enjoy one of the longest life-spans in the world, but it may not last if they adopt the American professor’s version of the Mediterranean diet, which actually hastens the trend towards processed food.

“Unhappily,” writes Keys, “the current changes in Mediterranean countries tend to destroy the health virtues of the diet as we saw them forty years ago. Efforts are needed to reverse this change. Education is important. We should concentrate on the medical profession and the schools. It is not enough that doctors measure serum cholesterol and tell patients with high values to avoid butter and fatty meat. They also should emphasize prevention by targeting the general public.”

This means more seminars, in villages by the sea. The second annual meeting, Keys reports, was held in Pioppi, a village on the Mediterranean coast, “about four kilometers from our home in Italy.” Sponsored by the International Society and Federation of Cardiology, these retreats have attracted “some 800 doctors from 30 cities in 22 countries.” Oh, what sacrifices are made in the name of science!

And what does this College of Cardiologists eat when convened on their Italian retreat? Do the learned doctors confine themselves to plain pasta and lean meat? Do they nibble on lemons and leaves in the land of spumone?

THE GREATEST OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS!
The greatest of the seven deadly sins is not gluttony but pride, pride so blinding that it presumes to inflict one’s own pathology of renunciation upon a whole population, starting with the children. “In these seminars,” says Keys, ” we stress the Mediterranean type of diet and its helpful role in controlling the concentration of serum cholesterol and reducing the associated risk of coronary heart. . . I believe it is important to bring the diet message to school children. . . Our challenge is to figure out how to make children tell their parents that they should eat as Mediterraneans do. At least, we should help children get rid of some nonsense ideas and convince them that meat and rich dairy products will not make the boys any stronger and the girls any prettier.”10

Reprinted from Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A Price Foundation, Spring 2000. Copyright (c) The Weston A. Price Foundation. all Rights Reserved.

References:
1. W C Willett, et al, “Mediterranean diet pyramid: a cultural model for healthy eating,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition June 1995 61(6S):1402S-1406S

2. Ancel Keys, “Mediterranean diet and public health: personal reflections,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1995 61(suppl):1321S-1323S

3. Ancel Keys, “Coronary heart disease in seven countries,” Circulation, 1970 41, (Suppl.1)

4. The statistician Russell H. Smith had this to say about the Seven Countries Study: The word “landmark” has often been used. . . to describe Ancel Keys’ Seven Countries study, commonly cited as proof that the American diet is atherogenic. . . . the dietary assessment methodology was highly inconsistent across cohorts and thoroughly suspect. In addition, careful examination of the death rates and associations between diet and death rates reveal a massive set of inconsistencies and contradictions. . . It is almost inconceivable that the Seven Countries study was performed with such scientific abandon. It is also dumbfounding how the NHLBI/AHA alliance ignored such sloppiness in their many “rave reviews” of the study. . . In summary, the diet-CHD relationship reported for the Seven Countries study cannot be taken seriously by the objective and critical scientist.” Diet, Blood Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease: A Critical Review of the Literature, Volume 2, November 1981 pages 4-47 – 4-49

5. F Perez-Llamas, et al, “Estimates of food intake and dietary habits in a random sample of adolescents in southeast Spain,” Journal of Human Nutrition and Diet, December 1996 9:(6):463-471

6. A Alberti-Fidanza, et al, “Dietary studies on two rural Italian population groups of the Seven Countries Study. 1. Food and nutrient intake at the thirty-first year follow-up in 1991,” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition February 1994 48(2)85-91

7. Recipes of All Nations, Wm H. Wise & Co, New York, 1935, pages 779-781

8. Thelma Barer-Stein, PhD, You Eat What You Are: People, Culture and Food Traditions, Firefly Books, Willowdale, Ontario, Canada 1999

9. Edda Servi Machlin, The Classic Cuisine of Italian Jews, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1981, pages 83-87

10. Keys, op cit, 1995 Taken from the Weston Price Foundation web site at www.westonaprice.com – The Mediterranean Diet: Pasta or Pastrami? By Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD

One of the excellent books which I highly recommend every household to own is entitled “Nourishing Traditions: A Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictorates by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. If you want to order online simply go here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0967089735/worldwidehealt06
>Dr. George J. Georgiou, Ph.D. Clinical Nutritionist – Master Herbalist – Naturopath – Homeopath – Iridologist Clinical Sexologist – Clinical Psychologist
webmaster@worldwidehealthcenter.net

Recent research shows that microwave oven-cooked food suffers severe molecular damage. When eaten, it causes abnormal changes in human blood and immune systems. Not surprisingly, the public has been denied details on these significant health dangers.

I have often been asked by my patients whether cooking with microwave ovens is healthy or not. I did not really have an objective, scientific answer to give, as I had not really researched the matter. Well, recently I decided to do some useful research into the question of microwave cooking. I had a hunch that it was NOT healthy, and this was confirmed by my research! I will share with you in summary some of the interesting facts that I dug up from my research.

MICROWAVED BLOOD KILLS!
In 1991, word leaked out about a lawsuit in Oklahoma. A woman named Norma Levitt had hip surgery, only to be killed by a simple blood transfusion when a nurse “warmed the blood for the transfusion in a microwave oven”! (J. Nat. Sci, 1998; 1:2-7). Logic suggests that if heating or cooking is all there is to it, then it doesn’t matter what mode of heating technology one uses. However, it is quite apparent that there is more to ‘heating’ with microwaves than we’ve been led to believe.

Blood for transfusions is routinely warmed-but not in microwave ovens! In the case of Mrs. Levitt, the micro-waving altered the blood and it killed her.

DR. HANS HERTZEL AND MICROWAVE RESEARCH
HANS HERTEL In the tiny town of Wattenwil, near Basel in Switzerland, there lives a scientist who is alarmed at the lack of purity and naturalness in the many pursuits of modern mankind. He worked as a food scientist for several years with one of the many major Swiss food companies that do business on a global scale. A few years ago, he was fired from his job for questioning procedures in processing food because they denatured it.

The point that he was desperately trying to make to the public is vital to consumer interests: Any food eaten that has been cooked or defrosted in a microwave oven can cause changes in the blood indicative of a developing pathological process that is also found in cancer.

Nevertheless, for all this time, Hertel has been effectively gagged by the manufacturers of microwave ovens who have effectively used trade laws and the Swiss court to muzzle him – even to threaten him with personal ruin, an all too known tactic used by those threatened by natural medicine and the truth!

Working with Bernard H. Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University Institute for Biochemistry, Hertel not only conceived of the study and carried it out, he was one of eight participants.

“To control as many variables as possible, we selected eight individuals who were strict macrobiotic diet participants from the Macrobiotic Institute at Kientel, Switzerland,” Hertel explained. “We were all housed in the same hotel environment for eight weeks. There was no smoking, no alcohol and no sex.”

One can readily see that this protocol makes sense. After all, how could you tell about subtle changes in a human’s blood from eating micro-waved food if smoking, booze, junk food, pollution, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and everything else in the common environment were also present? “We had one American, one Canadian and six Europeans in the group. I was the oldest at 64 years, the others were in their 20s and 30s,” Hertel added.

Valentine published the results of this study in Search for Health in the Spring of 1992. But the follow-up information is available only in a later edition, and also in Acres, USA.
In intervals of two to five days, the volunteers in the study received one of the food variants on an empty stomach. The food variants were: raw milk from a bio-farm (no. 1); the same milk conventionally cooked (no. 2); pasteurized milk from Intermilk Berne (no. 3); the same raw milk cooked in a microwave oven (no. 4); raw vegetables from an organic farm (no. 5); the same vegetables cooked conventionally (no. 6); the same vegetables frozen and defrosted in the microwave oven (no. 7); and the same vegetables cooked in the microwave oven (no. 8).

Once the volunteers were isolated at the resort hotel, the test began. Blood samples were taken from every volunteer immediately before eating. Then blood samples were taken at defined intervals after eating from the above-numbered milk or vegetable preparations.

Significant changes were discovered in the blood of the volunteers who consumed foods cooked in the microwave oven. These changes included a decrease in all hemoglobin values and cholesterol values, especially the HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) values and ratio. Lymphocytes (white blood cells) showed a more distinct short-term decrease following the intake of micro-waved food than after the intake of all the other variants. Each of these indicators point in a direction away from robust health and toward degeneration. Additionally, there was a highly significant association between the amount of microwave energy in the test foods and the luminous power of luminescent bacteria exposed to serum from test persons who ate that food. This led Hertel to the conclusion that such technically derived energies may, indeed, be passed along to man inductively via consumption of micro-waved food.

“Technically produced microwaves are based on the principle of alternating current. Atoms, molecules and cells hit by this hard electromagnetic radiation are forced to reverse polarity 1 to 100 billion times a second. There are no atoms, molecules or cells of any organic system able to withstand such a violent, destructive power for any extended period of time, not even in the low energy range of milliwatts.

“Of all the natural substances-which are polar-the oxygen of water molecules reacts most sensitively. This is how microwave-cooking heat is generated-friction from this violence in water molecules. Structures of molecules are torn apart, molecules are forcefully deformed (called structural isomerism) and thus become impaired in quality.

HEATING FOOD IN MICROWAVES
“This is contrary to conventional heating of food, in which heat transfers convectionally from without to within. Cooking by microwaves begins within the cells and molecules where water is present and where the energy is transformed into frictional heat.”

“The first drawing of blood samples took place on an empty stomach at 7.45 each morning,” Hertel explained. “The second drawing of blood took place 15 minutes after the food intake. The third drawing was two hours later.”
From each sample, 50 milliliters of blood was used for the chemistry and five millimeters for the hematology and the luminescence. The hematological examinations took place immediately after drawing the samples. Erythrocytes, hemoglobin, mean hemoglobin concentration, mean hemoglobin content, leukocytes and lymphocytes were measured. The chemical analysis consisted of iron, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.
The results of erythrocyte, hemoglobin, haematocrit and leukocyte determinations were at the “lower limits of normal” in those tested following the eating of the micro-waved samples. “These results show anemic tendencies. The situation became even more pronounced during the second month of the study,” Hertel added. “And with those decreasing values, there was a corresponding increase of cholesterol values.”

Hertel admits that stress factors, from getting punctured for the blood samples so often each day, for example, cannot be ruled out, but the established baseline for each individual became the “zero values” marker, and only changes from the zero values were statistically determined.

RUSSIANS BAN MICROWAVE OVENS
After the World War II, the Russians also experimented with microwave ovens. From 1957 up to recently, their research has been carried out mainly at the Institute of Radio Technology at Klinsk, Byelorussia. According to US researcher William Kopp, who gathered much of the results of Russian and German research – and was apparently prosecuted for doing so (J. Nat. Sci, 1998; 1:42-3) – the following effects were observed by Russian forensic teams:

1. Heating prepared meats in a microwave sufficiently for human consumption created:
* d-Nitrosodiethanolamine (a well-known cancer-causing agent)
* Destabilization of active protein biomolecular compounds
* Creation of a binding effect to radioactivity in the atmosphere
* Creation of cancer-causing agents within protein-hydrosylate compounds in milk and cereal grains;
2. Microwave emissions also caused alteration in the catabolic (breakdown) behavior of glucoside – and galactoside – elements within frozen fruits when thawed in this way;
3. Microwaves altered catabolic behavior of plant-alkaloids when raw, cooked or frozen vegetables were exposed for even very short periods;
4. Cancer-causing free radicals were formed within certain trace-mineral molecular formations in plant substances, especially in raw root vegetables;
5. Ingestion of micro-waved foods caused a higher percentage of cancerous cells in blood;
6. Due to chemical alterations within food substances, malfunctions occurred in the lymphatic system, causing degeneration of the immune system=s capacity to protect itself against cancerous growth;
7. The unstable catabolism of micro-waved foods altered their elemental food substances, leading to disorders in the digestive system;
8. Those ingesting micro-waved foods showed a statistically higher incidence of stomach and intestinal cancers, plus a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues with a gradual breakdown of digestive and excretory system function;
9. Microwave exposure caused significant decreases in the nutritional value of all foods studied, particularly:
* A decrease in the bioavailability of B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotrophics
* Destruction of the nutritional value of nucleoproteins in meats
* Lowering of the metabolic activity of alkaloids, glucosides, galactosides and nitrilosides (all basic plant substances in fruits and vegetables)
* Marked acceleration of structural disintegration in all foods.

As a result microwave ovens were banned in Russia in 1976; the ban was lifted after Perestroika.

INFANT DANGER
In the journal Pediatrics (vol. 89, no. 4, April 1992), there appeared an article titled, “Effects of Microwave Radiation on Anti-infective Factors in Human Milk”. Richard Quan, M.D. from Dallas, Texas, was the lead name of the study team. John A. Kerner, M.D., from Stanford University, was also on the research team, and he was quoted in a summary article on the research that appeared in the 25 April 1992 issue of Science News. To get the full flavor of what may lie ahead for micro-waving, here is that summary article:
“Women who work outside the home can express and store breast milk for feedings when they are away. But parents and caregivers should be careful how they warm this milk. A new study shows that micro-waving human milk-even at a low setting-can destroy some of its important disease-fighting capabilities.

“Breast milk can be refrigerated safely for a few days or frozen for up to a month; however, studies have shown that heating the milk well above body temperature – 37 degree centigrade – can break down not only its antibodies to infectious agents, but also its lysozymes or bacteria-digesting enzymes. So, when pediatrician John A. Kerner, Jr, witnessed neonatal nurses routinely thawing or reheating breast milk with the microwave oven in their lounge, he became concerned.
“In the April 1992 issue of Pediatrics (Part I), he and his Stanford University co-workers reported finding that unheated breast milk that was microwaved lost lysozyme activity, antibodies and fostered the growth of more potentially pathogenic bacteria. Milk heated at a high setting (72 degrees Celsius to 98 degrees C) lost 96 per cent of its immunoglobulin-A antibodies, agents that fend off invading microbes.

“What really surprised him, Kerner said, was finding some loss of anti-infective properties in the milk micro-waved at a low setting-and to a mean of just 33.5 degrees C. Adverse changes at such low temperatures suggest ‘micro-waving itself may in fact cause some injury to the milk above and beyond the heating’.

There are many more disadvantages in using microwave ovens – Listeria and other potentially fatal bacteria can survive in a microwave oven, toxic chemicals released by the packaging used for microwave use, and more.

The message seems clear. Don’t cook food in a microwave oven.

God bless!

The Food and Drug Administration have not evaluated these statements. This information and products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Dr. George J Georgiou, Ph.D.
Naturopath – Clinical Nutritionist – Herbalist – Homeopath – Iridologist – Clinical Psychologist – Clinical Sexologist
webmaster@worldwidehealthcenter.net

Good health can be maintained and many disease conditions alleviated with adequate exposure to full-spectrum light.

ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT: MYTHS AND FACTS
America has a phobia, an irrational fear, about ultraviolet (UV) light. In a new science fad, unwise practices are being urged on us. The resulting sickness and misbehaviour will mystify yet enrich physicians, psychiatrists, dentists and criminal specialists as well as pharmaceutical drug companies.

In too many scientific and medical fields, for a lot of researchers the truth is defined only in relationship to the next grant, peer pressure and the fight to further an entrenched view. This essentially political process goes on despite any–in this case very strong–evidence to the contrary.1 Much “science” research is known to be fraudulent.2, 3 Such a flow of funded research almost exclusively in one direction is characteristic of potentially dangerous science fads. Almost all “scientists” are out to prove something so as to continue their careers; to them, finding the truth is only secondary.

UV intensity is now forecast in population centres daily. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests that when outdoors we should “protect ourselves against ultraviolet light whenever we can see our shadow”. And many physicians give their patients the same warning. This is terrible advice. If man were a machine, a doctor could repair or replace one part without worrying about the rest of the contraption. Man is no machine, but more like a web or hologram. Every organ and every part affects all the other parts; in fact, cells in every part communicate with all the other parts.4

As a result of the EPA’s kind of advice, which is based on junk science, the use of sunglasses is epidemic; we hide behind stylish darkened car windows, we slather our skin with sunscreen for even brief sun exposure. People who engage in these practices are ruining their disposition5 and health.

The phobia arose after investigators anaesthetised animals, propped their eyes open and shined intense UV light into them; this damaged their retinas. Excessive exposure to one kind of ultraviolet (shorter-wave, germicidal UVC) can damage tissue. But the EPA makes the ridiculous leap from that truth to the conclusion that we should avoid all UV. UVC is not present increasingly in sunlight; a purported thinning of the protective ozone layer has been debunked (see below). UVC is found in tanning salons and halogen lamps.6 In fact, the trace amounts of UV radiation in natural daylight are required for physical and mental health, civilised behaviour, muscle strength, energy and learning.7 Sunlight, in moderation, improves immunity and stimulates our metabolism while decreasing food craving, and increases our intelligence.

Ozone Hole Danger Disproved
The following passages and references are from Richard Hobday’s book, The Healing Sun: Sunlight and Health in the 21st Century.8

“There have been no increases in skin cancer, eye diseases, immune system disorders or environmental damage which can be attributed to an increase in ultraviolet radiation. The largest South American city close to the Antarctic ozone hole is Punta Arenas in southern Chile. Despite reports to the contrary, there have been no ozone-related health problems at Punta Arenas, and measurements of ultraviolet radiation show that any increases are too small to have any appreciable effect.[9]

“A paper published in 1998 by the European Science and Environmental Forum challenges the consensus view on ozone depletion, and argues that predictions made by the scientific establishment and the media have been ill-founded.[10] If this is the case, and the hole in the ozone layer is, after all, a temporary thinning of the upper atmosphere in the early spring, then there is no reason to fear that people will develop skin cancer because ultraviolet radiation has become more dangerous.

“There is certainly no evidence to support the widely held view that the increase in malignant melanoma in recent years is in some way linked to ozone depletion. The trend predates the issue of ozone loss, which may have been going on for some time before it was noticed. A paper published in the British Journal of Cancer shows that from 1957 to 1984 the incidence of malignant melanoma in Norway increased by 350 per cent for men and 440 per cent for women. During the same period there was no change in ozone levels over Norway, nor any significant change in annual exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.[11] Scare stories, such as the one about sheep in Chile developing cataracts because of increased ultraviolet radiation, are not supported in the scientific literature. The sheep in question were later found to have had an infectious disease, and sunlight was not implicated.[12, 13]

“What is clear, however, is that there is a great deal of ill-informed comment on the subject of ozone depletion and, for that matter, sunbathing. Should depletion of the ozone layer ever become a cause for real concern, then some people might develop cancer who might not have, had there been no depletion, but until this happens there is much more to be gained from investigating the real causes of skin cancer and encouraging safe sunbathing than in being preoccupied with the state of the Earth’s upper atmosphere and blaming everything on the Sun. Diet and lifestyle play a far more significant part in the genesis of cancer than is currently recognised. The same can also be said about another condition that is supposed to be on the increase because of ozone depletion–that of senile cataract.”
Note that even low exposure to UVB significantly increases the risk of cataracts,14 but only with the consumption of a Western junk food diet rich in unsaturated fats and their oxidised products.15, 16 Those (including myself) who consume a more sensible diet, and supplement it with vitamins C and E, do not get cataracts even from lengthy sun exposure.17, 18

PHOTOBIOLOGY
Starting from a high-school hobby of time-lapse photography, the late John N. Ott, DScHon,19 founded the new science of photobiology. He was active into his tenth decade.

