A primary action of vitamin K in the body is to help in a chemical reaction called carboxylation. Potential vitamin K deficiencies can be identified by measuring in the body the level of under-carboxylated compounds, such as osteocalcin and matrix Gla protein (MGP), both of which are involved in the maintenance of bone structure.

The scientists note that there is a substantial amount of incompletely metabolized osteocalcin and MGP in many otherwise apparently healthy individuals, which suggests that the majority of these people may be subclinically deficient in vitamin K.

Results Not Surprising

The findings aren’t too surprising, given that the primary dietary sources of vitamin K are:

• Green, leafy vegetables - spinach, kale, chard, lettuce
• Broccoli
• Parsley

These aren’t foods that most people eat regularly in adequate amounts (e.g., a cup per day). And, the biological half-life of vitamin K is relatively short — a few days. That means if you’re not regularly consuming vitamin K, you may become deficient.

Vitamin K comes in two primary forms:

• K1 - phylloquinone - found primarily in the vegetables above
• K2 - menaquinones (MK-n)
  • synthesized by bacteria in the digestive tracts of healthy individuals
  • found in some animal meat (MK-4) and fermented products (MK-7, MK-8, MK-9), including some cheeses and natto
  • MK-4 may also be synthesized in the body from phylloquinone

Bottom Line

Both the K1 and K2 forms of vitamin K may be important in helping to prevent several important conditions, including osteoporosis, arterial calcification (heart disease, stroke), and even cancer.

If you’re not regularly consuming foods high in both primary forms of vitamin K and/or if you have digestive conditions that may interfere with proper vitamin K formation in the gut (e.g., ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, antibiotic use, flora imbalance, etc.), you may want to consider regularly supplementing with a product containing both the K1 and K2 forms of vitamin K.

As a fat-soluble nutrient, vitamin K, whether in food or supplement form, should always be consumed with healthy fats to ensure absorption.

Note: If you’re taking anticoagulant medication, such as coumarin or warfarin, you need to work with a doctor or nutritionist before altering vitamin K intake, as the nutrient helps regulate blood clotting and its metabolism is inhibited by these drugs.

However, as the study’s researchers mention:

Impairment of the function of osteocalcin and MGP due to incomplete carboxylation results in an increased risk for developing osteoporosis and vascular calcification, respectively, and is an unexpected side effect of treatment with oral anticoagulants.

So, rather than limiting vitamin K intake because of anticoagulant medication, you might want to work your practitioner to first ensure a adequate/constant intake of vitamin K and then adjust medication accordingly. This way, you’ll not only avoid blood clotting issues, but you’ll also avoid vitamin K deficiency and get the numerous benefits of this important nutrient.

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(Image: NYSOPEP.org)

____________________________

Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

Magnesium is an essential mineral cofactor used in many enzyme reactions throughout the body, and is especially important in energy production. Several studies indicate that magnesium may help to improve insulin sensitivity and, in turn, glucose tolerance.

Deficiency Widespread, Impact Costly

Magnesium deficiency is common. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is 420 mg and 320 mg per day for men and women, respectively. But the average adult intake is less than 320 mg/day for men and less than 230 mg/day for women. Magnesium intake in seniors may be even lower. And realize that the RDA is a level set to avoid deficiency, not a level to encourage optimal health.

Likewise, diabetes is widespread and costly in both personal and financial terms. In the U.S., 7 percent of the population, or 20 million people, have diabetes. Those afflicted are at greater risk for many serious conditions, including heart disease, hypertension, stroke, kidney disease, vision loss, amputations, and dementia.

The annual cost of taking care of diabetics is estimated at more than $130 billion. One out of every eight U.S. federal health care dollars goes toward treating people with diabetes. And the costs are estimated to soar going forward.

What You Can Do

Ensuring that you get adequate magnesium intake, through both food and supplementation, is an important nutritional step in helping to prevent and treat diabetes. 600 mg/day is a good target to shoot for.

Foods high in magnesium include whole grains (wheat bran, oat bran, brown rice), nuts, beans, and leafy greens. Unfortunately, the average Western diet, with its high content of processed convenience and restaurant-prepared foods, is low in magnesium-rich foods.

Supplementing with a good multi-vitamin mineral can somewhat help to offset diet insufficiency. However, realize that most multi-vitamin/minerals don’t contain significant amounts of magnesium (usually less than 100 mg), as magnesium is a fairly large molecule. Your best bet is also adding in a good multi-mineral that contains adequate magnesium in a well-absorbed form (e.g., citrate or amino-acid chelate). And you’ll get better absorption by dividing your intake into smaller doses (200 mg or less) spread over the course of the day.

Magnesium is just one of several nutrients that may be helpful in reducing diabetes risk. You can read more about other factors in preventing and treating diabetes on my main website, as well as get help putting together an organized nutrition action plan.

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(Image: USDA)

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Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

Specifically, survival rates in the study were:

• 60% for the mice fed a high omega-3 fat diet (1-to-1 omega-6 to omega-3 fat ratio)
• 10% for the mice fed a low omega-3 fat diet (20-to-1 omega-6 to omega-3 fat ratio)
• 0% for the mice fed a high omega-6 fat diet (40-to-1 omega-6 to omega-3 fat ratio)

In addition to improving survival times, omega-3 fatty acids slowed both the progression of cancer cell formation and tumor growth.

As one of the study’s co-authors notes, the implications are significant:

“This suggests that if you have good genes, it may not matter too much what you eat,” said Chen, a professor of cancer biology. “But if you have a gene that makes you susceptible to prostate cancer, your diet can tip the balance. Our data demonstrate the importance of gene-diet interactions, and that genetic cancer risk can be modified favorable by omega-3 PUFA.”

The bad news: The tumor suppressor gene absent in the mice in this study is estimated to be missing in 60% to 70% of human metastatic cancers. So, counting on good genes may not be a good bet.

The good news: Since prostate cancer cells are typically slow-growing, improving the omega-3 / omega-6 fat intake balance is one factor that may play an important role in determining whether one ultimately develops the disease.

Possible Mechanism

As discussed in an earlier post, a higher omega-3 / omega-6 fat intake tends to promote the production of anti-inflammatory immune system modulators (e.g., prostaglandin PGE-3), while a high omega-6 / omega-3 fat intake tends to promote the production of pro-inflammatory substances (e.g., prostaglandin PGE-2 and cytokines IL-6 and TNF-alpha).

This mechanism is supported by earlier research that found an 83% reduction in PGE-2 levels, as well as reduced cancer cell proliferation and greater apoptosis (cell death), in mice fed a high omega-3 fat diet (1-to-1 omega-3 to omega-6 fat ratio).

What You Can Do

Historically, people eating a hunter-gatherer type of diet consumed about 2 to 3 times the amount of omega-6 fats relative to omega-3 fats. Today, in most Western diets, largely as the result of higher intake of refined vegetable oils in packaged and restaurant-prepared foods, that ratio is more like 15 to 20 to one.

Omega-3 fats are found primarily in fish oil and flaxseed oil (although only fish oil has the omega-3 fats EPA and DHA in their final bioavailable forms). Omega-6 fats are found primarily in the diet in vegetable oils, such as soybean, corn, sunflower, and safflower oil, and also in the form of arachidonic acid in meat, dairy, and eggs.

Taking a fish oil supplement that has been tested for contaminants and reducing the consumption of foods prepared using vegetable oils are two ways to help restore a more normal immune response. Improving the omega-3 / omega-6 intake balance just may help you or someone you know avoid or delay developing prostate cancer.

For more on getting help putting together a complete nutrition program for preventing or supporting the treatment of prostate cancer, please visit my main website.

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____________________________

Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

The survey queried 11,817 households in Oregon and California, and gathered data on 17,674 children ages 4 to 17, including 9,175 boys and 8,499 girls. The survey method closely paralleled the approach and age ranges that the CDC has used to identify national prevalence rates for neurological disorders.

Survey Results

Significant relationships between vaccinations and neurological disorders (NDs) were found only in boys, which, as GR notes, is not too surprising, given that boys represent 80% of all ND cases.

Here are a few of the survey’s amazing findings:

A. All vaccinated boys, compared to unvaccinated boys:
- Were 155% more likely to have a neurological disorder
- Were 224% more likely to have ADHD
- Were 61% more likely to have autism

B. Older vaccinated boys, ages 11-17, compared to older unvaccinated boys:
- Were 158% more likely to have a neurological disorder
- Were 317% more likely to have ADHD
- Were 112% more likely to have autism

(GR notes: “Older children may be a more reliable indicator because many children are not diagnosed until they are 6-8 years old, and we captured data beginning at age 4.”)

C. All vaccinated boys, removing one county with unusual results, compared to unvaccinated boys:
- Were 185% more likely to have a neurological disorder
- Were 279% more likely to have ADHD
- Were 146% more likely to have autism

Also, all vaccinated boys and girls were 120% more likely to have asthma than their unvaccinated peers.

Call for Larger Scale Study

Generation Rescue (GR) makes it clear in its commentary that this phone survey doesn’t prove that vaccines cause childhood neurological disorders (NDs), but it does raise significant questions, including perhaps the biggest one:

Why hasn’t a larger scale study comparing ND rates of vaccinated and unvaccinated children already [been conducted by the CDC]?

and a call to action:

We [GR] are a small non-profit organization. For less than $200,000, we were able to complete a study that the CDC, with an $8 billion a year budget, has been unable or unwilling to do. We think the results of our survey lend credibility to the urgent need to do a larger scale study to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children for neurodevelopmental outcomes.

As I did in an earlier post, GR also questions the greatly expanded vaccination schedule:

In 1983, the Centers for Disease Control (”CDC”) recommended a total of 10 vaccines for our children up to the age of 5. In 2007, the CDC recommends 36, an increase of 260%, or 3.6x. (See a comparison here [PDF]).

During this time period, we have witnessed an epidemic of childhood neurological disorders (”NDs”). Today, the CDC estimates that 1 in 13 U.S. children has been diagnosed with ADHD and 1 in 150 has been diagnosed with autism. In the 1980s, ADHD was almost unheard of and autism was estimated to affect 1 in 10,000 children. Boys are significantly more affected by NDs, accounting for approximately 80% of all cases.

Can the increase in ND diagnoses be explained by better diagnosis? GR notes that is highly unlikely:

[T]he mainstream media still misreports that the explosive growth in NDs is the results of “better diagnosis” despite the considerable published scientific research to refute this position. As one example, Department of Developmental Services in California, known for keeping the best autism data in the country, issued this report regarding the growth of autism rates in California where they stated:

“There is no evidence that a loosening in the diagnostic criteria has contributed to increased number of autism clients…we conclude that some, if not all, of the observed increase represents a true increase in cases of autism in California…a purely genetic basis for autism does not fully explain the increasing autism prevalence. Other theories that attempt to better explain the observed increase in autism cases include environmental exposures to substances such as mercury; viral exposures; autoimmune disorders; and childhood vaccinations.”