Dr Ott’s last book, one of many publications, is Light, Radiation and You: How to Stay Healthy (1990).20 In it he wrote: “Mankind adapted to the full range of the solar spectrum, and artificial distortions of that spectrum–malillumination, a condition analogous to malnutrition–may have biologic effects.” In an interview published in 1991, he noted: “There are neurochemical channels from the retina to the pineal and pituitary glands, the master glands of the whole endocrine system that controls the production and release of hormones. This regulates your body chemistry and its growth, all organs of your body, including your brain, and how they function.”21

The critical reader will ask: where are the controlled, scientific tests supporting Dr Ott’s statements? The answer to that question is: who can make money promoting sunlight? Think about it.

SIDEBAR
Two hours of bright light in the evening can sometimes cure symptoms such as weight gain, depression, carbohydrate craving, social withdrawal, fatigue and irritability.22

I. Ultraviolet Deprivation Health Effects
First, let’s consider the health effects of ultraviolet deprivation.

Indoor Lighting and Melanoma
Malignant melanoma is often alarmingly but wrongly blamed on sun exposure. The dangerous kind, called skin cancer, is ultimately fatal if not corrected. A study by the US Navy found the most melanoma in people who worked indoors all the time. Those who worked both outdoors and indoors some of the time had the lowest incidence. Also, most melanomas appeared on parts of the body that are seldom exposed to sunlight.23 The inference is that both very high and very low exposures to UV light can be harmful–and moderate exposure is healthful.24

Sunscreens and Melanoma
Sunscreens block out only UVA and UVB, which we all need in trace amounts, but not the potentially dangerous, germicidal UVC. No commercial sunscreens have been proved safe.25 Their chemicals penetrate the skin into the circulation and add to the burden of toxins to be detoxified.26 Commercial sunscreens increase the risk of melanoma by causing mutations when the cells’ chromosomes interact with the chemicals and the light.27 Natural sunscreens, as well as commercial ones, curtail needed uptake of vitamin D3 from UVB, increasing the risk of the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis.

Moreover, Lita Lee, PhD, notes: “Mounting evidence indicates that many of them [sunscreens] contain carcinogens and that the rise of skin cancers parallels the increase in sunscreen usage. The only sunscreen I recommend is coconut oil, although, believe me, you cannot slather this oil on your skin and bake in the sun all day. Adding a little iodine to the coconut oil for the first week of summer gives added protection; however, do not use the iodine for more than a week, as continued use will inhibit your thyroid function. In my opinion, the only other safe (non-carcinogenic) sunscreen would be one containing titanium dioxide.”28

Fluorescent Lighting and Melanoma
A study published in the prestigious medical journal Lancet and a Russian study found that fluorescent light rather than sunlight promotes melanoma, proportionately to the time of exposure.29, 30 In the Lancet study, among a sample of nearly 900 women, those who worked indoors under fluorescent lighting had 2.l times higher melanoma risk (95% confidence interval, CI, 1.32 to 3.32) than others. Among women exposed for 20 years or more, the relative risk (RR) was 2.6 (95% CI, 1.2 to 5.9). Relative risks were lower in women who had been most heavily exposed to sunlight, both playing outdoors as children and sunbathing as adults. In a smaller sample of men, the RR for fluorescent lights with 10 or more years’ exposure was 4.4; and for those who had spent the least time in the sun while children, the RR was 7.3.
And so we see that lengthy exposure to full-spectrum sunlight, including trace UV, partially “immunised” both men and women against later development of melanoma. These exposures had taken place in the 1960s and 1970s, before the supposed thinning of the protective ozone layer far above us. But as we saw earlier, UV penetration of the atmosphere has not increased.31, 32

All this thoroughly explodes the claim that sun exposure causes malignant melanoma.

In the 19 years since publication of Beral’s carefully researched article in the Lancet, no one has refuted the finding. But many ignore it and could make more money if the article and its information would simply go away.
Why do fluorescent lights cause melanoma? “Emissions from such light extend into the potentially carcinogenic range.”33

Dr Ott found that, specifically, the cathodes located at the ends of the light tubes emit X-rays and other electromagnetic pollution. Plants living under the central portion of long fluorescent light tubes grow normally; but when placed close to the ends of the tubes, their growth is abnormal and stunted. Laboratory animals placed in a cage close to the ends of these light tubes become aggressive and cannibalistic.

Dr Ott also found that the light from fluorescent tubes, as well as TV sets and computer terminals, causes red blood cells to clump together after prolonged exposure. This reduces alertness, promotes a tired feeling and increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.34 But when the ends of the light tubes are shielded with lead and traces of UV are added to the light, plants and animals under them grow and function normally.35 And so wrapping the ends of fluorescent light tubes with lead tape, says Dr Ott, is fully as important as full-spectrum light itself.36

Melanoma can also result from excessive exposure to sunlamps;37 their rays and those from bright halogen lights include some of the dangerous UVC.38 If users of sunlamps consume a junk diet, their risk of melanoma will be increased. Halogen lamps are also a serious fire hazard if they fall over or if inflammable material touches the extremely hot bulb.39, [40]

Sidebar
Valdemar Valerian, PhD, and his Leading Edge Research Group “…noticed that DNA molecules undergo erratic vibrational patterns in the vicinity of cathode ray tubes (television or computer monitors), and that a certain subsonic signal emanating from computer monitors connected to the Internet make the DNA molecules vibrate in unison, in a form of entrained pattern. We consulted the eminent Russian researcher Professor D. S. Goldstein. He said: ‘I know that. It is a phenomenon known as electronically induced sonochemistry. That is how mutations occur, and that is why I stay away from the Internet.’ “40

Chlorination and Melanoma
Drinking and swimming in chlorinated water can also cause malignant melanoma.41, 42, 43, 44 Sodium hypochlorite, used in chlorination of water for swimming pools, is mutagenic45 in the Ames test and other mutagenicity tests.46, 47 Redheads and blonds are disproportionately melanoma-prone; their skin contains a relative excess of pheomelanins48 compared to darker people.49

Franz H. Rampen and his associates in The Netherlands state that the worldwide pollution of rivers and oceans and the chlorination of swimming pool water have promoted an increase in melanoma.50, 51, 52
Another major factor in the increase in reported incidence of melanoma has been physicians’ continually relaxing their standards for what constitutes melanoma.

Synthetic Hormones and Melanoma
What about oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy (HRT)? Melanomas have increased sharply among women in the principal Pill-taking countries of Australia, America and in Europe. In the Walnut Creek (California) study, all the women who developed melanomas under the age of 40 had used the Pill. By 1981, the overall increased melanoma risk for Pill-users was statistically significant at three times.53 The Pill also promotes development of heart attacks, in part by depleting body stores of vitamin B6.54
Further, like breast cancer cells, those tumours have oestrogen receptors. And so women on HRT are more likely to develop melanomas than non-users. A recent study of 52,705 women on HRT found that the risk of breast cancer increases by 2.3 per cent for each of the 11 years the average woman takes HRT. The good news is that the effect diminishes on stopping it and disappears after about five years. The authors comment: “These findings should be considered in the context of the benefits and other risks associated with the use of HRT.”55 Others challenge the assumption that HRT provides benefits.56, 57, 58

II. Ultraviolet Deprivation Health Effects
Certain effects of ultraviolet deprivation are equally remarkable and tie together with health benefits.

FS Light & Childhood Health
In 1973, radiation-shielded full-spectrum (FS) lights were installed in five classrooms in Sarasota, Florida. And what happened? Several extremely hyperactive, learning-disabled children calmed down completely and learned to read. Absenteeism dropped. The children in four standard-lit rooms continued to misbehave (as tracked by concealed motion-detecting cameras); their learning disabilities and absenteeism were unabated.59 And after a year, students in the full-spectrum classrooms had one-third less tooth decay than those taught under standard lighting. Laboratory mice, which had been exposed all their waking hours to FS light, had zero tooth decay.60 Similar findings were reported from California, Washington state and Alberta, Canada.61 A classroom comparison in Vermont found that full-spectrum lighting strengthened immunity.62, 63
Why was there so much less tooth decay after exposure to full-spectrum light, including trace UV? And why did immunity improve under FS lights? According to Dr Ott: “Every nutritional substance and medicine has a specific wavelength absorption. If those wavelengths are missing in the artificial light source a person is exposed to, then the nutritional or other hoped-for benefits of the substance will not be utilised.”63a UV functions as a nutrient and as a co-factor (a substance required for a bodily process to occur) in the utilisation of other nutrients.

So the full-spectrum lights corrected the children’s deficiency of vitamin D3 (not the same as the toxic form of vitamin D added to milk), now considered a pro-hormone. This enabled more complete calcium absorption–and lowers the risk of osteoporosis and hip fractures in later life. Recent research has found that nearly half the people of all age groups taking RDA-strength supplements have too little vitamin D. When the body doesn’t have enough of it to absorb adequate calcium from food, it extracts calcium from bone.64
FS light also strengthens immunity in other ways. It helps protect against multiple sclerosis, heart attacks and conversion of HIV to AIDS, among other things. These are elaborated and fully referenced in the remainder of the paper [see NEXUS website]. “Protect ourselves from ultraviolet whenever we can see our shadow,” as the EPA frighteningly warns? Won’t doing that then constitute a full-employment plan for dentists, orthopaedic surgeons and oncologists as well as pharmaceutical drug companies?

FS Light vs Cancers
Cancers hate full-spectrum light. A tumour-susceptible strain of mice lived more than twice as long under full-spectrum as under standard lighting, and rats exposed to full-spectrum light had significantly lessened tumour development.65 The tunnel-visioned National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society ignore these findings, which six major medical centres have confirmed.66

Terminal cancer patients, who Dr Ott knew of personally, got well in a rocking chair in the sunshine. Dr Jane Wright, directing cancer research at Bellevue Memorial Medical Center in New York City in 1959, was fascinated by Ott’s ideas. So she instructed progressive-tumour patients to avoid artificial lights and stay outdoors as much as possible that summer. They were not to wear sunglasses or prescription lenses, which block UV light. By that fall, the tumours in 14 of 15 had not grown, and some patients had got better; the one whose condition deteriorated sat outdoors but wore prescription lenses. Ott has been criticised for making no scientifically controlled human studies. Well, funding for continuation of that study was withdrawn–that was his experience over and over.67

One woman with cancer ventured out with Norwegian fishermen, ate a lot of their catch and recovered; friends ate fish but stayed inside–and their cancers killed them.68 Had she “protected” herself from UV when she could see her shadow, as the EPA advises, would her cancer have ended? And if sun-loving Arizonans threw away their sunscreens and sunglasses and limited their sun exposure to about 30 minutes a day,69, 70 wouldn’t their cancers largely disappear?
A Chicago-area elementary school suddenly reported five times the national average incidence of leukaemia, a kind of cancer of the blood. All of the afflicted children but one were being taught in rooms where teachers kept the blinds drawn, and the children were exposed all day only to melanoma-promoting fluorescent light. When even the amount of UV that can get through window glass was let in, the leukaemia cluster disappeared.71 (Raymond Peat, PhD, thinks FS sunlight is best received through glass.72)

FS Light vs Arthritis and Blindness
Early in his research career, Dr Ott fell and broke his glasses; soon, his arthritis disappeared. And in 1996, Marion Patricia Connolly, executive director of Price&endash;Pottenger Nutrition Foundation (PPNF), had much the same experience. Full-spectrum eyeglasses, i.e., lenses that transmit all ultraviolet light, are difficult to find. I take off my glasses outdoors whenever I can.

Exposed to full-spectrum light, a father rat is docile and even helpful after his babies are born. But when the same rat pair is moved under standard light, before the birth of the next litter the male must be removed to prevent aggressiveness and cannibalism. Moved back to natural light for still another litter, he is gentle again.73 Although human fathers aren’t likely to eat their babies, do we really want more domestic aggressiveness?
Alternating full-spectrum light and total dark cured children born blind as a result of brain injury. The technique was advocated by W. H. Bates about 1904 and endorsed by Aldous Huxley in 1930. Efficacy was confirmed in the recent Annual Report from the British Institute for Brain Injured Children.74

How can all this be explained? Full-spectrum light, entering the eyes during waking hours, promotes night-time pineal gland secretion of melatonin. This sleep-promoting antioxidant destroys carcinogenic hydroxyl radicals–and also slows ageing.75, 76 Melatonin can suppress growth of human breast cancer cells in vitro (in a test tube), and can cross all barriers to enter every cell.77, 78 So enough sleep–best achieved in total darkness79–becomes anti-ageing, antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-heart attack therapy!

Except in short-term emergencies, people younger than about 50 should use supplements of melatonin cautiously, if at all.80 For people over 40 to 45, one to three milligrams before bedtime safely promotes both prompt falling asleep and a good night’s rest, in addition to its other benefits.81

In a laboratory, viruses are weakened by exposure to full-spectrum light that includes traces of UV. Infectious organisms such as E. coli K12 AB2480, which can cause food poisoning, dislike ultraviolet too.82 The Morris Center in Winnipeg, Canada, promotes “amazing” healing by shining full-spectrum light onto wounds.83

FS Light vs Seasonal Affective Disorder
The power of full-spectrum light against SAD (seasonal depression)–again, by entering the eyes–has been amply demonstrated. FS light benefits nonseasonal depression, too,84 but not as much.85 Such light energises and regulates the body’s entire chemistry. Won’t “protecting” millions of people from UV, as the EPA advocates, then worsen the growing epidemic of depression?

Dietary sufficiency of vitamin D also needs consideration here. “Seasonal affective disorder has been treated successfully with vitamin D. In a recent study covering 30 days of treatment comparing vitamin D supplementation with two-hour daily use of light boxes, depression completely resolved in the D group but not in the light-box group.”87

The cells in the retinas of your eyes will not divide and regenerate without a small amount of ultraviolet light. And so full-spectrum light reduces the risk of retinal degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among the elderly.88 Retinal haemorrhage, the most severe phase of the condition, can also result from long-term use of aspirin.89 (A prominent ophthalmologist declared the outcome “unlikely”; however, an exhaustive computer literature search by Kirk Hamilton, PA-C, publisher of Clinical Pearls News, found no refutation of the finding.) White willow bark provides the same benefits as aspirin without stomach irritation or blindness, as do three glasses daily of purple grape juice. And unlike aspirin,90 the flavonoids in purple grape juice remain effective when adrenaline levels rise.91 Two 400-milligram capsules of white willow bark are equivalent to one baby aspirin.92 Eating a lot of dark-green leafy vegetables such as spinach,93 kale and Brussels sprouts also helps avoid this condition.94, 95

Many dermatologists advise older patients to stay out of the sun to avoid skin cancer. The thousands of elderly patients rotting in nursing homes come to mind. That advice may unintentionally help to make patients sicker and older beyond their years. Staying indoors will cause problems a lot worse than skin cancer. Older people’s bones will crumble and break (osteoporosis); these elderly patients will hate living (depression). Articles in the journals Cancer, Cancer Research and Preventive Medicine suggest that avoiding sunlight could promote the development of cancers other than those of the skin.96, 97, 98

FS Light vs Neurological Diseases
Research by Reuven Sandyk, MD, who practises medicine in Connecticut, shows that long-term deprivation from sunlight exposure increases the risk of multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease through depressed secretion of the hormone melatonin by the brain’s pineal gland. This appears to explain the south-north gradient in the incidence of MS: the farther from the equator, the more common it is.99 All the MS patients he tested had extremely low melatonin levels and their pineal glands were calcified, or hardened.
Reduction in melatonin secretion, he found, may be associated with zinc deficiency in ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).100 “Since melatonin stimulates serotonin synthesis,[101] and serotonin deficiency has been linked to aggressive behaviour,[102] it is possible that a high prevalence of conduct disorder and aggressive behaviour in ADHD patients could be related to reduced melatonin and serotonin associated with (but not caused by) zinc deficiency.[103]”

Dr Sandyk applies extremely weak alternating-current fields to the brain; this stimulates melatonin secretion, bringing about remarkable subjective and objective improvement of MS and Parkinson’s patients within one to two minutes. The magnetic field he uses is at 2 to 7 hertz (vibrations per second), a physiological frequency, i.e., near the rate used by brain neurotransmitters.
Melatonin destroys carcinogenic hydroxyl radicals by neutralising their precursor molecules, and so it should help against Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.104 Melatonin interferes with oestrogen receptor sites on cells; excessive oestrogen from the Pill and from HRT causes breast cells to hyperproliferate (become cancerous), and melatonin blocks this action.105 It also slows senescence.106 The decline in its levels in everyone’s bodies owing to longer daily exposure to light has been suggested as one possible factor explaining the continual spread of cancer in the 20th century.107, 108 Some of Dr Sandyk’s patients with Alzheimer’s disease, migraine and pain syndromes also benefit from exposure to such magnetic fields–suggesting that sunlight deprivation may contribute to the aetiology of those distressing illnesses.109

FS Light vs CHD and Infections
Staying completely out of the sun may also increase the risk of heart attacks and much more by another route. David Grimes, MD, at Blackburn Royal Infirmary in Blackburn, UK, notes that heart attacks are commonest in the parts of the world–such as northwest United Kingdom–that have the least sunshine. And Asian populations in the British Isles have a particularly high risk of death from heart attack that cannot be explained on dietary grounds. Having come from countries in which the sun is so strong that exposure must be minimised, they have a cultural tendency to avoid the sun.