Like GR, I’d like to see more study into the potential relationship between the greater number of vaccines and the risk for neurological disorders.

In a promising step in that direction, “Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) [re]introduced the “Comprehensive Comparative Study of Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Populations Act of 2007” (H.R. 2832), legislation that would require the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct a comprehensive comparative study of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, which may resolve the controversy about the possible link between autism and mercury or other vaccine components.”

Such a study would go a long way to helping to identify potential risks created by the greatly expanded vaccination schedule. If you feel strongly about this issue, please call or write your Congressperson in support of this legislation.

Bottom Line

Again, I’d like to make it clear that I’m not anti-vaccine. Diseases such as polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, etc. are highly contagious and potentially deadly, especially in children.

However, one really does have to question how much better off are we today versus 25 years ago when the number of vaccination shots given were less than 1/3 the number given today? As asked in a previous post, were we experiencing epidemics of childhood diseases then? No, we were not.

GR also makes this point and several other important ones about vaccines on this page, including some useful vaccination rules of thumb and links to several alternative and potentially safer vaccine schedules for parents to consider.

In this blog, I regularly raise the topic of vaccines and potential toxin and immune system injury. The reasoning is that:

1. These injuries affect potentially millions of people in both acute and subclinical ways, with effects that may last lifetimes.
2. The emotional and financial costs of helping family members deal with these illnesses are extremely high.
3. Nutritional and other biomedical interventions can play a significant role in helping people to heal and recover.

With 1 out of 6 children in the U.S. with a learning developmental disorder, 1 out of 13 with ADHD, and 1 out of 150 with autism (the latter is more than all children with cancer, juvenile arthritis, and type 1 diabetes combined), I’ll continue to highlight the issue until we get better answers.

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Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

Specifically, rice grown in the south central U.S. (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, & Missouri) was on average 41% higher in arsenic than rice grown in California (0.27 mcg/g verus 0.16 mcg/g).

The scientists hypothesized that the higher level of arsenic found in south central U.S. rice could be attributed to the arsenic-containing pesticides previously used on the cotton fields that are now used for growing rice. Industry is currently trying to develop strains of rice that take up less arsenic from the soil.

Assessing Risk

Presently the government sets no maximum contaminant level for arsenic in food. The EPA has set a 10 mcg per liter limit for inorganic arsenic in drinking water.

The average consumption of rice in the U.S. is 25 grams per day. However, some ethnic groups, as well as people pursuing a gluten-free diet (e.g., individuals with Celiac diesease or on the autistic spectrum), may eat much more, and thus may be at risk for higher arsenic exposure. Also, as the researchers note, young children tend to eat much larger portions of rice relative to their small size.

Previous studies suggest that the percentage of inorganic arsenic (the most toxic form) found in U.S. rice varies widely, from 10% to 70% of the total arsenic in the rice. A person eating an average rice portion size of 100 grams with an arsenic content of 0.3 mcg/g would ingest 30 mcg of arsenic. If 50% of that arsenic were inorganic, total dietary exposure from rice alone would be 15 mcg, exceeding the EPA limit for a liter of water.

A market-basket survey has limitations, as the tested products are purchased at stores and cannot be traced to individual farms. Soil arsenic concentrations can vary greatly by location within regions, so it probably makes sense to monitor and survey individual farms to identify locations, crop management techniques, and types of rice that might affect actual levels.

Effects of Chronic Arsenic Exposure

Common signs and symptoms of chronic arsenic poisoning include:

• Neuropathy - pins/needles/numbness in the feet or hands
• Diminished tendon reflexes
• Skin problems - hyperpigmentation, hyperkeratosis (bumps, skin eruptions)
• Anemia, leukopenia
• Mees lines - horizontal white lines on the fingernails
• (Long-term: cancer - arsenic is a carcinogen.)

Other non-specific symptoms common to heavy metal toxicity may also appear, such as headaches, fatigue, insomnia, restlessness, malaise, abdominal pain, racing heart, and cognitive decline. (Source: Andrew Cutler - Hair Test Interpretation: Finding Hidden Toxicities)

What You Can Do

You can call the manufacturer of the rice that you buy and ask if the rice is tested for arsenic content. It’s unlikely, given that testing is not required and results can vary significantly by farm, but it’s worth a shot. At least they’ll know that you view heavy metal contamination as an important issue.

You can buy rice grown in regions that may have lower arsenic soil content on average (e.g., California).

If you do suspect arsenic poisoning may be affecting you, a hair test can be useful, as hair levels of arsenic reliably reflect overall body levels. However, if exposure was years ago, hair levels may be low, while arsenic bound to tissues may remain high. Blood and urine tests are not reliable indicators for chronic, low-level arsenic exposure.

Arsenic is ideally removed from the body via a safe (low/frequent-dose) chelation protocol. Alpha-lipoic acid is the best arsenic chelator.

Also, some arsenic is naturally removed from the body through methylation, so making sure that the methylation pathways are working well (e.g., ensuring adequate supply of methylators - vitamin B12, folic acid, DMG, TMG, etc.) is important.

You can learn more about my approach for helping people with heavy metal toxicity issues on my main website.

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____________________________

Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

More recently, the Life Extension Foundation (LEF) put together an even more damning and detailed critique of the study’s results that raises other excellent points worth considering:

1. Study participants may have been mis-classified.

As mentioned in my earlier post, the study used self-reported food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) to ask study participants about prior supplement usage. FFQs are subject to significant error, as participants may over- or under-report supplement use.

As LEF notes:

Questionnaire-based information collection is limited in accuracy to the memory recall of the study subjects. The majority of people cannot recall what they ate for breakfast one week ago, or which shirt they wore to work two weeks ago, or how many gallons of gas they purchased during their last trip to the gas station, never mind specific doses and frequency of use of a myriad of dietary supplements months or years ago.

But it gets better when we learn what the researchers actually did in this case:

In this government-funded study bashing multivitamins, the researchers had the audacity to place each subject who stated they did not know how much vitamin E they took into the 400 IU a day category. This means when the results where tabulated to see if multivitamin use was associated with prostate cancer risk, men who may or may not have taken any vitamin E were deemed to have taken 400 IU a day.

Men who reported taking even one multivitamin supplement a month were recorded as taking a multivitamin every single day. This meant that when the data was tabulated, those who may have taken as few as twelve multivitamin supplements a year where considered to have taken a multivitamin each day.

If one were designing a study to make it impossible to conclude anything meaningful from the results, this would be a good way to do it.

2. Several other rigorous studies with well-defined design criteria have shown different nutrients may help to prevent the development of prostate cancer.

LEF highlights the selenium study that I mentioned in my earlier post, as well as several other studies that note the potential protective effects of other antioxidants, including the gamma-tocopherol form of vitamin E.

The latter nutrient may be especially important. There are 8 naturally-occurring forms of vitamin E, including 4 tocopherols and 4 tocotrienols. LEF has long reported on the importance of not supplementing with just a single form of vitamin E (like the common alpha-tocopherol form), but instead using a broad-based form of vitamin E high in gamma-tocopherol, which is the form found in highest quantity in food.

LEF cites another recent National Cancer Institute study that noted the potential importance of this form of vitamin E:

For gamma-tocopherol, men in the highest fifth of the distribution had a powerful five-fold reduction in the risk of developing prostate cancer than men in the lowest fifth of the distribution. Statistically significant pro­tective associations for high levels of selenium and alpha-tocopherol were observed only when gamma-tocopherol concentrations were high. The men participating in the study claiming that multivitamins increased aggressive prostate cancer risk were not obtaining any gamma tocopherol in supplement form.

3. Detection (diagnosis) bias may have been present.

In this study, a family history of prostate cancer was associated with supplement use, and prostate cancer PSA screening was most frequent among heavy users of multivitamins, consistent with other survey data showing that men who used supplements were more likely to have PSA examinations than nonusers. Therefore, there is increased prostate cancer detection among this subpopulation of men who are heavy supplement users and who are more likely to seek health care tests owing to a positive family history of prostate cancer. This is a form of detection or diagnosis bias.

In short, people with a family history of prostate cancer or who frequently screen for prostate cancer are more likely to identify prostate cancer. Those groups are also greater users of supplements, but that doesn’t mean the supplements caused the cancer.

In fact, when excluding men diagnosed with prostate cancer within the initial two years of the study period, the relative risk of advanced prostate cancer with heavy multivitamin use no longer existed.

The study authors actually mentioned this possibility of detection bias, but it wasn’t reported by the media.

Bottom Line

LEF notes that this study is yet another in a long list of flawed studies that depict nutritional supplementation as contributing to, rather than helping to prevent, disease.

The organization even suggests an active conspiracy between the government and the pharmaceutical industry to discredit nutritional supplements. There’s not explicit evidence of that, but the recent barrage of negative reports (and the paucity of media coverage of positive reports, such as the amazing vitamin D / cancer study results just released) certainly raises questions.

As does this:

Cancer industry profits require lots of cancer victims

The “cancer industry” is gigantic. Like any other business, profits are dependent on consistent and predictable volume. The American Cancer Society predicts that 1,444,920 people will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States in year 2007.

Those involved in the “cancer industry” have a huge financial stake in 1,444,920 Americans contracting cancer this year. A substantial body of research, however, indicates that these cancer rates could be sharply reduced.

For example, very strong evidence indicates that higher-potency vitamin D supplements could cut the rate in which people contract cancer by 50% or more. Yet the federal government makes it illegal for those who sell vitamin D supplements to make a cancer claim on the label of their product, thereby denying this knowledge to the majority of Americans.

If cancer incidences did decline by 50%, an enormous economic upheaval would occur throughout the “cancer industry”. There is thus a huge economic bias in keeping Americans in the dark about what they can do to reduce their risk of contracting cancer.

Something to think about …

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____________________________

Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

That’s the estimated collective amount Americans are overweight.

Recently, there was an interesting Time magazine cover story that discussed the science of appetite and asked:

Just why is our appetite so powerful a driver of our behavior, and, more important, how can we bring it to heel?

These are difficult questions to answer, as there are many factors that can influence appetite, including “taste, smell, sight, texture, brain chemistry, gut chemistry, metabolism and, most confounding of all, psychology.”

The article discusses several of these factors in more depth, including how:

We’re programmed to eat to excess to store energy.

“We were hardwired to eat and eat—and particularly eat fatty foods because we didn’t get them often,” says Sharman Apt Russell, author of Hunger: An Unnatural History. We’re programmed not only to overeat but also to fail to recognize immediately just when we’ve reached that point. Mothers tell kids not to wolf their food because it’s harder to enjoy it that way and also because even after you’ve had enough, it can take a while for your brain to get the message. By the time it does, you’re not just full; you’re stuffed. “The people who didn’t immediately lose their appetites, who could gorge themselves and keep going, those people would survive longer during the next famine,” says Dr. Jeffrey Flier, obesity scientist and professor at Harvard Medical School.