Dr Grimes traces causation of many cases of CHD (coronary heart disease) to the microbe Chlamydia pneumoniae and low immunocompetence from too low a level of vitamin D among those avoiding sunshine. Sunlight could determine whether squalene, the precursor to both vitamin D and cholesterol, converts into vitamin D (in the presence of enough sunshine) or into excessive cholesterol (if sunlight is deficient.)110 A deficiency of vitamin B6 promotes infection, e.g. by H. pylori and Chlamydia, as one of its mechanisms of increasing risk of heart attack.111, 112

Dr Grimes links respiratory infections and chronic bronchitis, called “the English Disease”, to poor immunocompetence due to sunlight deficiency, worsened by cigarette smoking. (In southern Europe, smoking rates are much higher, but recurrent respiratory tract infections are scarce.) Glasgow, Scotland, has high rates of osteomalacia and rickets, which he says are definitely the result of sunlight deficiency. Dr F. A. Spencer has noted a higher incidence of heart attacks in winter; he has related this to low levels of vitamin D and to depression from the winter months.113

Also, Crohn’s disease (regional enteritis or intestinal irritation) is much more common in cloudy northwest England than in sunny southern Europe–that is, if we accept that Crohn’s is a microbial disease, as current research confirms, probably due to Mycobacterium paratuberculosis. Once again, sunlight in the Mediterranean area could be protective through immuno-enhancement.114

There are other risks. An Alabama researcher found that lack of enough sunshine exposure may increase the risk of hypertension in blacks and other dark-skinned people. Those with greater amounts of pigment in the skin require six times the amount of ultraviolet B (UVB) light to produce the same amount of vitamin D3 found in lighter-skinned people.115 And Dr Esther John of Northern California Cancer Center reported that daily exposure to sunshine, without sunscreen, appears to lessen the risk of breast cancer.116

Addendum I
Skin Cancers
What about skin cancers? One was taken off my nose in 1989, and another in 1997; such skin cancers are totally harmless if removed promptly. Recent research has found at least two ways to minimise even that occasional inconvenience, and these offer other major benefits:

(a) Drink lots of green tea. In one study, cancer-sensitive mice were pre-treated with a strong carcinogen; their only source of liquid, green tea, lowered keratoacanthomas and carcinomas by 65 to 90 per cent. Decaffeinated tea has been found to be nearly as effective as plain.117 Applying green tea to the skin was equally effective against tumour formation from a carcinogen or intense UV light.118 And in an animal tumour model, green tea ingredients induced apoptosis (programmed cell death “for the good of the organism”) among cancer cells.119

Recent research has found that tea can be high in fluoride. The tea plants grow best on fluoride-rich soil and can suck up the chemical from dumped fluoride as well. This fluoride is toxic and can weaken thyroid function.119a

The bioflavonoids–flavone compounds that accompany vitamin C in plant structures120–in green tea help prevent cancers, cardiovascular and liver diseases as well as keratoses.121 And they explain why green tea is nearly 20 times stronger an antioxidant than vitamin E in the alpha-tocopherol form.122

(b) Eat a diet low in trans- fats, supplemented by fresh, organic, refrigerated flaxseed and cod liver oils for omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs).

One hears warnings of glaucoma (excessive pressure in and hardening of eyeballs) from sun exposure. That is a risk if you eat a processed-food diet. The EFAs are largely lacking in low-fat Western diets, including the US Department of Agriculture’s “food pyramid”. Among many other health benefits, omega-3 EFAs regulate eye pressure.

Glaucoma can also result from the use of inhaled steroids for treating asthma. For many older patients, inhaled steroids intended to block or reduce inflammation, and formerly claimed not to circulate throughout the system, promote glaucoma–the leading cause of blindness–and cataracts. In a comparative study, the glaucoma risk appeared to be elevated by 44 per cent compared to matched patients not using inhaled steroids. Lea Davies of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC, adds that inhaled steroids may cause about one-third of the 3,000 glaucoma cases developing each year among Americans over the age of sixty-five.123 Also, a published clinical test showed that melatonin offers still another benefit: it lowers eyeball pressure in glaucoma patients–and the insomnia age group, for whom its use is safe and appropriate, is the same as the glaucoma age group.124 Flaxseed oil is best taken with 400 international units (IUs) of antioxidant vitamin E,125, 126 which should include the other members of the natural-source tocopherol complex as well as the d-alpha part.127 Germany’s late Johanna Budwig, PhD, developer of this therapy,128 was nominated seven times for a Nobel Prize and continued activity into her tenth decade of life. How much flax oil? Healthy people should have one to three teaspoonfuls a day, either out of a spoon or in food, e.g., on salads (the oil must have a pleasant, nutty flavour). And sick people? In her books, Dr Budwig told of hundreds who recovered from cancer, diabetes, lupus, bronchial spasms, Hodgkin’s disease, atherosclerosis, stomach ulcers, prostate disease, arthritis, eczema and immune deficiency syndromes including multiple sclerosis. They accomplished these healing miracles by taking three tablespoonfuls of flax oil a day with unpasteurised cottage cheese to improve absorption. The benefits of this diet can be strengthened by resveratrol, another bioflavonoid found in grapes and other natural foods.129
No one is interested in paying for a controlled trial of flaxseed oil therapy. Its successful proof and wide use would destroy much of medical practice and the pharmaceutical drug industry as well as the careers of the researchers involved and the editor of any journal that published the findings. And since medical journals rely on hundreds of millions of dollars yearly in revenues for advertising from pharmaceutical drug companies, the journal itself would be out of business in 10 minutes.

Raymond Peat, PhD (chemistry), a world authority, has shown that coconut oil, consumed in the diet at an ounce [29.6 cc] or more per day, enables the body to generate ample essential fatty acids (also see below). He also warns that supplemented EFAs can weaken immunity and actually poison the body; they are deliberately used in organ transplantation to minimise risk of rejection by the recipient’s immune system.130

Addendum II
Selenium supplements
Supplemented selenium (Se) at 50 to 250 micrograms daily protects the skin against damage from excess sun exposure.131 (Intakes above 250 mcg, which could be toxic, should be used only for short periods under the guidance of a knowledgeable practitioner.) Two grams a day of vitamin C, taken together with 1,000 IU of vitamin E, also protects against sunburn.132
Hardly anyone will experience skin damage from our suggested 20 to 30 minutes’ daily sun exposure. But the selenium supplement is worth taking on its other merits, which are extremely important:

(a) A massive scientific/medical literature supports selenium’s efficacy against cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD). A map of the United States showing areas of low soil selenium almost perfectly matches maps showing the areas of highest incidence of both cancer and CVD. The same is true in New Zealand and Australia.133 Crib death (cot death, or SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome) is also more common in areas of low soil selenium, such as in America’s Pacific Northwest and parts of New Zealand.134 (See also Dr Lendon Smith’s and my work on SIDS.135, 136)
(b) More than 10 papers published in the past two years relate declining selenium levels to the progression of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) disease. An article in the Journal of AIDS (September 30, 1997) found that patients deficient in Se are almost 20 times more likely to die of causes related to HIV than are people with enough Se.

Recent research has discovered that selenium at 200&endash;250 mcg a day can likely prevent mutation of latent, dormant retroviruses, including HIV, into virulent forms.137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145 This should lower and perhaps eliminate the risk of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) among HIV-positive persons.

Dr Harold Foster argues:146 “The association of depressed CD4 T-cell counts and depleted plasma selenium stores is not coincidental. Rather, it provides evidence of the operation of a positive feedback system in which a fall in serum selenium triggers a reduction in the number of CD4 T-cells, which in its turn causes a further decline in serum selenium. This downward spiral undermines the immune system”–in what he dubs the “selenium-CD4 T-cell tailspin”. Accordingly, incidence of HIV/AIDS is high in areas of Africa where selenium in the soils is low, irrespective of people’s sexual behaviour.147, 148

Intramuscular injections of vitamin B12,149 supplements of vitamin E complex and N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC)150 also strengthen this AIDS defence. NAC seems to help replenish stores of reduced glutathione, lower inflammatory oxidative stress reactions and help protect against mitochondrial DNA damage, in turn decreasing replication of the virus.151, 152 Glutathione is humans’ chief internally generated antioxidant. The DNA in the mitochondria, the “power houses” of all our cells, has been described as 2,000 times more susceptible to oxidative damage than nuclear DNA.153 Adequate NAC serves further to facilitate detoxification in persons who have poor phase-II glucuronidation.154
Will Taylor, PhD, proposed a mechanism for selenium’s action. He is at the Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Design, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Georgia. Dr Taylor sequenced the genetics of innocent, harmless retroviruses that normally lie dormant and cause no symptoms–retroviruses such as herpesvirus Simplex A, Coxsackievirus and HIV. (The usually benign character of HIV has been massively documented by Peter Duesberg, PhD, a leading retrovirologist at the University of California, Berkeley. To label HIV “the AIDS virus” or say that it “[always] causes AIDS” is wrong. Half of American AIDS patients are HIV-negative; and, as Dr Duesberg wrote in 1996, probably 90 per cent of the approx. 21 million HIV-positive people worldwide are healthy.155, 156)
Dr Taylor concluded that Coxsackievirus, HIV and certain other retroviruses are coded for the production of a selenoprotein; and he predicted that the selenoproteins produced by those viruses act as brakes on the viruses’ reproduction. In effect, with enough Se present, the HIV retrovirus makes its own “birth-control pill”. And so selenium has become very popular in HIV virus clubs.157 When there isn’t enough Se (the low level may not reflect inadequate dietary Se intake, Dr Taylor said), the virus goes wild. Supplemented selenium, even if the HIV can’t be eradicated, can effectively put it to sleep, preventing its conversion into AIDS.158

Coconut Oil
Coconut oil, like mother’s milk, is rich in lauric acid, which the body converts to the antiviral fatty acid monolaurin. Dr Robert Atkins writes: “This may help in disarming a number of infectious viruses, including those that cause measles, herpes, Cytomegalovirus, vesicular stomatitis, and possibly AIDS.” However, Dr Atkins’s endorsement doesn’t extend to coconut milk, which contains too much sugar.159

(Excessive sugar intake is now recognised as the number one risk factor for heart attacks in women, and number two for men; excessive animal fat intake is number two for women, and number one for men.160 A major part of the explanation is this: just one teaspoon of sugar impairs the immune system by about 40 per cent for several hours, as Emanuel Cheraskin and associates found.161 Many Americans consume an average of two or more teaspoons of sugars of all kinds, every hour and all day, and thus keep their immunity constantly low. A very large number of heart attacks appear to be the result of infection, e.g., by H. pylori and Chlamydia pneumoniae.)

Mark Konlee, in his newsletter, Positive Health News, wrote about how coconuts saved an AIDS sufferer’s life:
“Chris, an AIDS sufferer, found his viral load had reached almost 700,000. He went for a relaxing vacation, packed all his drugs and headed for an Indian village in Surinam; there he dined on fresh coconut meat every day. Within two days his peripheral neuropathy was gone, and within two weeks he was ‘running through the jungle’.

“Back home, continuing to consume at least half of a coconut per day, his lab tests showed the viral load had dropped to just over 300,000. Within another month the viral load had dropped to non-detectable. ‘My doctor is completely baffled,’ said Chris.

“PPNF members may not be so puzzled. They read about the amazing health benefits of coconut, especially its antiviral characteristics, in Dr Mary Enig’s article in vol. 20 #1 of PPNF Health Journal in 1995.”162

Author’s Note:
This paper enlarges and updates my article on full-spectrum light, first published in Price-Pottenger Health Journal, Winter 1995, with added details, Spring 1995. Recent research, not yet incorporated into this paper, fully supports the statements made and conclusions here reached.

Endnotes:
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4. Bland JS. Functional Med Update 1997 (Sept).
5. An example: a somewhat qualified researcher, who shields himself from sunshine at all times, expressed his disagreement to me in a letter. In it, he called me a “bastard” and a “liar”–both of which are inaccurate–and evidenced total loss of normal good manners. Then he returned my tactful reply letter, unopened.
6. Ceder K. Healthy office lighting: A bright idea. Healthy Office Rep 1992;2:3-4.
7. Kime Z. Sunlight. Penryn, CA: World Health Publ, 1980.
Downing D. Daylight Robbers. London: Arrow Books, 1988.
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17. Leske MC, Chylack LT Jr, He Q et al. Antioxidant vitamins and nuclear opacities. Ophthalmology 1998;105:1,836.
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19. Dr Ott made nearly all the time-lapse films for Disney; e.g., he compressed the growth, flowering and fruiting of a pumpkin plant into a minute or so on the viewer’s screen.
20. Ott, JN. Light, Radiation and You: How to Stay Healthy. Greenwich, CT: Devin-Adair Publishers, 1990.
21. Ott JN. Interview by Bland JS. Prev Med Update 1991 (Jan).
22. Am J Psychiatry 1991;146:9.
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61. op. cit.
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67. op. cit.
68. op. cit.
69. Rogers SA. Total Health in Today’s World 1997;1(2):2.
70. Ideal length of sun exposure is a personal matter and will depend in part on where you are. For myself, half an hour at midday without clothing is optimal in spring; 20 minutes in summer. This enables my body to accumulate a store of vitamin D3 for use during the fall and winter.
71. Ott, JN. Lecture, op. cit.
72. Peat R. Ray Peat’s Newsletter 1995;120:3.
73. Ott, JN. Lecture to Society for Clinical Ecology, 1974.
74. BIBIC Annual Report. British Institute for Brain Injured Children, Bridgewater, Somerset, England, 1997.
75. Dilman V, Dean W. The Neuroendocrine Theory of Aging and Degenerative Disease. Pensacola: Center for Bio-Gerontology, 1992:49,93-96.
76. Oxidation strongly linked to aging. Sci News 1993(Aug 14):109.
77. Oxidation strongly linked to aging. Sci News 1993(Aug 14):109.
78. Short RV. Melatonin: Hormone of Darkness, Brit Med J 1993;307:966-971.
79. Williams, David, DC. Pain and Sleep. What Doctors Don’t Tell You, Apr 2001.
80. Peat R. Ray Peat’s Newsletter 1995;120:3.
81. Wright JV, Gaby AM. Interview by Bland JS. Functional Med Update 1997 (Apr).
82. Webb RB. Genetic damage in Escherichia coli K12 AB2480 by broad-spectrum near-ultraviolet radiation. Science 1982;215:991-993.
83. Polz A. Personal communication, 1994.
84. Kripke DF. Light treatment for nonseasonal depression: Speed, efficacy, and combined treatment. J Affective Disorders 1998;49:109-117.
85. Thalen B-E et al. Light treatment in seasonal and nonseasonal depression. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1995;91:352-360.
86. The American way of death. Economist 1996(July 27):24.
87. Gloth FM III, Alam W, Hollis B. Vitamin D vs broad spectrum phototherapy in the treatment of seasonal affective disorder. J Nutr Health Aging 1999;3:5-7. In Sullivan K. The miracle of vitamin D. Price&endash;Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. Wide Traditions 2000(Fall):11-20.
88. Ott JN. Interview by Bland JS. Prev Med Update 1991(Jan).
89. Kingham JD et al. Macular hemorrhage in the aging eye: The effects of anticoagulants. New Eng J Med 1988;3187:1126-1127 (letter).
90. Hattersley JG. Gain the benefits of aspirin without going blind. Health Freedom News 1998(Spring):34.
91. Mann D. Purple grape juice, wine and beer all cardioprotective. Med Tribune 1997(May 1):26.
92. Wright JV. Personal communication, 1995.
93. Seddon JM, Ajani UA et al. Dietary carotenoids, vitamins A, C, and E, and advanced age-related macular degeneration. Eye Disease Case-Control Study Group. JAMA 1994;272:1413-1420.
94. Hattersley JG. A sad note about ophthalmologists. Peer reviewed and submitted for publication, 1998.
95. Hattersley JG. Suggestions for avoiding macular degeneration. Townsend Ltr Doctors & Patients 1999(Feb/Mar):122-123 (letter).
96. Douglass WC. Second Opinion 1996 (June).
97. Cancer Research 1996;4108-4110.
98. Ainsleigh HG. Beneficial effects of sun exposure on cancer mortality. Prev Med 1993;12:132-140.
99. Sandyk R. Chronic relapsing multiple sclerosis. A case of rapid recovery by application of weak electromagnetic fields. Int J Neurosciences 1995:82. Sandyk R. Reversal of alexia in multiple sclerosis by application of weak electromagnetic fields. Int J Neurosci 1995:82.
100. Sandyk R. Zinc deficiency in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Int J Neurosci 1990;52:239-241 (letter).
101. Aldegunde M, Miquez I, Veira J. Effects of pinealectomy on regional brain serotonin metabolism. Int J Neurosci 1985;26:9-13.
102. Kruesi MJ, Rapaport JL, Hamburger S et al. Cerebrospinal fluid monoamine metabolites, aggression, and impulsivity in disruptive behavior disorders of children and adolescents. Arch Gen Psychiatr 1990;47:419-426.
103. Toren P, Eldar S, Sela B-A, Wolmer L et al. Zinc deficiency in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Biol Psychiatry 1007;40:1308-1310.
104. Science News 1992(Aug 8);144:109.
105. Life Extension Foundation. Life Extension Update 1993 (June).
106. Oxidation strongly linked to aging. Sci News 1993(Aug);14:109.
107. Kerenyi NA, Pandula E, Feuer G. Why the incidence of cancer is increasing: The role of light pollution. Med Hypotheses 1990;33:75-78.
108. Dilman V, Dean W. The Neuroendocrine Theory of Aging and Degenerative Disease. Pensacola, Florida: Center for Bio-Gerontology, 1992;49:93-96.
109. Sandyk Reuven. Interview by Bland JS, Prev Med Update 1996 (Dec).
110. Grimes DS. Sunlight, cholesterol and coronary heart disease. Quarterly J Medicine 1996;89:579-589.
111. Rall LC, Meydani SN. Vitamin B6 and immune competence. Nutr Rev 1993;41:217-225.
112. Hattersley JG. Vitamin B6: The overlooked key to preventing heart attacks. Jour Applied Nutr 1995;47:24-31.
113. Spencer FA et al. Seasonal distribution of acute myocardial infarction in the Second National Registry of Myocardial Infarction. Jour Amer Coll of Cardiology 1998(May);31(6):1226-1233.
114. Grimes D. Interview by Kirk Hamilton, PA-C, The Experts Speak. Clinical Pearls News 1997(Sept);7(9):99,109-111.
115. Hypertension 1997;30:150-156.
116. Recer P. Sun may prevent breast cancer. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 1997(Nov 4):A1,A4.
117. Wang ZY, Huang MT, Lou YR, et al. Inhibitory effects of black tea, green tea, decaffeinated black tea, and decaffeinated green tea on ultraviolet B light-induced skin carcinogenesis in 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene-initiated SKH mice. Cancer Res 1994;54:3428-3435.
118. Conney AH, Wang Z-Y, Huang M-T et al. Inhibitory effect of green tea on tumorigenesis by chemicals and ultraviolet light. Prev Med 1992;21:361-369.
119. Ahmad N, Feyes DK, Nieminen A-L, Agarwal R, Mukhtar H. Green tea constituent epigallocatechin-3-dallate and induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in human carcinoma cells. J Natl Cancer Inst 1997;89:1881-1886.
119a. Andreas Schuld, pfpc@istar.ca or brou@istar.ca.
120. Examples include grape skins, grape seeds (if chewed up), and the tasteless white pulp inside citrus peels.
121. Imai K, Nakachi K. Cross-sectional study of effects of drinking green tea on cardiovascular and liver diseases. Brit Med Jour 1995;310:693-696.
122. Opara EC. Antioxidants &endash; The latest weapon in the war on smoking, Part 2. VRP Nutritional News 1997;11(8):4,10.
123. Sternberg S. Breathing freely threatens seeing clearly. Sci News 1997(Mar 8);151:143. See also JAMA 1997 (Mar 5).
124. Wright JV. Interview by Bland JS. Funct Med Update 1997 (Apr).
125. Cunnane SC et al. Nutritional attributes of traditional flax-seed in healthy young adults. Am J Clin Nutr 1995;61:62-68.
126. Bland JS. Prev Med Update 1995 (Apr).
127. Journal of Nutrition 1997;127;3:544-548.
128. Budwig J. Flax oil as a true aid (lecture, 1959). In Budwig J. Flax Oil as a True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer and Other Diseases. Vancouver, BC: Apple Publ, 1992.
129. Jang M et al. Cancer chemopreventive activity of resveratrol, a natural product derived from grapes. Science 1997;275:218-220.
130. Peat R. Coconut oil. In Mercola J. eHealthy News You Can Use 2001 (Mar 24).
131. HealthNotes 1997 (Sept).
132. J Amer Acad Dermatology 1998;38:45-48.
133. Bland JS. Funct Med Update 1997 (Apr).
134. Foster H. Sudden infant death syndrome: The Bradford Hill criteria and the evaluation of the thyroxine deficiency hypothesis. J Orthomolecular Med 1993;8(4):201-227.
135. Smith LH with Hattersley JG. Victory over crib death. Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients 2000(Aug/Sept):50-54, 126-131.
136. Smith, Lendon H, MD, with Hattersley Joseph, MA. The Infant Survival Guide: Protecting Your Baby from the Dangers of Crib Death, Vaccines, and Other Environmental Hazards. Petaluma, CA: Smart Publications, 2000.
137. Dworkin BM. Selenium deficiency in HIV infection and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Chem-Biol Interactions 1994;91:181-186.
138. Gaby AM, Wright JM. Interview by Bland JS. Funct Med Update 1997 (Apr).
139. Altavena C, Dousset B et al. Relationship of trace element, immunological markers, and HIV-1 infection progression. Biol Trace Elem Res 1995;47:133-138.
140. Passwater RA. Vitamin connection. More exciting research from Dr Will Taylor. Selenium against viruses. Whole Foods 1996;19(11):133-138.
141. Taylor EW, Bhat A et al. HIV-1 encodes a sequence overlapping env gp41 with highly significant similarity to selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidases. J AIDS Hum Retrovirol (in press).
142. First International Symposium on Human Viral Diseases: Selenium, Antioxidants and Other Emerging Strategies of Therapy and Prevention. April 19-21, 1996. Nonnweiler, Germany. Int Antiviral News 1996;4(5):84-86.
143. Taylor W. Selenium and viral diseases: Facts and hypotheses. Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Design. Dept of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Georgia.
144. Look MP, Rockstroh JK et al. Serum selenium and erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase in human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection. Biol Trace Elem Res 1996 (in press).
145. Taylor EW, Nadimpalli RG, Ramanathan CS. Genomic structures of viral agents in relation to the biosynthesis of selenoproteins. Biol Trace Elem Res. Symposium Volume. Schrauzer G, Montagnier L, eds (in press).
146. Foster HD. AIDS and the “selenium-CD4 T-cell tailspin”. The geography of a pandemic. Townsend Ltr Doctors & Patients 2000(Dec):94-99.
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155. Duesberg D. Inventing the AIDS Virus. NY: Regnery, 1996.
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About the Author:
Joseph G. Hattersley in 1953 completed everything then required for a PhD degree in economics, except a dissertation, at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1976, at age 54, a seeming nutritional miracle launched his career of writing on a wide range of health topics. Joe seeks to integrate differing views on a subject from competing research teams. Several of his proposals have been confirmed three to five years later in mainstream medical and scientific journals. His special interests are prevention of heart disease and cot death. His article, “Soybean Products: A Recipe for Disaster”, was published in NEXUS 4/03, April&endash;May 1997 issue.

Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 8, Number 4
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com
Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381

From our web page at: http://www.nexusmagazine.com/

[Editor’s Note: This article refers to several research studies involving animals. We wish to advise that NEXUS does not condone animal experimentation or vivisection.]

It is a known fact that plain water can keep you alive for quite some time. Sugar and water can kill you. “Human subjects were unable to subsist on a diet of sugar.”

This incident occurred when a vessel carrying a cargo of sugar was shipwrecked in 1793. The five surviving sailors were finally rescued after being marooned for nine days. They were in a wasted condition due to starvation, having consumed nothing but sugar and rum.

The eminent French physiologist F. Magendie was inspired by that incident to conduct a series of experiments with animals, the results of which he published in 1816. In the experiments, he fed dogs a diet of sugar or olive oil and water. All the dogs wasted and died.1

The shipwrecked sailors and the French physiologist’s experimental dogs proved the same point. As a steady diet, sugar is worse than nothing. Plain water can keep you alive for quite some time. Sugar and water can kill you. Humans [and animals] are “unable to subsist on a diet of sugar”.2

Scientific evidence in many medical journals shows that sugar can ruin your health. Do you have any of the following symptoms? Do you fall asleep after meals; have allergies, gas, and bloating, extended stomach after meals, joint pains, headaches, chronic fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, over weight, skin problems, high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, hypoglycaemia, osteoporosis, gallstones, kidney stones, headaches, yeast infections, and cataracts or other symptoms? These all can be signs of a sugar problem.

It has been proven scientifically that:

• sugar is a major factor in dental decay
• sugar in a person’s diet does cause overweight
• removal of sugar from diets has cured symptoms of crippling, worldwide diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart illnesses.

Historical Research Proves Sugars’ Harmful Effects
Sir Frederick Banting, the co-discoverer of insulin, noticed in 1929 in Panama that, among sugar plantation owners who ate large amounts of their refined stuff, diabetes was common. Among native cane-cutters, who only got to chew the raw cane, he saw no diabetes.

In the 1930s, a research dentist from Cleveland, Ohio, Dr Weston A. Price travelled all over the world-from the lands of the Eskimos to the South Sea Islands, from Africa to New Zealand. His Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects,3 which is illustrated with hundreds of photographs, was first published in 1939.

Dr Price took the whole world as his laboratory. His devastating conclusion, recorded in horrifying detail in area after area, was simple. People who live under so-called backward primitive conditions had excellent teeth and wonderful general health. They ate natural, unrefined food from their own locale. As soon as refined, sugared foods were imported as a result of contact with “civilisation”, physical degeneration began in a way that was definitely observable within a single generation.

Refined Sugar is Damaging to the Body!
Refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides empty calories. In addition, sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leeches the body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demand it makes on one’s entire system to digest, detoxify and eliminate from the body.

One of sugar’s major drawbacks is that it raises the insulin level, which inhibits the release of growth hormones, which in turn depresses the immune system. This is not something you want to take place if you want to avoid disease.

An influx of sugar into the bloodstream upsets the body’s blood-sugar balance, triggering the release of insulin, which the body uses to keep blood-sugar at a constant and safe level. Insulin also promotes the storage of fat, so that when you eat sweets high in sugar, you’re making way for rapid weight gain and elevated triglyceride levels, both of which have been linked to cardiovascular disease. Complex carbohydrates tend to be absorbed more slowly, lessening the impact on blood-sugar levels.

Sugar taken every day produces a continuously over-acid condition and more and more minerals are required from deep in the body in the attempt to bring the pH of the body back in balance. As a last resort, in order to protect the blood, so much calcium is taken from the bones and teeth leading to osteoporosis.

Excess sugar affects every organ in the body. Initially, it is stored in the liver in the form of glucose (glycogen). Since the liver’s capacity is limited, a daily intake of refined sugar (above the required amount of natural sugar) soon makes the liver expand like a balloon. When the liver is filled to its maximum capacity, the excess glycogen is returned to the blood in the form of fatty acids. These are taken to every part of the body and stored in the most inactive areas: the belly, the buttocks, the breasts and the thighs.

When these comparatively harmless places are completely filled, fatty acids are then taken distributed among active organs, such as the heart and kidneys. These organs start to slow down, and their tissues degenerate and turn to fat. Due to the reduced ability of these organs, an abnormal blood pressure is created.

Problems Associated With Sugar Intake
Refined sugar can invade the lymphatic and circulatory systems, changing the quality of the red blood cells. The immune system is affected, as the body becomes limited, so we cannot respond optimally to attacks whether it is mosquitoes or microbes. Other health problems that can be caused by sugar include:

• Sugar can suppress the immune system
• Sugar can upset the body’s mineral balance
• Hyperactivity, anxiety, depression, concentration difficulties, and crankiness in children
• Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides
• Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children
• Sugar can reduce helpful high density cholesterol (HDLs)
• Sugar can promote an elevation of harmful cholesterol (LDLs)
• Sugar can cause hypoglycemia
• Sugar contributes to a weakened defense against bacterial infection
• Sugar can cause kidney damage
• Sugar can increase the risk of coronary heart disease
• Sugar may lead to chromium deficiency
• Sugar can cause copper deficiency
• Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium
• Sugar can increase fasting levels of blood glucose
• Sugar can promote tooth decay
• Sugar can produce an acidic stomach
• Sugar can raise adrenaline levels in children
• Sugar can lead to periodontal disease
• Sugar can speed the aging process, causing wrinkles and grey hair
• Sugar can increase total cholesterol
• Sugar can contribute to weight gain and obesity
• High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis
• Sugar can contribute to diabetes
• Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis
• Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity
• Sugar leads to decreased glucose tolerance
• Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease
• Sugar can increase systolic blood pressure
• Sugar causes food allergies
• Sugar can cause free radical formation in the bloodstream.
• Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy
• Sugar can contribute to eczema in children
• Sugar can overstress the pancreas, causing damage
• Sugar can cause atherosclerosis
• Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries
• Sugar can cause liver cells to divide, increasing the size of the liver
• Sugar can increase the amount of fat in the liver
• Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney
• Sugar can cause depression
• Sugar can increase the body’s fluid retention
• Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance
• Sugar can cause hypertension
• Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines
• Increase in delta, alpha and theta brain waves, which can deter clear thinking
• Increase blood platelet adhesiveness which increases risk of blood clots and strokes
• Sugar can increase insulin responses in those consuming high-sugar diets compared to low sugar diets
• Sugar increases bacterial fermentation in the colon

Sugar and Its Effects on Children
Lifetime dietary habits are formed in infancy, so limiting the intake of sweets is of major importance. Blood sugar during infancy is less stable than later in childhood; thus babies are more susceptible to foods that rapidly raise and lower blood sugar. Infant failure-to-thrive syndrome has been correlated with impaired carbohydrate metabolism, and specifically sucrose malabsorption. Some babies and young children develop chronic colic, cramping and diarrhea from eating sugar. This has been reported in medical literature for more than twenty years.

Learning problems, exaggerated hyperactivity, and moodiness in children have all been linked to a high-sugar diet. Psychologists have observed decreased performance and increased inappropriate behaviour following sugar intake. For certain children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), these effects can be more extreme. Researchers have also found that decreasing sugar decreased socially inappropriate behaviour.

The long-term effects of a sweet diet may actually be more severe than the immediate concerns. The habits we establish when we are young set the stage for lifetime patterns. A diet of empty calories may be a factor in frequent infections and failure to thrive. Extensive childhood dental cavities may result in teeth damaged beyond repair as an adult.

Hypoglycemia in youth may result in recurring depression or alcoholism later in life. Chronic candida (yeast) infections, resulting from the frequent intake of sweets and the use of antibiotics, may set the stage for a lifetime of digestive and energy problems. Overweight children may become overweight adults, with the attendant increased risks for diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

Decreasing Sugar in Our Diet
Reducing sweeteners in our diet is a positive step that each one of us can take. It requires an effort, but reducing our dietary load of sugar and sweeteners is of key importance for our health and our children’s health.

Sugar is added to different foods under many different names, as shown below:

Sugar Substances Added To Foods
Sucrose
Fructose
Dextrose
Honey
Malt syrup
Maple sugar
Corn syrup
High-fructose corn syrup
Artificial sweetener

Avoid Sugar Foods and Snacks
White Sugar
Sweets
Cake
Soda Pop
Artificial juices
Sweetened Drinks
Pies
Puddings
Cookies
Ice cream
Doughnuts
Breakfast Cereals
Jelly
Corn syrup
Liqueurs
Jams & jellies
Chewing gum
Mixed Drinks

Avoid Hidden Sugar in Foods
Baking Mixes
Breads
Crackers
Ketchup
Relish
Tartar Sauce
Salad Dressings
Cheese Dips
Soups
Pickles
Peanut Butter
Frankfurters
Luncheon Meats
Prepared Seafood
Sausages
Canned Fruits
Frozen Vegetables
Sweetened Yogurt

Although sugar addiction is common, sugar withdrawal is usually physically mild, with periodic strong cravings. Emotional attachments and withdrawals may be more pronounced. For those who are sensitive to refined sugar or sweeteners, or who consume them in large amounts various symptoms of abuse and withdrawal may occur. Some of these symptoms include fatigue, anxiety and irritability, depression and detachment, rapid heart rate and palpitations, and poor sleep. Most symptoms if they do occur, last only a few days.

Most people who have kicked the sugar habit find that they no longer tolerate sugar very well.

A diet that is rich in whole grains and other complex carbohydrates, vegetables, and protein foods can also help stabilize blood sugar and minimize the desire for sugar. There are many people who are protein-deficient that seem to crave sugars and carbohydrate foods.

Conversely, eating a diet that focuses on protein and vegetables is a good way to minimize sugar cravings. If you do not tolerate sugars and sweet foods well, then few fruits should be eaten and fruit juice avoided.

Habits can be changed. We can change what we eat, how we eat, and when we eat. We can shed addictions to sugar or other specific foods. We can gain new attractions to more wholesome foods, and lose weight, allowing our body to find its more optimal shape and metabolism. Any change, however, does require motivation and time to allow for physiological readjustment and even withdrawal to take place, this usually takes at least a few weeks.

If you are concerned about whether you are diabetic or not, there is a simple self-test kit that you can use as an initial screening test while waiting to see your health practitioner for further testing and advice. This home health test is to detect the presence of glucose (sugar) in the urine – at an early stage before symptoms develop.

There are also a number of nutritional supplements and herbs that can be used to help with sugar addictions such as:

Vitamin/Mineral Therapy
• Chromium is good to take because it enhances the action of insulin.

• B-Complex vitamin supplement. With extra B1, B3, B5, B6, B12 and pantothenic acid. Has a stabilizing effect on the nerves and blood sugar.

• Vitamin C for stress, either taken as a powder, or as tablets.

• Multi-minerals containing calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, manganese, iodine, chromium and zinc.

• Vanadyl sulfate, a trace element that mimics insulin, has been found to restore elevated blood glucose to normal in diabetic animals. In chemically induced Type II diabetes in rats, vanadyl sulfate lowered the insulin requirement by up to 75%.
Vanadyl sulfate can reverse diabetes in rats for up to 20 weeks after supplementation ceases. Short-term treatment with vanadium, prior to and for a two-week period following the induction of diabetes, eliminated hyperglycemia in rats, even after withdrawal from treatment. The researchers stated, ‘This property of vanadium would appear to be useful in the treatment of prediabetic and newly diagnosed patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. In humans with Type II diabetes, low doses of vanadyl sulfate increased insulin-mediated glucose uptake and glycogen synthesis, and suppressed endogenous glucose production. This resulted in decreased lipid oxidation rates and reduced plasma free fatty acid concentrations.

• Essential fatty acids Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s.

• Chlorella is the world’s richest natural source of Chlorophyll.

• GluControl™ is a clinically formulated blend of nutrients designed to be used along with a balanced diet to support healthy blood sugar levels. Both the combination and form of nutrients make GluControl uniquely better. Vitamin C (fat and water soluble forms); natural vitamin E (both d-alpha and mixed tocopherol); N-acetyl-cysteine, the ‘ready-to-work’ form of the amino acid cysteine and the proven plant favorite, quercetin, provide widespread cellular protection. These antioxidant nutrients protect healthy blood vessels and promote circulation and capillary integrity. The standardized herbal extracts of cinnamon (Cinnulin PF®), bitter melon and goats rue, help improve and stabilize metabolic balance. These herbs have been used for centuries and, more recently, boast positive results in clinical research trials. And vanadium, from vanadyl sulfate, continues to be investigated for its metabolic role as a trace mineral.

• Optimum D provides antioxidant protection, circulatory support and healthy cellular integrity and cellular function, which are all necessary to promote and maintain optimal health in people who manage ongoing blood sugar concerns. This multinutrient formula is specially formulated to provide good nutritional support along with a healthy diet. The basic nutrition is here including hearty amounts of vitamins C, D and E the beneficial non-flushing form of niacin, lipoic acid and two researched forms of chromium. But that’s not all. What makes Optimum D even more unique is the inclusion of three standardized herbs – bitter melon cinnamon root (cassia) and gymnema sylvestra – each identified in the scientific literature for their effectiveness
Herbal Therapy

• The spice cinnamon improves blood glucose and reduces triglycerides, total cholesterol, and LDL, the bad cholesterol, in patients with type 2 diabetes according to a recent study in Diabetes Care.

• Gymnema sylvestre, known as the “sugar destroyer”, is showing up in more and more over the counter weight loss products and blood sugar balancing formulas. The main focus of gymnema research is blood sugar regulation and glucose metabolism. It has been used in India for treatment of diabetes for about 2000 years. Today in India it is being used to treat primarily type II diabetes and type I as well. The herb has shown to reduce blood sugar, glycosylated haemoglobin and glycosylated plasma proteins when used for 18-20 months. The effect is gradual rather than immediate with conventional drugs. The active components responsible for lowering glucose are the gymnemic acids. It is also said that the herb reduces cravings for sugars. Some believe that the sugar taste blocking feature has a factor in not only the reduction in cravings, but the hypoglycemic reactions as well.

The good news is that more and more people are choosing natural foods and losing their tastes for unnatural, oversweetened, salty, greasy, meaty foods. Preparing simpler meals with simpler foods in modest quantities spread out through the day is a healthful way of eating that has come back into vogue.

References and Bibliography

1. McCollum, Elmer Verner, A History of Nutrition: The Sequence of Ideas in Nutritional Investigation, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1957, p. 88.
2. Op. cit., p. 87.
3. Price, Weston A., Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects, The American Academy of Applied Nutrition, California, 1939, 1948.

Prepared by Dr. George J Georgiou and Barbara Karafokas
DaVinci Natural Health Centre, Larnaca, Cyprus
Email: drgeorge@avacom.net
Web: www.naturaltherapycenter.com

Monosodium Glutamate, a food ingredient, was invented in 1908 in Japan, by Kikunae Ikeda. A year later, with a partner, he formed a company, Ajinomoto, to produce the product. The food additive did not appear in the United States to any degree until the late 1940s, following the Second World War. During the war, it had been noted that Japanese soldiers’ rations tasted better than the rations used by our soldiers. The difference was believed to be “monosodium glutamate.” Today, “monosodium glutamate” or its reactive component, “processed free glutamic acid,” is found in almost all of the processed foods that are manufactured in the United States.

ADVERSE EFFECTS OF MSG
In 1957, Lucas and Newhouse found that normal neonatal mice suffered acute degenerative lesions in the inner retina when “monosodium glutamate” was administered by feeding tube.1 In 1968, during a replication of this study at Washington University Medical School, St., Louis, Missouri, Dr. John W. Olney2 noted that, some of the mice had become grotesquely obese. He decided to sacrifice some of the mice to confirm his belief that lesions would be found in the hypothalamus region of the brain. Not only was his suspicion confirmed, but further testing indicated that there were also other neuroendocrine effects from the “monosodium glutamate.” His findings were published in 1969.2 Dr. Olney, a National Academy of Science scientist who is credited for the voluntary removal of MSG from baby food in the 1970s, continues to publish research3-5 on the toxicity of glutamic acid, often using “monosodium glutamate.”