The wide availability of inexpensive, high-calorie foods feeds directly into this historical tendency and contributes to a greater risk for obesity.

Hormones and peptides regulate hunger.

Both appetite-stimulating substances (e.g., the hormone ghrelin) and appetite-inhibiting substances (e.g., the peptide cholecystokinin (CCK) and the hormones leptin, GLP-1, and PYY) communicate with the brain to either increase or decrease hunger.

There are literally dozens of other hormones and peptides that may also play a role in controlling appetite.

The article discusses how researchers are taking many different approaches in an effort to influence this complex system, including studying:

• The individual receptor sites in the brain to which these hormones and peptides bond.
• Neurons in the brain’s hypothalamus that produce proteins in response to these substances.
• Cellular receptors called PPARs (peroxisome proliferator activated receptors) that help to regulate metabolism.
• How excessive eating mirrors drug addiction patterns.

Refer to the article for expanded discussion of each of these research areas.

What You Can Do

The last section of the article briefly discusses some of the approaches for controlling appetite that researchers are examining, including:

• Emphasizing low-glycemic index foods, which may help maintain more constant glucose and insulin levels, and, in turn, reduce cravings and the need to refuel as often.
• Combining appetite-inhibiting substances (e.g., leptin & CCK) in supplement form.
• Eating bigger portions of lower-calorie, nutrient-dense foods (vegetables and fruits).

An accompanying pictorial also provides some suggestions:

• Eat foods higher in fiber to stimulate appetite-suppressing hormones.
• Eat more slowly to allow appetite-suppressing time to be released and recognized by the brain.
• Eat at regular intervals to keep blood sugar and appetite hormone levels steady.

Given the complexity of the body’s appetite control system, it’s unlikely that a single magic approach or pill exists to reduce hunger and/or weight.

As discussed in this earlier post, there are also many other important factors that can influence the risk for obesity, including:

• Sleep debt
• Environmental toxins (that can disrupt hormone function)
• Temperature regulation
• And more …

Your best bet is a comprehensive approach that attempts to identify and address as many of the nutritional and other environmental factors that may be involved, rather than trying to find a silver-bullet.

You can find a good short-list of suggested steps at the end of this earlier post.

Other Stuff Worth Checking Out

The cover story is one of several interesting nutrition-related articles in the Time magazine issue.

For example, there’s an eye-opening photo gallery that includes photos by Peter Menzel from the book Hungry Planet. The photos show 15 different families from around the world surrounded by the food items that they each eat in a typical week. The differences are pretty amazing.

At the same time, as the accompanying article notes, the similarities are quickly growing — and health-wise, not necessarily for the better:

In an era of instant communication and accelerated trade, those cultural exchanges have exploded, leading to something closer to cultural homogenization. That’s bad for not only the preservation of national identities but the preservation of health too. Saturated fats and meats are displacing grains and fresh vegetables. Mealtimes are shrinking. McDonald’s is everywhere. From Chile to China, the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease is on the rise as the idiosyncratic fare that used to make mealtime in New Delhi, Buenos Aires and Sydney such distinctive experiences is vanishing.

Refer to this page for an easily accessed list of all the nutrition articles in the Time magazine issue.

Also, see the home page of my main website for a list of common conditions and how nutrition can play an important role in preventing and treating them.

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____________________________

Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

Parikh begins by discussing one of his patients:

“Since learning of her son’s diagnosis, Andy’s mother had been vigilant. In her research, which she presented to me in a binder, she was positive about two things:

First, Andy was part of an epidemic of autism that has afflicted kids during the past 20 years. Second, the routine, life-saving vaccines that Andy had received during the first two years of his life had at least contributed to — if not been — the cause of his illness.

On both of these issues, nothing could have been further from the truth.”

One would think such a bold statement denying a vaccine-autism link would be followed by strong supporting evidence. However, Parikh fails to provide that.

Instead, Parikh says:

“The increase in autism cases is due to a better understanding of the disorder and its prevalence.”

Parikh goes on to provide nothing but subjective reasoning to support this claim:

• There is “more professional and public awareness.”
• Kids previously classified as mentally retarded or developmentally disabled are now classified as autistic.
• There is greater incentive to diagnose kids with these disorders because kids diagnosed on the autistic spectrum qualify for state aid.

Question:

If the increase is just a case of better diagnosis, where are all the 40 year-old autistic people? If there has been no change in the rate of autism, there should be millions of autistic older adults.

And, yet, there aren’t.

Seriously, how many people over the age of 35 can even remember one person with autism while in school as a child?

Anyone who has interacted with autistic children knows that their behaviors are readily observable and difficult to hide. It is highly unlikely that autistic children would not have been noticed or mis-classified in previous generations.

Today, a classroom without a child (or several children) with autism is atypical. In fact, many school districts are buckling under the financial pressures created by the need for separate classes and programs for autistic children.

Parikh goes on to cite questionable epidemiological evidence as “proof” of no vaccine-autism connection:

“And although the research results have been soundly disproved by several subsequent studies (a 2002 study in the New England Journal of Medicine evaluated more than 500,000 children), the myth about autism and vaccines remains widespread.”

New England Journal of Medicine? 500,000 children? Sounds impressive, right? Surely that was Parikh’s intended purpose for including those details.