In 1968, the New England Journal of Medicine published a Letter to the Editor in which Ho Man Kwok, MD, asked for help in determining why he and his friends suffered reactions shortly after eating in some Chinese restaurants, though he never experienced such reactions when he lived in China. The journal titled the letter “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome,”6 and researchers from around the country wrote the journal to suggest that Dr. Kwok and his friends’ problem was intolerance to MSG. One letter indicated that 30% of the population reacted to MSG.

In 1969, concerned with the bad reports regarding “monosodium glutamate,” the glutamate industry formed a nonprofit organization to defend the safety of MSG, the International Glutamate Technical Committee. Later, in 1977, they increased their efforts with the development of a nonprofit subsidiary, The Glutamate Association, primarily operating as a public relations arm of the glutamate industry. In about 1990, the glutamate industry turned to the International Food Information Council (IFIC), another nonprofit industry-funded organization, to be their spokesman and to promote the safety of MSG along with the other products that they represent.

MSG IS TOXIC TO HUMANS!
The literature is clear in demonstrating that MSG is toxic to humans and that over 25% of the population suffer adverse reactions from MSG7-36. In the opinion of this writer, the subject is only controversial because of the input of the three organizations mentioned above and because of research they have funded to discredit findings of others and to tell the story that the glutamate industry wants told, research that is flawed to the point of being worthless.

“Monosodium glutamate” is approximately 78% processed free glutamic acid and 22% sodium (salt) and moisture, with about 1% contaminants. It is the processed free glutamic acid that causes people to suffer adverse reactions, and, unfortunately, there are over 40 food ingredients other than “monosodium glutamate” that contain processed free glutamic acid in varying amounts.37 Consequently, consumers refer to all processed free glutamic acid as MSG, regardless of the name of the ingredient.

People differ in their tolerances to MSG, but typically always suffer similar reactions each time they ingest amounts of MSG that exceed their tolerances for the substance. Reactions experienced vary dramatically, as if MSG finds the weak link in the body.38 Typically, people will suffer reactions at approximately the same time each time they ingest amounts of MSG that exceed their tolerance levels. However, that time lapse can vary among people from immediately following ingestion of MSG up to 48 hours following ingestion. Use of alcohol or exercise prior to, during or following an MSG-containing meal will exacerbate an MSG reaction in many people. MSG-sensitive people will typically suffer similar reactions to aspartame.

Neuroscientists believe that the young and the elderly are most at risk from MSG. In the young, the blood-brain barrier is not fully developed, exposing the brain to increased levels of MSG that has entered the bloodstream. The elderly are at increased risk because the blood-brain barrier can be damaged by aging, by disease processes, or by injury, including hypertension, diabetes, hypoglycemia, and stroke. Throughout life, the blood-brain barrier is “leaky” at best.

MSG has now been implicated in a number of the neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and Huntington’s disease39.

In general, the natural glutamic acid found in food does not cause problems, but the synthetic free glutamic acid formed during industrial processing is a toxin. In addition, when MSG is formed using hydrochloric acid the final product includes carcinogens.40

MSG IN INFANT FORMULA: BAD FOR YOUR BABY!
A Canadian Study41 conducted, leaves no room for doubt that ingredients that contain processed free glutamic acid (MSG) and free aspartic acid – known neurotoxins- are used in baby formula. The fact that neurotoxins are present in baby formula is of particular concern since the blood brain barrier is not fully developed in infants, allowing neurotoxins to be more accessible to the brain than is the case in healthy adults.

In studies using experimental animals, neuroscientists have found that glutamic acid and aspartic acid load on the same receptors in the brain, cause identical brain lesions and neuroendocrine disorders, and act in an additive fashion.

You will note that the level of neurotoxins found in the hypoallergenic formula was far greater than the level of neurotoxins found in the other formulas. In reviewing the literature on hypoallergenic formulas, we have found short-term studies that concluded that hypoallergenic formulas are safe because babies tolerated them and gained weight. However, we have not seen any long-term studies on the safety of hypoallergenic formulas. We believe that well designed long term studies would demonstrate that infants raised on hypoallergenic formulas, as compared to infants who are breastfed or fed on non-hypoallergenic formulas, will exhibit more learning disabilities at school age, and/or more endocrine disorders, such as obesity and reproductive disorders, later in life. Long-term studies on the effects of hypoallergenic formulas need to be done42.

To put these figures in perspective, consider that in an FDA-sponsored study dated July, 1992 entitled “Safety of Amino Acids Used in Dietary Supplements,” the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology concluded, in part, that “…it is prudent to avoid the use of dietary supplements of L-glutamic acid by pregnant women, infants, and children. . . and. . . by women of childbearing age and individuals with affective disorders.” (MSG is called glutamic acid or L-glutamic acid when used in supplements.)43

During the 1960s, the food ingredient “monosodium glutamate” was routinely added to baby foods. The industry “voluntarily” ceased the practice after Congressional hearings in which concerned researchers warned of serious adverse effects. However, for some years following the elimination of “monosodium glutamate,” hydrolyzed proteins were used in place of “monosodium glutamate.” Hydrolyzed proteins always contain MSG.

Many consumers now know to avoid baby foods with hydrolyzed proteins. Yet how many parents realize that MSG lurks in every bottle of formula given to their infants? Babies on hypoallergenic formulas receive about 1 gram of total neurotoxins per day, a level at which many MSG-sensitive individuals experience adverse reactions.

Our advice to you is to do your best to eliminate MSG from your diet. You will feel better. That means avoiding all processed foods. Our advice to investigators of school violence is to investigate the effects of excitotoxins in children’s diets. There are high levels of MSG in soy products and seasoning mixes used in school lunch programs, fast foods and snack foods.

Written by Dr. George J Georgiou and Barbara Karafokas
DaVinci Natural Health Centre, Larnaca, Cyprus
drgeorge@avacom.net
www.naturaltherapycenter.com

REFERENCES
1. Lucas, D.R., and Newhouse, J.P. (1957) The toxic effect of sodium L-glutamate on the inner layers of the retina. AMA Arch Ophthal 58: 193-201.
2. Olney, J.W. (1969). Brain lesions, obesity, and other disturbances in mice treated with monosodium glutamate. Science 164: 719-721.
3. Olney, J.W. (1993, April). Prepared statement for the public meeting (April 1993) pertaining to adverse reactions to monosodium glutamate (MSG). Presented at a public meeting conducted by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), Bethesda, MD.
4. Olney, J.W. and Price M.T. (1978). Excitotoxic amino acids as neuroendocrine probes. In E.G. McGeer, J.W. Olney, and P.L. McGeer (Eds.), Kainic Acid as a Tool in Neurobiology. New York: Raven.
5. Olney, J.W. and Price, M.T. (1980). Neuroendocrine interactions of excitatory and inhibitory amino acids. Brain Research Bulletin 5: Suppl 2, 361-368.
6. Chinese restaurant syndrome. (1990, January). Mayo Clinic Nutrition Letter.
7. Altman, D.R., Fitzgerald, T. & Chiaramonte, L.T. (1994). Double-blind placebo-controlled challenge (DBPCC) of persons reporting adverse reactions to monosodium glutamate (MSG). J. Allergy and Clinical Immunology Abstracts 93:303 (Abstract 844).
8. Garattini, S. (1979). Evaluation of the neurotoxic effects of glutamic acid. In R.J. Wurtman, & J.J. Wurtman (Eds.), Nutrition and the brain. New York: Raven Press.
9. Geha, R., Beiser, A., Ren, C., Patterson, R., Greenberger, P., Grammer, L.C., Ditto, A.M., Harris, K.E., Shaughnessy, M.A., Yarnold, P., Corren, J., Saxon, A. (1998). Multicenter multiphase double blind placebo controlled study to evaluate alleged reactions to monosodium glutamate (MSG). J. Allergy Clin Immunol Abstracts 101:S243 (Abstract 106).
10. Germano, P., Cohen, S.G., Hahn, B., and Metcalfe, D.D. (1991). An evaluation of clinical reactions to monosodium glutamate (MSG) in asthmatics using a blinded, placebo-controlled challenge. J Allergy Clin Immunol Abstracts 87:177 (Abstract 155).
11. Giacometti, T. (1979). Free and bound glutamate in natural products. In L.J. Filer, Jr., S. Garattini, M.R. Kare, W.A. Reynolds, and R.J. Wurtman, (Eds), Glutamic acid: advances in biochemistry and physiology. New York: Raven.
12. Anantharaman, K. (1979). In utero and dietary administration of monosodium L-glutamate to mice: reproductive performance and development in a multigeneration study. In L.J. Filer, Jr., S. Garattini, M.R. Kare, W.A. Reynolds, and R.J. Wurtman, (Eds), Glutamic acid: advances in biochemistry and physiology. New York: Raven.
13. Auer, R.N. (1991). Excitotoxic mechanisms, and age-related susceptibility to brain damage in ischemia, hypoglycemia and toxic mussel poisoning. NeuroToxicology 12:541-546.
14. Bunyan, J., Murrell, E.A., and Shah, P.P. (1976). The induction of obesity in rodents by means of monosodium glutamate. Br J Nutr 35: 25-29.
15. Ebert, A.G. (1970). Chronic toxicity and teratology studies of monosodium L-glutamate and related compounds. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 17: 274.
16. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) (1995). Analysis of adverse reactions to monosodium glutamate (MSG). Bethesda, MD: Life Sciences Research Office, FASEB.
17 Fernstrom, J.D., Cameron, J.L., Fernstrom, M.H., McConaha, C., Weltzin, T.E., and Kaye, W.H. (1996). Short-term neuroendocrine effects of a large, oral dose of monosodium glutamate in fasting male subjects. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 81: 184-191.
18. Filer, L. J. (1993). Public Forum: analysis of adverse reactions to monosodium glutamate. Paper presented at open meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, April 1993.
19. Kenney, R.A. (1979). Placebo-controlled studies of human reaction to oral monosodium L-glutamate. In L.J. Filer, Jr., S. Garattini, M.R. Kare, W.A. Reynolds, and R.J. Wurtman, (Eds), Glutamic acid: advances in biochemistry and physiology. New York: Raven.
20. Kenney, R.A., and Tidball, C.S. (1972). Human susceptibility to oral monosodium L-glutamate. A J Clin Nutr 25:140-146.
21. Nemeroff, C.B. (1981). Monosodium glutamate-induced neurotoxicity: review of the literature and call for further research. In S.A. Miller (Ed.), Nutrition & behavior. Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press.
22. Newman, A.J., Heywood, R., Palmer, A.K., Barry, D.H., Edwards, F.P., and Worden, A.N. (1973). The administration of monosodium L-glutamate to neonatal and pregnant rhesus monkeys. Toxicology 1: 197-204.
23. Owen, G., Cherry, C.P., Prentice, D.E., and Worden, A.N. (1978). The feeding of diets containing up to 4% monosodium glutamate to rats for 2 years. Toxicol Lett 1: 221-226.
24. Pulce, C., Vial, T., Verdier, F., et al. (1992). The Chinese restaurant syndrome: a reappraisal of monosodium glutamate’s causative role. Adverse Drug Reaction Toxicology Review pp.19-39.
25. Reif-Lehrer, L. (1977). A questionnaire study of the prevalence of Chinese restaurant syndrome. Fed Proc 36:1617-1623.
26. Reynolds, W.A., Butler, V., Lemkey-Johnston, N. (1976). Hypothalamic morphology following ingestion of aspartame or MSG in the neonatal rodent and primate: a preliminary report. J Toxicol environmental Health 2: 471-480.
27. Reynolds, W.A., Filer, L. J., and Stegink, L.D. (1991). Letter to Dr. Kenneth G. Fisher, LSRO, FASEB. May 31, 1991.
28. Reynolds, W.A., Lemkey-Johnston, N., Filer, L.J. Jr., and Pitkin, R.M. (1971). Monosodium glutamate: absence of hypothalamic lesions after ingestion by newborn primates. Science 172: 1342-1344.
29. Samuels, A. (1995). Monosodium L-glutamate: a double-blind study and review. Letter to the editor. Food and Chemical Toxicology. 33: 69-78.
30. Schaumburg, H.H., Byck, R., Gerstl, R. and Mashman, J.H. (1969) Monosodium L-glutamate: its pharmacology and role in the Chinese restaurant syndrome. Science 163: 826-828.
31. Scopp, A.L.(1991). MSG and hydrolyzed vegetable protein induced headache: review and case studies. Headache 31:107-110.
32. Takasaki, Y., Matsuzawa, Y., Iwata, S., O’Hara, Y., Yonetani, S., and Ichimura, M. (1979a). Toxicological studies of monosodium L-glutamate in rodents: relationship between routes of administration and neurotoxicity. In L.J. Filer, Jr., S. Garattini, M.R. Kare, W.A. Reynolds, and R.J. Wurtman, (Eds), Glutamic acid: advances in biochemistry and physiology. New York: Raven.
33 Takasaki, Y., Sekine, S., Matsuzawa, Y., Iwata, S., and Sasaoka, M. (1979b). Effects of parenteral and oral administration of monosodium L-glutamate (MSG) on somatic growth in rats. Toxicol Lett 4: 327-343.
34. Taliferro, P.J. (1995). Monosodium glutamate and the Chinese restaurant syndrome: a review of food additive safety. J. Environmental Health 57: 8-12.
35. Tarasoff, L and Kelly, M.F. (1993). Monosodium L-glutamate: a double-blind study and review. Food Chem Toxic 31:1019-1035.
36. Yang, W.H., Drouin, M.A., Herbert, M., and Mao, Y. (1997). The monosodium glutamate symptom complex: Assessment in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study. J Allergy Clin Immunol 99: 757-762.
37. Daniels, D.H., Joe, F.L. and Diachenko, G.W. (1995). Determination of free glutamic acid in a variety of foods by high-performance liquid chromatography. Food Additives and Contaminants 12:21-29.
38. Blaylock, R.L. (1994). Excitotoxins: the taste that kills. Santa Fe: Health Press.
39. Taylor, S.L. (1993, April). Possible adverse reactions to hydrolyzed vegetable protein. Paper submitted to the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology review panel.
40. Goldschmiedt, M., Redfern, J.S., and Feldman, M. (1990). Food coloring and monosodium glutamate: effects on the cephalic phase of gastric acid secretion and gastrin release in humans. Am J Clin Nutr 51: 794-797.
41. Appreciation to Baby Love Products Inc. of Camrose, Alberta, Canada (www.kidalog.com)
42. Taken from Jack Samuels and his wife, Adrienne Samuels, PhD, who are founders of Truth in Labeling, a nonprofit organization dedicated to accurate labeling of MSG and the removal of MSG from use in agriculture. For further information, see their website at www.truthinlabeling.org.
43. Leibovitz, B. Safety of amino acids used as dietary supplements. Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 57, Issue 6, b -946, June 1, 1993

Toxic Chemicals Everywhere
Toxic chemicals, otherwise known as “xenobiotics” (Gk: foreign to life) which are scattered all over our planet from the North Pole to the South Pole, are being constantly researched, and the conclusion is that they are extremely toxic to humans as well as wildlife. Even though some chemicals have been taken off the market, those that remain are even more noxious than the ones already banned. Bioaccumulation in soils, water supplies and the tissues of animals and humans is a real problem which results in these chemicals lingering for many, many years even after they have being banned. DDT, for example, has been banned for more than 25 years in the Western world, yet it is still being found in the tissues of wildlife in the arctic, as well as humans in many different countries.

A recent study noted that only five organochlorine compounds and mercury were found in marine mammals in the 1960s. Today over 265 organic pollutants and 50 inorganic chemicals have been found in these species.1

Recent research has focused on how chemicals affect the thyroid and pituitary systems. Some chemicals have been identified as endocrine disrupters because they can interfere with the body’s own hormones, which are secreted by the endocrine glands.

It is also emerging that endocrine disrupters can have many physiological effects not directly associated with the primary system. For example, the thyroid system is well known to regulate metabolism, but it is also a crucial component in foetal brain development in mammals, and too much or too little thyroid hormone at crucial points can do permanent damage. The immune system is also vulnerable to hormone-mediated disruption. Chemicals can cause neurological problems, reproductive and developmental abnormalities, and cancers as well. And researchers are only just beginning to disentangle the questions about the effects of chronic low-level exposure (as opposed to brief high doses of chemicals), combinations of chemicals, and interactions between chemicals and other physiological and environmental factors.

Let us take a brief look at some of the more common xenobiotics chemicals that that have detrimental effects on humans as well as wildlife.

Perfluorochemicals (PFCs)
These compounds are chains of fully fluorinated carbon atoms of varying lengths, yielding chemicals that are extremely resistant to heat, chemical stress, and that repel both water and oil. Because of these properties PFCs, or chemicals that degrade into PFCs, have been widely used since the 1950s by industry as surfactants and emulsifiers and in commercial products, including stain or water protectors for carpet, textiles, auto interiors, camping gear and leather; food packaging; folding cartons and other paper containers; floor polishes; photographic film; shampoos; dental cleaners; inert pesticide ingredients; and lubricants for bicycles, garden tools and zippers.

Their persistence is extreme, particularly perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) – there is no evidence that they ever fully degrade, and they have been found in animals, humans and ecosystems worldwide.

The first public indication that PFOS and PFOA were problematic came on May 16,
2000 when 3M, the primary global manufacturer of many perfluoroalkanesulfonates and
PFOA, announced plans to phase out by the end of 2001 the production of perfluorooctanyl chemistry that underpinned their extremely successful Scotchgard™ and Scotchban™ product lines.2

A 2002 European study of PFCs has detected these compounds in bottlenose, common and striped dolphins, whales, bluefin tuna, swordfish and cormorants in the Mediterranean, and in ringed and grey seals, sea eagles and Atlantic salmon in the
Baltic.3

Other research shows that this chemical is now contaminating many wildlife species around the world, including polar bears in the Arctic, seals in Antarctica, dolphins in the river Ganges in India, albatrosses from Midway Atoll in the Pacific, turtles in the United States, gulls in Korea, cormorants in Canada,4 and fish in Japan.5

Fluorinated telomers are used to keep grease from soaking through fast food containers such as pizza boxes, French fry holders, and food wrapping paper. The digestive system can break telomers down into PFOA and related chemicals. Newly revealed tests conducted by 3M showed that a metabolite specific to the telomers was found in 85 per cent of the children tested.6

Red Cross blood banks, conducted by a team including scientists from the 3M Company, estimated the average concentrations in humans to be 30-40 parts per billion (ppb), with males having higher levels.7 By comparison, levels in wildlife have been measured at 940 ppb in common dolphin liver; 1100 ppb in ringed seals from the Bay of Bothnia; and 270 ppb in long-finned pilot whale liver from the North Thyrrenian Sea.8

Health Effects of Perfluorochemicals (PFCs)
In 1979, 3M administered four doses of PFOS to monkeys and all the monkeys in all treatment groups died within weeks. Typically, when a study like this is conducted, the researchers predict that the lowest dose will not cause any harmful health effects.9

In 1981 both DuPont and 3M reassigned women of childbearing age working in their production plants after they learned that PFOA caused developmental abnormalities in laboratory animals. Within weeks of this discovery, DuPont found PFOA in the women’s blood.

It was known as early as 1975 that fumes from hot pans coated with polytetrafluoroethylene can kill pet birds,10 and broiler chicks have died after exposure to polytetrafluoroethylene-coated light bulbs.11 Laboratory experiments reported in 2003 showed that in rats, PFOS exposure can lead to loss of appetite, interrupted oestrus cycles, and elevated stress hormone levels. PFOS was found to accumulate in brain tissue, particularly the hypothalamus, suggesting that PFOS crosses the blood-brain barrier and may interfere with reproductive hormones through the pituitary-hypothalamus process that stimulates their production.12

Recent laboratory studies with PFOA involving rats show low birth weight, small pituitary gland, altered maternal care behaviour, high pup mortality, and significant changes in the brain, liver, spleen, thymus, adrenal gland, kidney, prostate, testes and epididymides13

Several studies indicate PFOA increases estrogens and leads to testosterone dysfunction in males. There is even more evidence that PFOA as well as chemicals that metabolize to PFOs and PFOA lead to underactive thyroid; thyroid dysfunction during pregnancy can lead to many developmental problems, including faulty brain development and neurological and behavioural problems that affect not only infants and young animals (or humans) but continue into adulthood. The EPA considers both PFOS and PFOA to be a carcinogen in animals, with testicular, pancreatic, mammary, thyroid and liver tumours most frequent in exposed rats.

All studies to date indicate perfluorinated compounds damage the immune system. In one experiment, a chemical very similar to PFOA called PFDA resulted in such atrophy of the thymus gland, (the source of T cells that attack bacteria, viruses and cancer cells) that the gland was undetectable upon clinical examination.

Phthalates
Phthalates are a group of chemicals used as softeners in a variety of plastic products, including the ubiquitous polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Products containing phthalates include medical devices (intravenous tubing, blood bags, masks for sleep apnea devices), building products (insulation of cables and wires, tubes and profiles, flooring, wallpapers, outdoor wall and roof covering, sealants), car products (car under-coating, car seats etc.) and children’s products (teething rings, squeeze toys, clothing and rainwear). They are also used in some lacquers, paints, adhesives, fillers, inks and cosmetics.

The most common phthalate in the environment is di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), which comprises half of all phthalates produced in Western Europe, with 450,000 tonnes used per year. Concern about children’s exposure to phthalates prompted the EU to ban six types of phthalate softeners in PVC toys designed to be mouthed by children under three years of age.

Both humans and wildlife may be exposed to various phthalates. For example, a 2003 study of two groups of pregnant women, one in New York City and one in Krakow, Poland, compared the levels of four phthalates in the women’s personal ambient air and measured the levels of the metabolites of these phthalates in the urine of the New York women.14 All four phthalates were present in all the air samples, but air concentrations of DBP, di-isobutyl phthalate and DEHP were higher in Krakow than in New York. The study found that air was a significant source of exposure, that some women receive doses high enough to cause concern, and that there was a correlation between air and urine levels of some phthalates.

Other studies in the EU have also raised concerns with regard to current exposure levels. A recent study in Germany, for example, has concluded that exposure to DEHP may be far higher than previously thought. It reported that in 12 per cent of the Germans studied, phthalate levels exceeded the tolerable daily intake (TDI) used by the EU Scientific Committee for Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment. Exposure to DBP and BBP was also ubiquitous.15

Health Effects of Phthalates
Some phthalates appear to exert endocrine disrupting effects, and can act against the male hormone, androgen, through pathways other than binding to androgen or estrogen receptors. While there is little research on the effects of phthalates on wildlife per se, some studies suggest that there may be serious consequences for both wildlife and humans. Of particular concern is phthalate exposure in pregnant females: some researchers have proposed that the antiandrogenic properties of phthalates might be linked to testicular dysgenesis syndrome, the manifestations of which range from birth defects in males, including undescended testes, to low sperm counts and testicular cancer.16

Numerous Laboratory studies underpin the concern. For example, a study has shown that DEHP, BBP, and DINP administered to pregnant rats induced feminized breasts in the male offspring, as well as other reproductive malformations, including small testes in the case of the DEHP and BBP.17

There are also worries that exposure to manmade chemicals with hormone disrupting properties may be affecting the age of puberty. A study of Puerto Rican girls with premature breast development suggested a possible association with exposure to certain phthalates.18 U.S. researchers recently reported the effects of DEHP on Leydig cells (testosterone-producing cells in the testes) in rats.19 They found that prolonged exposure to DEHP caused the number of Leydig cells to increase by 40 per cent-60 per cent while simultaneously reducing testosterone production. At the same time, blood levels of both testosterone and estrogens increased by 50 per cent. It is known that males with high levels of serum testosterone and luteinizing hormone (a hormone that triggers testosterone production) are at higher risk of early puberty and testicular tumours.
With regard to cancer, a recent study supported other research associating DEHP with liver cancer in rodents.20 A 2003 Harvard study suggested another mechanism for carcinogenic effect of phthalates. The researchers measured levels of eight phthalates in subjects and found an association between monoethyl phthalate (MEP) and increased damage to the DNA in the subjects’ sperm.21 This is the first study showing that phthalates can induce such damage at levels presently found in the environment.

Other studies with phthalates show that additive effects can occur when there is exposure to more than one phthalate.22 This underlines the growing concern with real life exposures to multiple pollutants, and the increasing realisation that current regulatory practices, based on testing chemicals in isolation, may not be protective.

Phenols, Bisphenyl A and Nonylphenol
Evidence for endocrine disruption by the widely used phenol compounds bisphenol A (BPA) and nonylphenol is mounting. BPA is mostly used to make polycarbonate plastic, which has a diverse range of application in making bottles, computer and electronics shells, CDs, crash helmets, and many other consumer products.

Certain compounds that can leach BPA are also used in the plastic linings of food cans
and in dental fillings, through which people can ingest small quantities. In December 2003, concerned about BPA in the plastic linings of food cans, the EU reduced the amount of BPA migration permitted by 80 percent to 0.6 milligrams per kilogram of food.23 However, BPA remains widely distributed in consumer products.

Nonylphenolic compounds have been used in degreasing solutions, and in leather and textile processing, as well as in de-icing fluid, paints, plastics, and pesticides. The EU has imposed restrictions on the marketing and use of nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylates to a certain extent in cleaning products, textile and leather processing, agricultural teat dips, metal working, pulp and paper, cosmetics including shampoos, and personal care products except spermicides.24

Health Effects of Phenols, Bisphenyl A and Nonylphenol
Fish have been shown to be susceptible to the endocrine disrupting effects of both nonylphenol25 and BPA.26 Exposure to either of these chemicals can cause male fish to make vitellogenin (an estrogen-regulated protein produced by female egg-laying vertebrates and not normally produced by males or juveniles), and can also affect the formation of sperm. Before improved regulation, male fish in the river Aire in England were found to be feminised downstream of a wastewater treatment plant discharge containing alkylphenol ethoxylates from the textile industry. Many male fish were found with egg producing cells in their testes, and reduced testis growth rate and size.27,28

Aquatic invertebrates seem particularly sensitive to these chemicals. For example, nonylphenol affects the freshwater algae, Scenedesmus subspicatus at levels of 3.3 micrograms per litre.29 Molluscs in particular have shown effects at very low dose levels. For example, in the mollusc Potamopyrgus antipodarum, BPA and octylphenol, as well as a mixture of these and other chemicals in treated sewage effluent, stimulated egg and embryo production at low doses and inhibited such production at high doses.30

This work supported a 2000 study by some of the same researchers showing that extremely low levels of BPA and octylphenol triggered malformed genitals of female ramshorn (freshwater) snail, Marisa cornuarietis, and the (saltwater) dogwhelk Nucella lapillus.31 In some of the freshwater snails, the excessive growth of the female glands and the egg masses ruptured the egg tube, and the snails died. This syndrome was referred to as superfeminisation. A number of other adverse changes were observed in both species. Another important finding was that in the freshwater snails, the medium doses of octylphenol produced more changes than either the highest or lowest doses.

Other researchers have shown that a single 48-hour exposure to 1 microgram per litre of nonylphenol, comparable to environmental levels, altered the sex ratio of oysters, reduced the survival of offspring, and caused some oysters to become hermaphroditic.32

A 2001 study exposing barnacles to concentrations of nonylphenol similar to those in the environment (0.01-10 micrograms per litre) disrupted the timing of larval development.33 In addition to fish, other vertebrates also show effects when exposed to BPA. For example, in 2003, researchers reported that BPA at environmentally comparable doses resulted in sex reversals and altered gonadal structures in the broad-snouted caiman, an alligator relative native to mid-latitude South America.34 In another study, the offspring of pregnant mice exposed to BPA showed changes in ovarian and mammary gland tissues and disrupted fertility cycles as adults.35 BPA was reported for the first time in 2001 to induce reproductive malformations in birds – specifically, in female quail embryos and male chicken embryos. The female embryos’ oviducts developed abnormally, and the males’ testes were feminized.36

The exact mechanism by which BPA and nonylphenol exert their effects is not clear, but a recent in vitro study demonstrated a molecular mechanism by which BPA and nonylphenol interfere with both the activation and function of cellular androgen receptors.37 In a 2002 study, nonylphenol tested on barnacle larvae induced DNA damage, possibly including mutations, and the authors speculate that this effect may be a mechanism by which higher level reproductive abnormalities are caused.38

Despite evidence from these and other studies, the low dose effects of BPA are still in dispute. Regulators in the EU have been reluctant to act, and further studies have been demanded.

Polybrominated Flame Retardants (BFRs)
Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in furniture, building material, and clothing have become a serious concern, as their levels are showing sharp increases in living organisms. The first BFRs were taken off the market in the early 1970s after a spill led to poisonings of livestock and farm families in Michigan.39 Three BFRs now dominate the market: TBBPA, the most widely used, primarily in printed circuit boards and in some plastics; HBCD, and the deca-BDEs. The other commercial PBDEs (octa-BDE and penta-BDE) have been banned in the EU as of August 2004,40 and the state of California has taken similar action. However, because of their alarming spread and rate of accumulation in humans and animals, Europe’s ban does not provide complete reassurance, particularly regarding the penta-BDE form used as a flame retardant in polyurethane foam elsewhere in the world.

Researchers recently reported levels of PBDEs in U.S. breast milk.41 Forty-seven Texas women had an average level of 73.9 ng/g lipid; such levels are sharply higher than those found in European studies. There are serious concerns about the transfer of BFRs to nursing infants, and some scientists are worried that BFRs might affect foetal development, including disruption of the thyroid system’s role in foetal brain development.42 In 2003 a WWFUK biomonitoring program found deca-BDE in the blood of seven per cent of those tested.43

New research from Sweden has found high levels of several brominated flame retardants in the eggs of peregrine falcons from 1987-1999. The eggs of falcons living in the wild had significantly higher concentrations of the essentially unregulated deca-BDE than eggs of captive falcons. The fact that deca-BDE was found in eggs demonstrates that the chemical can cross cell membranes, contrary to what scientists had previously thought. The peregrine study represents the first time that the deca formulation has been found in wildlife.44

In 2002, one research team predicted that within 10 to 15 years, concentrations of BFRs in Great Lakes herring gull may be higher than those of PCBs.45 BFRs have also been found in sperm whales,46 ringed seals from the Canadian Arctic,47 mussels and several kinds of fish in Norwegian waters, and harbour seals in San Francisco Bay,48 among other wildlife. Essentially, BFRs are being found wherever we look.

Health Effects of BFRs
Laboratory studies show that certain BFRs are highly toxic to aquatic animals (crustaceans),49 and suggest effects on pubertal development, thyroid and liver in rats, as well as developmental neurotoxicity in mice.50 A recent paper reported behavioural effects in mice pups at a relatively low dose.51 In 1999 Swedish researchers reported that PBDEs and HBCD may have health effects similar to those of DDT and PCBs because of their ability to induce genetic recombination.52

While there are no published epidemiological studies on effects of BFRs on humans, the possible thyroid effects, based on tissue culture and animal studies, are a red flag. As with other chemicals, anything that affects foetal development merits particular study because of the profound, long-term, and often irreversible influence that early exposures have on the entire life of an organism.

What Can We Do To Protect Ourselves?
The answer to this question is two-fold; first we can push for legislation to ban a lot of these harmful chemicals that have been researched and are known to be detrimental to animals and humans. Second, we need to be able to detoxify our bodies in order to eliminate many of these chemicals. Given that we are exposed to these literally daily, this process must be an ongoing one. It is not safe to use chemical chelators on an ongoing basis, but natural ones can be used instead, much like a supplement on a daily basis. HMD™ can be used safely over long periods of time with no side effects – it is presently being tested to see its efficacy in eliminating some of the xenobiotics mentioned in this article.

References
1 O’Shea, T.J., Tanabe, S., Persistent ocean contaminants and marine mammals: a retrospective overview. In: O’Shea, T.J. et al. (Eds.), 1999. Proceedings of the Marine Mammal Commission Workshop Marine Mammals and Persistent Ocean Contaminants, pp 87-92. (cited in Tanabe, S. Contamination and toxic effects of persistent endocrine disrupters in marine mammals and birds. Mar Pollut Bull 2002;45:69-77.)

2 3M. (2000) 3M phasing out some of its specialty materials, May 16, 2000 press release.

3 Kannan, K., Corsolini, S., Falandysz, J., Oehme, G., Focardi, S., Giesy, J.P. Perfluorooctanesulfonate and related fluorinated hydrocarbons in marine mammals, fishes and birds from coasts of the Baltic and MediterraneanSeas. Environ Sci Technol 2002 Aug 1;36(15):3210-6.

4 Geisy J.P. and Kannan K. Global Distribution of Perfluorooctane sulfonate in wildlife.
Env Sci Technol 2001, 35:1339-42.

5 Taniyasu, S., Kannak, K., Horii,Y., Hanari, N.,Yamashita, N. A survey of perfluorooctane sulfonate and related perfluorinated organic compounds in water, fish, birds and humans from Japan. Environ Sci & Technol 2003, 37:2634-2639.

6 Fields, S. Another fast-food fear. Environ Health Perspect 2003: 111:16:A162.

7 Olsen, G. W., Church, T.R., Miller, J.P., Burris, J.M., Hansen, K.J., Lundberg, J.K., Armitage, J.B., Herron, R.M., Medhdizadehkashi, Z., Nobiletti, J.B., O’Neill, E.M., Mandel, J.H., Zobel, L.R. Perfluorooctanesulfonate and other fluorochemicals in the serum of American Red Cross adult blood donors. Environ Health
Perspect 2003:111:1892-1901. doi.10.1289/ehp.6316 via http://dx.doi.org.

8 Kannan, et al., 2002.

9 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2002) Hazard Assessment of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and its salts (November, 21 2002). ENV/JM/RD(2002)17/FINAL. Available online at: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/18/2382880.pdf

10 “PFCs: A Family of Chemicals that Contaminate the Planet,” Part 6: PFCs in Animals Worldwide. Environmental Working Group, 2003.
http://www.ewg.org/reports/pfcworld/part8.php Accessed 3 January 2004.

11 Ibid.

12 Austin, M.E., Kasturi, B.S., Barber, M., Kannan, K., MohanKumar, P.S., MohanKumar, S.M.J. Neuroendocrine effects of perfluorooctane sulfonate in rats.
Environ Health Perspect 2003:111:12:1485-1489.

13 Thayer, K., Klein, J. Gray, S., Houlihan, J.,Wiles, R., Greenleaf, T., PFCs: A Family of Chemicals that Contaminate the Planet. Environmental Working Group 2003.
http://www.ewg.org/reports/pfcworld/part4.php Accessed 5 January 2004.

14. Adibi, J.J., Perera, F.P., Jedrychowski,W., Camann, D.E., Barr, D., Jacek, Ryszard, Whyatt, R.M. Prenatal exposures to phthalates among women in New York City and Krakow, Poland. Environ Health Perspect 2003:111:14:1719-1722.

15 Kock et al, 2003. An estimation of the daily intake of di(2-ethyl) phthalate (DEHP) and other phthalates in the general population. International Journal Hygiene and Environmental Health.

16 Sharpe R.M. (2003). The oestrogen hypothesis – where do we stand now? International Journal of Andrology 26:2-15; Skakkebaek, N.E. et al., (2001) Testicular dysgenesis syndrome: an increasingly common developmental disorder with environmental aspects. Human Reproduction 2001:16:5:972-978.

17 Gray, L.E. Jr., Ostby, J., Furr, J., Price, M., Veeramachaneni, D.N., Parks, L. Perinatal exposure to the phthalates DEPH, BBP, and DINP, but not DEP, DMP, or DOTP, alters sexual differentiation of the male rat. Toxicological Sciences 2000:58:350-565.

18 Colón, I., et al., Identification of phthalate esters in the serum of young Puerto Rican girls with premature breast development. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2000. 108(9): p. 895-900.

19 Akingbemi, B.T., Ge, R., Klinefelter, G.R., Zirkin, B.R., Hardy, M.P. Phthalate-induced Leydig cell hyperplasia is associated with multiple endocrine disturbances. Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences 2004 (Early Edition). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0305977101 , accessed 31 December 2003.

20 Seo, K.W., Kim, K.B., Kim,Y.J., Choi, J.Y, Lee, K.T., Choi, K.S. Comparison of oxidative stress and changes of xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes induced by phthalates in rats. Food Chem Toxicol. 2004 Jan;42(1):107-14.

21 Duty, S.M., Singh, N.P., Silva, M.J., Barr, D.B., Brock, J.W., Ryan, L., Herrick, R.F., Christiani, D.C., Hauser, R. The relationship between environmental exposures to phthalates and DNA damage in human sperm using the neutral comet assay. Environ Health Perspect 2003 111:9:1164-1169.
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2003/5756/5756.html , accessed 6 January 2004.

22 Foster, P M. Turner K J, Barlow N J. Anti-androgenic effects of a phthalate combination on in utero male reproductive development in the Sprague-Dawley rat: additivity of response? Toxicologist 2000 Mar; 66(1-S), 233.

23 Environmental Data Services, Ends Daily 15th Dec 2003.

24 DIRECTIVE 2003/53/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 18 June 2003 amending for the 26th time Council Directive 76/769/EEC relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (nonylphenol, nonylphenol ethoxylate and cement), Official Journal L 178 17-7-2003

25 Jobling S., Sheahan D., Osborne J., Matthiessen P., Sumpter J. (1996). Inhibition of testicular growth in rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) exposed to oestrogenic alkylphenolic chemicals. Environ. Toxicol. Chem., 15, 194-202.

26 Sohoni et al, Reproductive effects of long term exposure to bisphenol A in the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas), Environ Sci Technol 2001:35: 2917-2925.

27 Environment Agency of England and Wales 1998; Endocrine Disrupting Substances in the Environment. What Should Be Done? The EA Bristol.

28 Commission of the European Communities. Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to the restrictions on the marketing and use of nonylphenol, nonylphenol ethoxylate and cement. COM (2002) 459, 2002/0206 (COD).