Parikh continues:

“Even though large, well-conducted studies have shown no link between thimerasol and autism, the compound has been removed from most vaccines because medical professionals feared a rash of vaccine refusals by parents.”

Uh, well not really.

In 1999, the FDA asked vaccine manufacturers to remove thimerosal from child vaccinations after adding the mercury contained in the existing vaccination schedule and finding that it well exceeded government exposure safety levels (by more than 100 fold). Existing vaccine stocks with thimerosal were not ordered recalled, so children may have received shots containing mercury for several years following the FDA request.

Today, thimerosal remains in the vast majority of flu shots (now part of the recommended vaccination schedule) given to children, adults, and even pregnant women. The CDC places no warning on giving mercury-containing flu shots to any group. Additionally, thimerosal is found in several other adult vaccines, including the tetanus-diphtheria booster shot. You can find a complete list here.

The fact is that not only can epidemiological studies not prove causation, but, as has been highlighted frequently in the past, some of the studies that Parikh cites as proof of no connection were also either of extremely poor statistical design and/or were revised until the desired statistical results were achieved.

For example, journalist Sharyl Atkinson details the latter in an excellent recent CBS News blog post:

Autism: Why The Debate Rages

“…One of the best examples of this is the landmark autism/vaccine study published in Pediatrics. Early in his study, the lead author, CDC’s Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, found statistically significant associations between the amount of mercury (thimerosal) exposure kids got from their childhood vaccines, and a wide range of brain disorders. However, the published version of the study (the one the authors say is accurate) found no evidence of a link to autism. Not disclosed was that Dr. Verstraeten had left CDC midstream during the study and had gone to work for Glaxo, a vaccine manufacturer. That failure to disclose was criticized in a later publication of Pediatrics, but it got little mainstream attention. Also getting little attention was a letter from well-respected scientists, also in Pediatrics, who echoed what parents of autistic children had been saying for months: they questioned the use and exclusion of certain data from Dr. Verstraeten’s study that eventually reduced the statistical ties between vaccines and neurodisorders…”

Parikh says:

“Stephen Goodman, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, has reviewed autism statistics for the past 30 years, and has this perspective: “The explosive increase that has been claimed is almost certainly not true. The numbers, if they’re rising, are not rising very quickly.”

Goodman said this even in light of a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shows 1 in 150 children are autistic. That’s because the study tells us only the current numbers of kids with autism. It says nothing about trends.”

So, if we are to listen to Dr. Parikh, the severity of the trend is of more importance than the fact that 1 out of 150 children are diagnosed with autism.

Can you imagine if 1 out of 150 children were being diagnosed with cancer? Going blind? Becoming paralyzed?

Can you imagine the public uproar that would ensue?

Parikh says:

“And on trial here, for absolutely no scientific reason, is the medical breakthrough of the 20th century — vaccines that definitively prevent disease and have saved, literally, countless numbers of lives.”

For “absolutely no scientific reason”? Here, Parikh displays either his dishonesty or his ignorance.

There is, of course, a copious amount of scientific evidence suggesting a possible link. Surely (hopefully?) Parikh knows that such biomedical evidence is being used as a primary basis for the current vaccine court case. The fact that Parikh and other professionals and “experts” write opinion pieces like his that conveniently fail to discuss the biomedical evidence, doesn’t deny its existence.

In fact, journalist and author David Kirby has put together a solid short list of the evidence from studies conducted by researchers at leading institutions:

See You In (Vaccine) Court

(Citations later added by Kirby in a separate newsgroup posting.)

1) Many children with autism, probably due to genetics, are deficient in certain sulfur-based proteins that defend against heavy metal accumulation in humans. The proteins, which include glutathione, are called “thiols,” and sometimes “mercaptans,” from the Latin mercurium captans, or literally “mercury capturers.”

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS – ARKANSAS CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
PUBLISHED IN BIOLOGY

2) Many children with autism show signs of heavy metal accumulation, including elevated levels of proteins called “prophyrins” a bio-marker of lead and mercury toxicity. They also present with low levels of mercury in baby haircuts, (versus control children) suggesting a heavy metal “efflux disorder” that prevents the proper metabolism and excretion of heavy metals.

LABORATOIRE PHILIPPE AUGUSTE, PARIS, FRANCE
PUBLISHED IN TOXICOLOGY AND APPLIED PHARMACOLOGY

3) Exposure to extremely low doses (micromolars) of thimerosal, previously thought to be safe, shut down 25% of brain stem cells, in one lab study.

UNIVERISTY OF ROCHESTER
PUBLISHED IN PLoS BIOLOGY

4) In another, low-level exposures of a few minutes duration killed many of the immune system’s “dendritic” cells, disrupted production of immune-system messenger chemicals called “cytokines,” and caused inflammation.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
PUBLISHED IN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES (NIH)

5) Meanwhile, many children with autism show signs of immune deficiency AND hyperactivity, as well as cytokine imbalances and inflammation, (they also show signs of chronic autoimmunity, where the immune system attacks the body and brain).

U.C. DAVIS M.I.N.D. INSTITUTE
POSTER PRESENTATION AT THE 2005 INTERNATIONAL MEETING FOR AUTISM RESEARCH (IMFAR)

6) Organic ethylmercury from thimerosal crosses the blood-brain barrier in primates, where it quickly converts to inorganic mercury, which can remain trapped in the brain for decades.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRIMATE CENTER
PUBLISHED IN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES (NIH)

7) Inorganic mercury trapped in primate brains caused neuro-inflammation (ie, rapid brain growth) by activating “glial” cells in the brain.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRIMATE CENTER
PUBLISHED IN NEUROTOXICOLOGY

8) Autopsies on autistic human brains found chronic inflammation, apparently linked to the brain’s immune system and produced by activation of its “glial” cells.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SCHOOK OF MEDICINE
PUBLISHED IN ANNALS OF NEUROLOGY

9) Another autopsy study also showed ongoing neuro-inflammation, possibly from heavy metal exposure, and signs of autoimmunity. (Other studies have found rapid brain growth in infants with autism.)