29 Kopf W. Wirkung endokriner stoffe in biotests mit wasserogranismen. In Stoffe mit endokriner wirkung in wasser. Bayerisches landesamt für wasserwirtschaft, Institut für Wasserforschung München (ed) Oldenbourg (1997) (as detailed in the European Union Risk Assessment Report (2002) 4-NONYLPHENOL (BRANCHED) AND NONYLPHENOL, CAS Nos: 84852-15-3 and 25154-52-3 EINECS Nos: 284-325-5 and 246-672-0, Joint Research Centre, European Commission).

30 Jobling, S., Casey, D. Rodgers-Gray, T., Oehlmann, J., Schult-Oehlmann, U., Pawlowski, S., Baunbeck, T., Turner, A.P., Tyler, C.R. comparative responses of molluscs and fish to environmental estrogens and an estrogenic effluent. Aquat Toxicol 2003 Oct 29;65(2):205-20.

31 Oehlmann, J., Schulte-Oehlmann, U., Tillmann, M., Markert, B. Effects of endocrine disruptors on Prosobranch snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda) in the laboratory. Part I: Bisphenol A and octylphenol as xenoestrogens. Ecotoxicology 2000 9:383-397.

32 Nice, H.E., Morritt, D., Crane, M. Thorndyke, Long-term and transgenerational effects of nonylphenol exposure at a key stage in the development of Crassostrea gigas. Possible endocrine disruption? M. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 2003 256:293-300.

33 Billinghurst, Z., Clare, A.S., Depledge M.H. Effects of 4-n-nonylphenol and 17beta-oestradiol on early development of the barnacle Elminius modestus. J. Exper. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 2001: Mar 15;25(2);255-268.

34 Stoker, C., Rey, F. Rodriguez, H., Ramos, J.G., Sirosky, P., Larriera, A., Luque Munoz-de-Toro, M. Sex reversal effects on Caiman latirostris exposed to environmentally relevant doses of the xenoestrogen bisphenol A. Gen Comp Endocrinol 2003 Oct 1;133(3)287-96.
35 Markey, C.M., Coombs, M.A. Sonnenschein, C., Soto, A.M. Mammalian development in a changing environment: exposure to endocrine disruptors reveals the developmental plasticity of steroid hormone target organs. Evol Dev 2003 Jan-Feb;5(1):67-75.

36 Berg, C., Halldin, K., Brunstrom, B. Effects of bisphenol A and tetrabromobisphenol A on sex organ development in quail and chicken embryos. Environ Toxicol Chem 2001 Dec;20(12):2836-40.

37 Lee, H.J., Chattopadhyay, S., Gong, E-Y, Ahn, R.S, Lee, K. Antiandrogenic effects of bisphenol A and nonylphenol on the function of androgen receptor. Toxicological Sciences 2003 75:, 40-46.

38 Atienzar, F.A., Billinghurst, Z., Depledge, M.H. 4-n-Nonylphenol and 17-beta estradiol may induce common DNA effects in developing barnacle larvae. Environ Pollut 2002;120(3):735-8.

39 Dunckel (cited in Birnbaum, L., Staskal, D.F. Polybrominated flame retardants: cause for concern? Environ Health Perspect 2004:112:9-17. doi10.1289/ehp.6559. available via dx.doi.org. Accessed 5 January 2004.

40 Official Journal of The European Union, L 42/45 Feb. 15, 2003.

41 Schecter, A. Pavuk, M. Papke, O., Ryan, J.J., Birnbaum, L., Rosen, R. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in U.S. mothers’ milk. Environ Health Perspect 2003:111:14:1723-1724.

42 http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/PBDE/2003/2003-0807schecteretal.htm
Accessed 5 January 2004.

43 http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/europe/what_we_do/policy_and_events/epo/news.cfm?uNewsID=9941 Accessed 8 January 2004.

44 Lindberg, P., Sellström, U., Häggberg, L., and de Wit, C.A. Higher brominated diphenyl ethers and hexabromocyclododecane found in eggs of peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) breeding in Sweden. Environ Sci Technol 2004:38;(1): 93-96.

45 Norstrom RJ, Simon M, Moisey J,Wakeford B,Weseloh D.V. Geographical distribution (2000) and temporal trends (1981-2000) of brominated diphenyl ethers in Great Lakes herring gull eggs. Environ Sci Technol. 2002 Nov 15;36(22):4783-9.

46 De Boer, J.,Wester, P.G., Klamer, H.J.C., Lewis,W.E., Boon, J.P. Do flame retardants threaten ocean life? Nature 1998:394:28-29; doi:10.1038/27798

47 Ikonomou et al., 2002a (cited in Birnbaum & Staskel, 2004).

48 Birnbaum & Staskal, 2004.

49 Birnbaum & Staskal, 2004.

50 Birnbaum & Staskal, 2004.

51 Darnerud, P.O. Toxic effects of brominated flame retardants in man and in wildlife. Environ Int 2003 Sep;29(6):841.

52 Helleday, T., Tuominen, K.L., Bergman, A., Jenssen, D. Brominated flame retardants induce intragenic recombination in mammalian cells. Mutat Res 1999:Feb 19;439(2):137-47.

Adapted by the article written by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) entitled “Cause for Concern: Chemicals and Wildlife. http://www.wwf.org.uk

WWF is…
the world’s largest and most experienced independent conservation organisation;
a truly global network, working in more than 90 countries;
a challenging, constructive, science-based organisation that addresses issues from the survival of species and habitats to climate change, sustainable business and environmental education;
a charity dependent upon its five million supporters worldwide – some 90 per cent of our income derives from voluntary sources such as people and the business community. by Dr. George J Georgiou, Ph.D.,N.D.,DSc (AM)
Natural Medicine Practitioner, Researcher in Xenobiotics
Email: drgeorge@worldwidehealthcenter.net
Web: www.detoxmetals.com

Soy is still widely perceived to be a “health food” in the United States, raking in some $4 billion a year. In the United States, every part of the soybean is used for profit, including soy lecithin — the waste left over after a soybean is processed — and soy protein isolate, which was initially invented to be used to make cardboard.

Many people consume soy because of claims that it can reduce the risk of heart disease, alleviate symptoms of menopause, lower cholesterol and even cut your risk of cancer.

But in reality, as Mary Vance describes in the important essay linked below, when people consume soy products it can eventually lead to health problems ranging from digestive upset and bloating to hormonal disruption. And among infants, the estrogens in soy formula can be devastating, causing problems in their brains, reproductive systems and thyroid glands.

There are 100 years worth of studies demonstrating that soy products can be hazardous to your health, but soy is nonetheless now everywhere in our food supply, often hidden in processed foods.
The Israeli Health Ministry recently issued a health advisory strongly recommending that soy foods be eaten only in moderation. They also recommended that soy formula be avoided altogether by infants.

A Host of Disorders
There are hundreds of studies linking soy with such disorders as:

• Digestive problems
• Thyroid dysfunction
• ADD and ADHD
• Dementia
• Reproductive disorders
• Cancer

Phytoestrogens are the Culprit
The Israeli Ministry based its advice on the findings of a panel of nutritionists, oncologists, pediatricians and other specialists who spent over a year looking at the available evidence. They concluded that the phytoestrogens in soy (estrogen-like plant hormones) can be harmful. Their recommendations are in accord with those made by the United Kingdom’s chief medical officer and the British Dietetic Association.

The panel found that:

• The evidence that soy alleviates menopausal symptoms is inconsistent.
• Soy phytoestrogens increase the risk of breast cancer.
• Soy phytoestrogens can also reduce male fertility.

They also noted that while soy has been shown to reduce blood cholesterol, there is no proof that it reduces the risk of heart disease.

The panel concluded that the proven risks of soy foods outweigh the possible benefit.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has convened a scientific panel to review the safety of soy baby formula and genistein, a plant estrogen found in soy.

Genistein can mimic the effects of estrogen in humans, which has raised concerns about effects on human development and reproduction. The panel intends to look into these possible effects, such as the research that suggests soy consumption could affect the menstrual cycle.

Many people are still convinced that soy is a health food, but it is important to recognize that soy clearly has a downside.

Soybeans are high in natural toxins, also known as antinutrients
This includes a large quantity of inhibitors that deter the enzymes needed for protein digestion. Further, these enzyme inhibitors are not entirely disabled during ordinary cooking. The result is extensive gastric distress and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake, which can result in dangerous pancreatic impairments and cancer.

• Soybeans contain hemaglutins, which cause red blood cells to clump together. Soybeans also have growth-depressant substances, and while these substances are reduced in processing, they are not completely eliminated.
• Soy contains goitrogens, which can frequently lead to depressed thyroid function.
• Most soybeans are genetically modified, and they contain one of the highest levels of pesticide contamination of all foods.
• Soybeans are very high in phytates, which prevent the absorption of minerals including calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc, all of which are co-factors for optimal biochemistry in the body.
• Finally, in an effort to remove antinutrients from soy, out of the final product, soybeans are taken through a series of chemical processes including acid washing the soy in aluminum tanks. This leaches high levels of aluminum, a toxic heavy metal, into the final soy products. Many soy foods also have toxic levels of manganese. Soy formula has up to 80 times higher manganese than is found in human breast milk.

Fermented soy products like tempeh, natto and miso and soybean sprouts don’t have these problems and can actually be quite healthy. I recommend that you avoid all non-fermented soy such as tofu, soy protein products, soymilk and especially soy baby formula, which should never be used for infants, and only eat fermented soy if you choose to eat it.

What About the Studies?
In recent years, several studies have been made regarding the soybean νs effect on human health. The results of those studies, largely underwritten by various factions of the soy industry, were of course overwhelmingly in favor of soy. The primary claims about soy’s health benefits are based purely on bad science. Although primary arguments for cancer patients to use soy focus on statistics showing low rates of breast, colon and prostate cancer among Asian people, there are obvious facts being utterly ignored. While the studies boast that Asian women suffer far fewer cases of breast cancer than American women do, the hype neglects to point out that these Asian women eat a diet that is dramatically different than their American counterparts.

The standard Asian diet consists of more natural products, far less fatty meat, greater amounts of vegetables and more fish. Their diets are also lower in chemicals and toxins, as they eat far fewer processed (canned, jarred, pickled, frozen) foods. It is likely these studies are influenced by the fact that cancer rates rise among Asian people who move to the U.S. and adopt American-ized diets. Of course, this change of diet goes hand-in-hand with a dramatic shift in lifestyle. Ignoring the remarkable diet and lifestyle changes, to assume only that reduced levels of soy in these Americanized Asian diets is a primary factor in greater cancer rates is poor judgment, and as stated above, bad science. The changes of diet and lifestyle must be considered to reach the correct conclusion.

A widely circulated article, written by Jane E. Allen, AP Science Writer, titled, “Scientists Suggest More Soy in Diet”, cites in the course of a symposium, numerous speakers discussing the probable advantages of soy under the title, “Health Impact of Soy Protein.” However, the article states that the $50,000 symposium “was underwritten by Protein Technologies International of St. Louis, a DuPont subsidiary that makes soy protein!” In the course of the same symposium, Thomas Clarkson, professor of comparative medicine at Wake Forest University, states “Current hormone replacement therapy has been a dismal failure from a public health point of view,” not because PremarinΖ is known to cause uterine or other female organ cancers, but “because only 20 percent of the women who could benefit from it are taking it.”

Other popular arguments in support of soy state that fermented products, like tempeh or natto, contain high levels of vitamin B-12. However, these supportive arguments fail to mention that soy’s B-12 is an inactive B-12 analog, not utilized as a vitamin in the human body. Some researchers speculate this analog may actually serve to block the body’s B-12 absorption. It has also been found that allergic reactions to soybeans are far more common than to all other legumes. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics admits that early exposure to soy through commercial infant formulas, may be a leading cause of soy allergies among older children and adults.

In his classic book, A Cancer Therapy – Results of 50 Cases (p. 237), Dr. Gerson put “Soy and Soy Products” on the “FORBIDDEN” list of foods for Gerson Therapy patients. At the time, his greatest concerns were two items: the high oil content of soy and soy products, and the rather high rate of allergic reactions to soy. Soybeans can add as much as 9 grams of fat per serving, typically adding an average of 5 grams of fat per serving when part of an average American diet.

FDA Health Claim Challenged
On October 25, 1999 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided to allow a health claim for products “low in saturated fat and cholesterol” that contain 6.25 grams of soy protein per serving. Breakfast cereals, baked goods, convenience food, smoothie mixes and meat substitutes could now be sold with labels touting benefits to cardiovascular health, as long as these products contained one heaping teaspoon of soy protein per 100-gram serving.

The best marketing strategy for a product that is inherently unhealthy is, of course, a health claim.
“The road to FDA approval,” writes a soy apologist, “was long and demanding, consisting of a detailed review of human clinical data collected from more than 40 scientific studies conducted over the last 20 years. Soy protein was found to be one of the rare foods that had sufficient scientific evidence not only to qualify for an FDA health claim proposal but to ultimately pass the rigorous approval process.”

The “long and demanding” road to FDA approval actually took a few unexpected turns. The original petition, submitted by Protein Technology International, requested a health claim for isoflavones, the estrogen-like compounds found plentifully in soybeans, based on assertions that “only soy protein that has been processed in a manner in which isoflavones are retained will result in cholesterol lowering”.

In 1998, the FDA made the unprecedented move of rewriting PTI’s petition, removing any reference to the phyto-estrogens and substituting a claim for soy protein – a move that was in direct contradiction to the agency’s regulations. The FDA is authorized to make rulings only on substances presented by petition.

The abrupt change in direction was no doubt due to the fact that a number of researchers, including scientists employed by the US Government, submitted documents indicating that isoflavones are toxic.

The FDA had also received, early in 1998, the final British Government report on phytoestrogens, which failed to find much evidence of benefit and warned against potential adverse effects.
Even with the change to soy protein isolate, FDA bureaucrats engaged in the “rigorous approval process” were forced to deal nimbly with concerns about mineral blocking effects, enzyme inhibitors, goitrogenicity, endocrine disruption, reproductive problems and increased allergic reactions from consumption of soy products.

One of the strongest letters of protest came from Dr Dan Sheehan and Dr Daniel Doerge, government researchers at the National Center for Toxicological Research. Their pleas for warning labels were dismissed as unwarranted.

“Sufficient scientific evidence” of soy’s cholesterol-lowering properties is drawn largely from a 1995 meta-analysis by Dr James Anderson, sponsored by Protein Technologies International and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A meta-analysis is a review and summary of the results of many clinical studies on the same subject. Use of meta-analyses to draw general conclusions has come under sharp criticism by members of the scientific community.

“Researchers substituting meta-analysis for more rigorous trials risk making faulty assumptions and indulging in creative accounting,” says Sir John Scott, President of the Royal Society of New Zealand. “Like is not being lumped with like. Little lumps and big lumps of data are being gathered together by various groups.”

There is the added temptation for researchers, particularly researchers funded by a company like Protein Technologies International, to leave out studies that would prevent the desired conclusions. Dr Anderson discarded eight studies for various reasons, leaving a remainder of twenty-nine.
The published report suggested that individuals with cholesterol levels over 250 mg/dl would experience a “significant” reduction of 7 to 20 per cent in levels of serum cholesterol if they substituted soy protein for animal protein. Cholesterol reduction was insignificant for individuals whose cholesterol was lower than 250 mg/dl.

In other words, for most of us, giving up steak and eating vegieburgers instead will not bring down blood cholesterol levels. The health claim that the FDA approved “after detailed review of human clinical data” fails to inform the consumer about these important details.

Research that ties soy to positive effects on cholesterol levels is “incredibly immature”, said Ronald M. Krauss, MD, head of the Molecular Medical Research Program and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He might have added that studies in which cholesterol levels were lowered through either diet or drugs have consistently resulted in a greater number of deaths in the treatment groups than in controls – deaths from stroke, cancer, intestinal disorders, accident and suicide.
Cholesterol-lowering measures in the US have fuelled a $60 billion per year cholesterol-lowering industry, but have not saved us from the ravages of heart disease.

Soy And Cancer
The new FDA ruling does not allow any claims about cancer prevention on food packages, but that has not restrained the industry and its marketers from making them in their promotional literature.
“In addition to protecting the heart,” says a vitamin company brochure, “soy has demonstrated powerful anticancer benefits…the Japanese, who eat 30 times as much soy as North Americans, have a lower incidence of cancers of the breast, uterus and prostate.”

Indeed they do. But the Japanese, and Asians in general, have much higher rates of other types of cancer, particularly cancer of the esophagus, stomach, pancreas and liver. Asians throughout the world also have high rates of thyroid cancer. The logic that links low rates of reproductive cancers to soy consumption requires attribution of high rates of thyroid and digestive cancers to the same foods, particularly as soy causes these types of cancers in laboratory rats.

Just how much soy do Asians eat? A 1998 survey found that the average daily amount of soy protein consumed in Japan was about eight grams for men and seven for women – less than two teaspoons. The famous Cornell China Study, conducted by Colin T. Campbell, found that legume consumption in China varied from 0 to 58 grams per day, with a mean of about twelve.
Assuming that two-thirds of legume consumption is soy, then the maximum consumption is about 40 grams, or less than three tablespoons per day, with an average consumption of about nine grams, or less than two teaspoons. A survey conducted in the 1930s found that soy foods accounted for only 1.5 per cent of calories in the Chinese diet, compared with 65 per cent of calories from pork. (Asians traditionally cooked with lard, not vegetable oil!)

Traditionally fermented soy products make a delicious, natural seasoning that may supply important nutritional factors in the Asian diet. But except in times of famine, Asians consume soy products only in small amounts, as condiments, and not as a replacement for animal foods – with one exception. Celibate monks living in monasteries and leading a vegetarian lifestyle find soy foods quite helpful because they dampen libido.

It was a 1994 meta-analysis by Mark Messina, published in Nutrition and Cancer, that fuelled speculation on soy’s anticarcinogenic properties.43 Messina noted that in 26 animal studies, 65 per cent reported protective effects from soy. He conveniently neglected to include at least one study in which soy feeding caused pancreatic cancer – the 1985 study by Rackis. In the human studies he listed, the results were mixed.

A few showed some protective effect, but most showed no correlation at all between soy consumption and cancer rates. He concluded that “the data in this review cannot be used as a basis for claiming that soy intake decreases cancer risk”. Yet in his subsequent book, The Simple Soybean and Your Health, Messina makes just such a claim, recommending one cup or 230 grams of soy products per day in his “optimal” diet as a way to prevent cancer.

Thousands of women are now consuming soy in the belief that it protects them against breast cancer. Yet, in 1996, researchers found that women consuming soy protein isolate had an increased incidence of epithelial hyperplasia, a condition that presages malignancies. A year later, dietary genistein was found to stimulate breast cells to enter the cell cycle – a discovery that led the study authors to conclude that women should not consume soy products to prevent breast cancer.

Birth Control Pills For Babies
But it was the isoflavones in infant formula that gave the Jameses the most cause for concern. In 1998, investigators reported that the daily exposure of infants to isoflavones in soy infant formula is 6 to11 times higher on a body-weight basis than the dose that has hormonal effects in adults consuming soy foods. Circulating concentrations of isoflavones in infants fed soy-based formula were 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than plasma estradiol concentrations in infants on cow’s milk formula.