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
PUBLISHED IN CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHIATRY

10) Thimerosal can disrupt a chemical process called “methylation,” critical for gene expression, neural function, memory and attention, and the production of sulfur-based “thiol” proteins like glutathione.

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
PUBLISHED IN MOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY

11) Plaintiff lawyers will also show data from a study of birthday videos proving that many kids with autism were meeting or exceeding developmental milestones at age one, only to have tumbled into a wordless, autistic world by age two. They will also show home videos of plaintiff children, before and after their own regression, and in many cases, of the same children a few years after experimental treatments — including chelation (for heavy metal removal) and methyl B-12 (for repair of methylation) — that seem to have vastly improved their condition.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
PUBLISHED IN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES (NIH)

You can find more discussion of these studies and the biomedical evidence on the excellent Generation Rescue website:

Evidence: Battling Misinformation

Evidence: Published Studies

Parikh says:

“Unfortunately, Rollens and groups like Defeat Autism Now have shown little inclination to rethink their dogma.”

They have little reason to, given the mounting evidence of a vaccine-autism link and the significant improvements experienced by thousands of children treated with a biomedical approach.

Unfortunately, it is Parikh and groups like the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics that have shown little inclination to rethink their dogma.

Parikh says:

“Autism is a relatively young disorder, having first been described in the 1940s.”

Coincidentally, vaccines including the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal were introduced just prior to that time.

Parikh says:

“Although we are working very hard to get to the bottom of its causes and treatments, it’s going to take awhile.”

Read: Leave this to the “experts.” If you’re the parent of a child affected today, well, sorry about that.

In her blog post, Atkinson warns of the dangers of such an approach:

“While government scientists, advisors and pharmaceutical companies have been responsible for infinite lifesaving and life improving medical advances, they are not infallible …

… Recent history demonstrates that too often, government health officials, mainstream doctors and pharmaceutical companies aren’t on the leading edge of alerting us to health risks; they’re bringing up the rear. Patients feel left to fend for themselves, seeking independent research and opinions on their own. They and their dogged, relentless determination have often been the catalyst that eventually brings medical dangers to the forefront.”

Parikh says:

“On the other hand, we need to consider the parents of healthy kids, who worry about epidemics because a small but vocal group of autism advocates grab headlines and steal the truth.”

“Steal the truth,” Dr. Parikh?

No, they’re not stealing the truth. They’re seeking and demanding the truth because several of the institutions responsible for identifying that truth have either dragged their feet and/or abdicated their responsibilities entirely.

Parikh concludes with:

“That’s a shame, because parents have a lot of real things to worry about these days, like finding and affording a healthy and safe environment to raise their kids in, or making sure they can find a place to give them a good education. Given these challenges, they don’t deserve the extra burden of false fear.”

Finally, some things we can all agree on. A safe environment, a good education. Who can argue with those goals? Like baseball and apple pie.

Yet, how ironic is it that Parikh ends his exercise in obfuscation with a plea to eliminate the promotion of false fears, while at the same time using just such false fear himself in both his prior paragraph:

“…consider the parents of healthy kids, who worry about epidemics because a small but vocal group of autism advocates grab headlines and steal the truth.”

and in the final sentence of his opinion-piece:

“And if those lawyers trying to blame vaccines succeed, it’s a victory whose only result will be more childhood morbidity and mortality.”

Parikh would have you believe that the vaccine court is all about evil trial lawyers bent on extracting riches from the government and that a victory for parents means doom for society’s overall health.

For the parents and children affected by autism, nothing could be further from the truth.

The majority of the families affected by autism are not anti-vaccine. They are simply against a vaccination program that includes vaccines containing mercury, a potent neurotoxin, at levels well beyond the safe exposure level determined by the EPA. (The formaldehyde, aluminum, and other ingredients included in many vaccines also aren’t much in favor.)

Families are also questioning a vaccination program that has expanded greatly without adequate testing for the interactions between different vaccine antigens and the potential long-term effects of them on the immune system.

Kids today receive on average 39 shots between birth and 18 years of age. Twenty-five years ago, kids received only 11 shots.

Did we experience childhood disease epidemics in the U.S. 25 years ago?

No.

Atkinson notes in her blog post how many practitioners, scientists, and others take an unreasonable position on this point:

“Government scientists, advisors and vaccine manufacturers often take an all-or-nothing approach to vaccinations.

Government officials and infectious disease experts I’ve spoken with are fearful that if vaccine side effects are better publicized, or if a link between vaccines and autism and ADD were made, the public would overreact and lose faith in the entire vaccination program. The result, they’re afraid, would be parents refusing to give their children any vaccines, leading to new, deadly epidemics of preventable diseases. That indeed would be a disaster. However, their fears have resulted in something I call an all-or-nothing approach: they tend to promote nearly all vaccines for nearly all children as equally necessary and equally safe. Yet at the same time, if asked, they agree not all vaccines are equally safe, equally beneficial, equally necessary and equally tolerated by each individual child.”