Approximately 25 per cent of bottle-fed children in the US receive soy-based formula – a much higher percentage than in other parts of the Western world. Fitzpatrick estimated that an infant exclusively fed soy formula receives the estrogenic equivalent (based on body weight) of at least five birth control pills per day. By contrast, almost no phytoestrogens have been detected in dairy-based infant formula or in human milk, even when the mother consumes soy products.
Scientists have known for years that soy-based formula can cause thyroid problems in babies. But what are the effects of soy products on the hormonal development of the infant, both male and female?

Male infants undergo a “testosterone surge” during the first few months of life, when testosterone levels may be as high as those of an adult male. During this period, the infant is programmed to express male characteristics after puberty, not only in the development of his sexual organs and other masculine physical traits, but also in setting patterns in the brain characteristic of male behavior.

In monkeys, deficiency of male hormones impairs the development of spatial perception (which, in humans, is normally more acute in men than in women), of learning ability and of visual discrimination tasks (such as would be required for reading). It goes without saying that future patterns of sexual orientation may also be influenced by the early hormonal environment.
Male children exposed during gestation to diethylstilbestrol (DES), a synthetic estrogen that has effects on animals similar to those of phytoestrogens from soy, had testes smaller than normal on maturation.

Learning disabilities, especially in male children, have reached epidemic proportions. Soy infant feeding – which began in earnest in the early 1970s – cannot be ignored as a probable cause for these tragic developments.

As for girls, an alarming number are entering puberty much earlier than normal, according to a recent study reported in the journal Pediatrics. Investigators found that one per cent of all girls now show signs of puberty, such as breast development or pubic hair, before the age of three; by age eight, 14.7 per cent of white girls and almost 50 per cent of African-American girls have one or both of these characteristics.

New data indicate that environmental estrogens such as PCBs and DDE (a breakdown product of DDT) may cause early sexual development in girls.62 In the 1986 Puerto Rico Premature Thelarche study, the most significant dietary association with premature sexual development was not chicken – as reported in the press – but soy infant formula.

The consequences of this truncated childhood are tragic. Young girls with mature bodies must cope with feelings and urges that most children are not well-equipped to handle. And early maturation in girls is frequently a harbinger for problems with the reproductive system later in life, including failure to menstruate, infertility and breast cancer.

Parents who have contacted the Jameses recount other problems associated with children of both sexes who were fed soy-based formula, including extreme emotional behavior, asthma, immune system problems, pituitary insufficiency, thyroid disorders and irritable bowel syndrome – the same endocrine and digestive havoc that afflicted the Jameses’ parrots.

Dissension In The Ranks
Organizers of the Third International Soy Symposium would be hard-pressed to call the conference an unqualified success. On the second day of the symposium, the London-based Food Commission and the Weston A. Price Foundation of Washington, DC, held a joint press conference, in the same hotel as the symposium, to present concerns about soy infant formula.

Industry representatives sat stony-faced through the recitation of potential dangers and a plea from concerned scientists and parents to pull soy-based infant formula from the market. Under pressure from the Jameses, the New Zealand Government had issued a health warning about soy infant formula in 1998; it was time for the American government to do the same.

On the last day of the symposium, presentations on new findings related to toxicity sent a well-oxygenated chill through the giddy helium hype. Dr Lon White reported on a study of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii, that showed a significant statistical relationship between two or more servings of tofu a week and “accelerated brain aging”.

Those participants who consumed tofu in mid-life had lower cognitive function in late life and a greater incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. “What’s more,” said Dr White, “those who ate a lot of tofu, by the time they were 75 or 80 looked five years older”. White and his colleagues blamed the negative effects on isoflavones – a finding that supports an earlier study in which postmenopausal women with higher levels of circulating estrogen experienced greater cognitive decline.

Scientists Daniel Sheehan and Daniel Doerge, from the National Center for Toxicological Research, ruined PTI’s day by presenting findings from rat feeding studies, indicating that genistein in soy foods causes irreversible damage to enzymes that synthesise thyroid hormones.

“The association between soybean consumption and goiter in animals and humans has a long history,” wrote Dr Doerge. “Current evidence for the beneficial effects of soy requires a full understanding of potential adverse effects as well.”

Dr Claude Hughes reported that rats born to mothers that were fed genistein had decreased birth weights compared to controls, and onset of puberty occurred earlier in male offspring. His research suggested that the effects observed in rats “…will be at least somewhat predictive of what occurs in humans.

There is no reason to assume that there will be gross malformations of fetuses but there may be subtle changes, such as neurobehavioral attributes, immune function and sex hormone levels.” The results, he said, “could be nothing or could be something of great concern…if mom is eating something that can act like sex hormones, it is logical to wonder if that could change the baby’s development”.

A study of babies born to vegetarian mothers, published in January 2000, indicated just what those changes in baby’s development might be. Mothers who ate a vegetarian diet during pregnancy had a fivefold greater risk of delivering a boy with hypospadias, a birth defect of the penis. The authors of the study suggested that the cause was greater exposure to phytoestrogens in soy foods popular with vegetarians.

Problems with female offspring of vegetarian mothers are more likely to show up later in life. While soy’s estrogenic effect is less than that of diethylstilbestrol (DES), the dose is likely to be higher because it’s consumed as a food, not taken as a drug. Daughters of women who took DES during pregnancy suffered from infertility and cancer when they reached their twenties.

Question Marks Over GRAS Status
Lurking in the background of industry hype for soy is the nagging question of whether it’s even legal to add soy protein isolate to food. All food additives not in common use prior to 1958, including casein protein from milk, must have GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status. In 1972, the Nixon administration directed a re-examination of substances believed to be GRAS, in the light of any scientific information then available.

This re-examination included casein protein that became codified as GRAS in 1978. In 1974, the FDA obtained a literature review of soy protein because, as soy protein had not been used in food until 1959 and was not even in common use in the early 1970s, it was not eligible to have its GRAS status grandfathered under the provisions of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

The scientific literature up to 1974 recognized many antinutrients in factory-made soy protein, including trypsin inhibitors, phytic acid and genistein. But the FDA literature review dismissed discussion of adverse impacts, with the statement that it was important for “adequate processing” to remove them.

Genistein could be removed with an alcohol wash, but it was an expensive procedure that processors avoided. Later studies determined that trypsin inhibitor content could be removed only with long periods of heat and pressure, but the FDA has imposed no requirements for manufacturers to do so.

The FDA was more concerned with toxins formed during processing, specifically nitrites and lysinoalanine. Even at low levels of consumption – averaging one-third of a gram per day at the time – the presence of these carcinogens was considered too great a threat to public health to allow GRAS status.

Soy protein did have approval for use as a binder in cardboard boxes, and this approval was allowed to continue, as researchers considered that migration of nitrites from the box into the food contents would be too small to constitute a cancer risk. FDA officials called for safety specifications and monitoring procedures before granting of GRAS status for food.

These were never performed. To this day, use of soy protein is codified as GRAS only for this limited industrial use as a cardboard binder. This means that soy protein must be subject to premarket approval procedures each time manufacturers intend to use it as a food or add it to a food.

Soy protein was introduced into infant formula in the early 1960s. It was a new product with no history of any use at all. As soy protein did not have GRAS status, premarket approval was required. This was not and still has not been granted. The key ingredient of soy infant formula is not recognized as safe.

Researched and co-written by:
Dr. George J Georgiou and Barbara Karafokas
Davinci Natural Health Centre
www.naturaltherapycenter.com
drgeorge@naturaltherapycenter.com

WATER CONTENT OF OUR BODIES
Depending on your age, your body can be anywhere from 55 percent to 75 percent. A baby is 75 percent while a very old person is 60 percent or less. Obese people have less body of water than lean muscular people because fat cells are only 25 percent water while muscles are 75 percent.

Our brains are composed of 75 percent water while our blood is 80 percent. Even hard substances like bones (20 percent) and teeth (5 percent) have some water.

Water is so vital to our survival that we cannot live without it. It is literally a “river of life” flowing inside us.

DAILY LOSS OF FLUIDS
We need a constant supply of water because our bodies lose a substantial amount every day. Studies have found that we lose from eight to 10 cups of fluid a day through our sweat, urine and breath.

It is difficult for the body to get water from any other source than water itself. Soft drinks and alcohol steal tremendous amounts of water from the body, however, even other beverages such as coffee, milk and juice require water from the body to be properly digested.

ROLE OF WATER IN OUR BODIES
1. Water plays a vital role in nearly every bodily function.
2. Water is essential for proper digestion, nutrient absorption and chemical reactions.
3. A hydrolytic role in all aspects of body metabolism – water-dependent chemical reactions (hydrolysis).
4. At the cell membrane, the osmotic flow of water through the membrane can generate “hydroelectric energy” (voltage) that is converted and stored in the energy pools in form of ATP and GTP – two vital energy systems.
5. Water also forms a particular structure, pattern and shape that seems to be employed as the “adhesive material” in the bondage of the cell architecture. Like glue, it sticks the solid structure in the cell membrane together. It develops the stickiness of “ice” at higher body temperature.
6. Products manufactured in the brain cells are transported on “waterways” to their destination in the nerve endings for use in the transmission of messages. There seems to exist small waterways or micro streams along the length of nerves that “float” the packaged materials along “guidelines” called microtubules.
7. Proteins and the enzymes of the body function more efficiently in solutions of lower viscosity – this is true of all the receptors in the cell membranes.
8. Water is essential for proper circulation in the body, and flexibility of the blood vessels.
9. Water helps remove toxins (acidic waste) from the body, in particular from the digestive tract.
10. Water regulates your body’s temperature, imagine a car running without water in the radiator.
11. Consistent failure to drink enough water can lead to Chronic Cellular Dehydration. This condition where the body’s cells do not get hydrated enough leaving them in a weakened state, and vulnerable to disease processes. It weakens the body’s overall immune system and leads to chemical, nutritional and pH imbalances.
12. Dehydration can occur at any time of the year,not only during the summer months when it is hot. The dryness that occurs during winter can dehydrate the body quicker than when it is hot, one of the main causes being central heating and a dry atmosphere in the home. The other being not drinking enough water. Many diseases such as Cholera are caused primarily through dehydration.

HOW MUCH WATER DO WE NEED TO DRINK
General Rule: You should drink half your body weight in ounces of water every day to provide your body with its MINIMUM water replacement requirements as long as you are reasonably fit. Otherwise start by sipping the water and gradually build up.

Facts:
The body’s water content is approximately 45 litres.
Our daily consumption of water is approximately 2.4 litres.

SO HOW MUCH WATER SHOULD YOU DRINK?
The National Research Council (NRC) uses a sliding scale of 1 milliliter of water for every calorie burned. This scale is not for women who are pregnant or breast-feeding, infants, children and adults who are unhealthy.
Patients with kidney disease or congestive heart failure need special instructions from their physicians. The NRC says the average man – who burns about 2,900 calories daily – needs 2,900 milliliters, or about 12 cups, of water each day. The average woman – who burns 2,200 calories daily – needs about 2,200 milliliters, or about 9 cups, of water each day.

For your own calculations: One measuring cup of water equals 236 milliliters of water. Also, these cups don’t have to be filled with water. Solid food contains water. You also can meet part of your water requirement through other fluids such as milk, juice and soup.

The amount of water you drink needs to increase if you are active or outside in hot or humid weather. To determine if you’re getting enough water in your day, a ballpark measure is to look at the color of your urine. If your urine is pale yellow, you’re probably drinking enough fluids. If your urine is dark yellow and has a strong odor, or if you go to the bathroom less than four times a day, you probably need to increase your water intake.

When it comes to water, play it safe.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT WATER REQUIREMENTS:

* Higher dietary intake of salt and sugar increase fluid requirements
* Higher intake of caffeine and alcohol increase fluid requirements
* Environmental temperature – Summer heat increases sweat production and water losses
* Activity – increased sweat production and resultant loss of body water. You can lose much more than that if you are a construction worker working outdoors on a hot day so exactly how much we lose depends on many factors:

HYDRATION STUDIES
Here is an example of the fluid loss of a young male participant in a hydration study. He lost a total of 10.8 cups of water broken down into 4.5 cups in his urine, two ounces in his solid waste, and 5 cups through his skin and lungs.

WHERE DOES WATER COME FROM?
To replace the water that our bodies lose to the environment, we can get fluid from the liquids we drink, the food we eat and even from our own body.

Our digestive system makes about one cup of water as a by-product of metabolizing the food we eat.

To replace his fluid loss, the male participant mentioned above got 5 cups from liquid drinks, 4.5 cups from food and a little over a cup from digestive juices.

A Purdue University study which kept track of fluid intake and losses for 12 days found that people basically get 50 percent of their fluid needs from liquid, 40 percent from food, and 10 percent from the digestive system.

Many people don’t realize it, but food is a good source of fluid because fruits and vegetables contain 90 percent to 95 percent water, uncooked meat contains 75 percent, and even relatively dry food like bread and cheese contain 35 percent. There is also some confusion about the words “water,” “fluid” and “liquid.”

If you are not used to drinking coffee, your body will retain only two-thirds of every cup you drink but this is a far cry from the negative fluid loss that once was believed. Other studies have found that two to three cups of coffee a day has little effect on dehydration but six cups or more will lead to a 3 percent loss of body water.

Alcohol, meanwhile, is truly dehydrating because the body needs water for your liver to metabolize all that tequila you just drank. However, studies found that one drink won’t harm you and diluted alcoholic drinks like beer can count as a fluid replacement as long as you drink moderately.

MISTAKEN BELIEF
It is the mistaken belief that only water can replace our fluid needs that led to the oft-repeated piece of advice that everyone needs to drink eight glasses of water a day.

That traditional recommendation has been laid to rest this year when Heinz Valtin, a kidney specialist and Dartmouth Medical School professor spent nine months reviewing all available scientific data on fluid needs to validate the “8 x 8 rule” (eight glasses of eight ounces each).

His study results were published in the American Journal of Physiology last August where he concluded that there was no scientific evidence to back up the 8 x 8 rule.
Actually, Valtin is not the only scientist to question the eight glasses a day guideline; he was just the first to conduct a formal review. Interestingly, way back in 1994, the Urban Legends Website already proclaimed the 8 x 8 rule to be a myth.

Both Valtin and the folks behind the website trace the origin of the eight glasses of water admonition to a misinterpretation of a 1945 recommendation put out by the Food and Nutrition Board of The National Research Council in the U.S.

The council stated, “An ordinary standard for diverse people is 1 milliliter (of fluid) for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.”

Since the average American diet is 2,000 calories, it is equivalent to two liters or 8.5 cups. That’s how they arrived at the measurement of eight glasses.

This was all well and good except that Valtin believes that most people left out the last sentence in the recommendation about water being available in food sources and misconstrued this to mean that you could only get your required fluid intake from water.

THE FINAL SAY?
According to Valtin, a sedentary adult living in a temperate climate needs about four cups of liquid a day (remember that the rest of the fluid will come from food and digestion). But he is quick to point out that highly active adults or those living in hot climates need more.

Others who are prone to dehydration are young children, the elderly, those suffering from kidney stones, people who live in dry desert climates, and anyone who spends a lot of time in airplanes or other environments with dry recycled air.

You will also need more water when you are sick with cold, flu, fever, vomiting and diarrhea or if you are a burn victim.

Certain diets also require more water. High protein diets increase your fluid needs because your body needs water to remove nitrogen from the protein and flush it out in your urine. High fiber diets need more water to remove the fiber quickly out of the intestines and prevent constipation.

If you want to continue drinking eight glasses of water a day together with the fluid you get from food, it will not harm you since normal kidneys can handle much more than that.

There is such a thing, however, as drinking too much water or “water intoxication.” While it is rare, this can result in mild headaches, confusion, blurred vision, cramps, and in severe cases, convulsions and even death.

When the body has too much water or too much water is drunk in a short amount of time, the kidneys cannot process the excess quick enough and the blood becomes so diluted that there isn’t enough sodium in it anymore (a condition called hyponatremia).

This happens sometimes to endurance athletes like marathoners, people like diabetics who are on anti-diuretic medication, people with mental illness like schizophrenia, and people taking the illegal party drug ecstasy because it creates an abnormal thirst response.

IS THE THIRST RESPONSE RELIABLE?
And speaking of thirst, it was always believed that it is not a reliable mechanism and that you are already quite dehydrated by the time you are thirsty. Valtin found that this is not true for the average person.
Nutritionist and thirst specialist Barbara Rolls did hourly hydration tests and found that for most people, their thirst matched their hydration needs.

However, the thirst mechanism may not be as reliable in heavy exercisers.

Studies have shown that if athletes doing intense exercise follow their thirst, they only replace two-thirds of what they have lost. In other words, they stop drinking because they aren’t thirsty anymore but their bodies actually still need more fluid. The elderly also have a lessened capacity to recognize thirst signals and can become dehydrated because they think they don’t need to drink.

More definite answers will come out in March next year when the National Academy of Sciences releases the results of an exhaustive review on fluid needs.

Till then, Valtin says, “Drink enough to quench your thirst” or if you want to play safe, “Drink enough so you don’t get thirsty.”

For those who like more objective measurements, you can calculate your fluid needs by using two currently acceptable formulas. One is based on your daily caloric needs and the other is based on your weight. If you are a heavy exerciser, there is another formula to make up for your extra fluid needs.

Based on caloric intake, you need 1 ml of fluid for every calorie of food.

If you eat 1,500 calories a day, you would need 1.5 liters or 6 cups of fluid.

An easier and more practical formula is to consume one ounce of fluid for every two pounds of body weight. Put another way, divide your weight in half and that is how many ounces of fluid you need. For example, if you weigh 120 pounds, you would need 60 ounces or 7.5 cups a day.

GENERAL GUIDELINES
Athletes and exercisers can follow the guidelines of the American College of Sports Medicine in addition to the formulas above: Two cups before exercise, 4 to 8 ounces every 15-20 minutes during exercise, and two to three cups after exercise. Serious athletes need to be weighed before and after exercise and replenish every pound of body weight lost with two cups of fluid.

You can also judge if you are getting enough fluid by the quality and volume of your urine. A normal yellow color indicates that you are in adequate water balance while a dark and strong smelling urine can mean that you are dehydrated though Valtin says this is not always the case so it should not be used as the only criteria (be aware also that certain vitamins and medication can make your urine’s color and smell more intense).

If you are sedentary, you should be urinating every three to four hours. If you are a physically active person, you should be going to the bathroom every two to three hours. You are drinking too little if you are urinating less than four times a day and you are drinking too much if you are practically living in the toilet.
Bottom Line: Don’t stop drinking water because of all the information you hear on the media. Look at your own personal intake of water through various foods and fluids and top it off with a glass of calorie-free water. Remember, if you are active or in the sunshine drink more and if you eat a really sweet or salty food have a fruit or glass of water to compensate.
by Dr. George J Georgiou, Ph.D.,N.D.,D.Sc (A.M)
Natural Medicine Practitioner
drgeorge@avacom.net
www.naturaltherapycenter.com