Bottom Line

There is simply no excuse for risking the long-term health of 1 out of 150 children in this country for the sake of unquestioning compliance with a greatly expanded vaccination program that continues to include vaccines containing mercury, a known and potent neurotoxin.

As Kirby points out in his post, this isn’t just a U.S. issue. Currently, thimerosal is in most vaccines given to children outside of the U.S., Western Europe, and Russia. Are the recent increases in autism rates in China, India, and many South Asia countries also resulting from better diagnosis, or could the introduction and expansion of vaccination programs be playing a role?

The vaccine-autism link deserves closer attention and more robust research. Hopefully, despite the dogma of Parikh and others like him, we’ll see it happen and develop a better understanding of the actual truth for the sake of both families affected today and future generations.

—

You can read more about the vaccine-autism connection and find links to information about the current vaccine trial in this post:

Historic Vaccine Court Case Examining Mercury/MMR Links to Autism Begins

On my main website, you can read more about my approach to helping people affected by autism and related conditions such as ADD/ADHD.

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ADHD Tied to Higher Mercury Levels

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Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

The overall vascular effects of mercury include oxidative stress, inflammation, thrombosis, vascular smooth muscle dysfunction, endothelial dysfunction, dyslipidemia [high LDL cholesterol, low HDL, high triglycerides], immune dysfunction, and mitochondrial dysfunction. The clinical consequences of mercury toxicity include hypertension, CHD [coronary heart disease], MI [myocardial infarction], increased carotid IMT and obstruction, CVA, generalized atherosclerosis, and renal dysfunction with proteinuria …

… Cadmium concentrates in the kidney, particularly inducing proteinuria and renal dysfunction; it is associated with hypertension, but less so with CHD. Renal cadmium reduces CYP4A11 and PPARs, which may be related to hypertension, sodium retention, glucose intolerance, dyslipidemia, and zinc deficiency.

More on Mechanisms

There are several primary ways in which heavy metal exposure may increase the risk for vascular disease:

Increased Oxidative Stress - Mercury and cadmium have high affinity for molecules that contain sulfhydryl groups (-SH), including several sulfur-containing antioxidants, such as N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), alpha-lipoic acid, and glutathione. As a result, when the body is exposed to these heavy metals, antioxidant function is compromised and oxidative stress increases.

Inflammation - Oxidative stress, in turn, leads to oxidation of LDL cholesterol and increased inflammation. Immune cells (e.g., macrophages) are drawn to areas of damage in the blood vessels, consume oxidized LDL cholesterol, and form foam cells. The foam cells, along with platelets that promote the development of smooth muscle cells, build up and create blood vessel blockages.

Disruption of Enzyme Function - Both mercury and cadmium bind to enzymes and take the place of other essential minerals, such as zinc and copper. As a result, many chemical reactions that are dependent on these enzymes are negatively affected throughout the body.

For example, another recent study found that mercury activated an enzyme that promoted a process leading to the buildup of plaque on blood vessel walls.

Parinandi and colleagues focused on activation of an enzyme called phospholipase D, or PLD, in cells that line arteries in the lung. They exposed the cells to the inorganic, environmental and pharmaceutical forms of mercury, and observed that all three forms activated the enzyme.

The activation of the enzyme involves a complex sequence of events in the cell membranes that in turn releases phosphatidic acid, which can damage cells in the vessel lining - called endothelial cells - and is believed to contribute to vascular disorders.

In another enzyme example from the review article, mercury, cadmium, and other heavy metals inactivate COMT, an enzyme that promotes the breakdown of the catecholamines: epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine, and dopamine. As a result, blood pressure increases, and that, in turn, may be a sign of heavy metal toxicity.

What You Can Do

As the review article author suggests:

Heavy metal toxicity, especially mercury and cadmium, should be evaluated in any patient with hypertension, CHD, or other vascular disease.

I second that recommendation from personal experience. Seven years ago, I ate a healthy diet and exercised regularly, and yet my blood pressure was 140/95. Fortunately, I identified chronic mercury exposure as the problem, and within 6 months of safely removing the heavy metal sources, adding supportive supplementation, and beginning chelation, my blood pressure was 105/65 and has remained there ever since.

The authors of the articles above note the importance of both supportive and corrective measures, such as:

• Diet - avoiding fish high in mercury
• Supplementation
  • Antioxidants
  • Minerals - zinc, selenium
  • Omega-3 fatty acids
• Chelation - using chemical compounds that bind to the metals and remove them from the body

I agree and help people to address heavy metal toxicity using these and other measures in my counseling practice. You can read more about my approach here.

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(Image: NetWellness.org)

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Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

1. Health care costs continue to spiral upward.
2. More of these costs are being borne by individuals (you).

Runaway Costs

The first article (Health Care as if Costs Didn’t Matter) in the NY Times, highlights the large differences in care depending on geographic location.

In Idaho Falls, Idaho, anyone suffering from the sort of lower back pain that may conceivably be helped by the fusing of two vertebrae is quite likely to have the surgery. It’s known as lumbar fusion, and the rate at which it is performed in Idaho Falls is almost five times the national average. The rate in Idaho Falls is 20 times that in Bangor, Me., where lumbar fusion is less common than anywhere else …

… But it’s not clear that their patients are any better off. The evidence for lumbar fusion is incredibly mixed. It seems to help people with certain kinds of pain, but many others recover just as well without the surgery. Of course, doctors are almost always better off if the surgery is done: The typical hospital bill for lumbar fusion is roughly $50,000.

This is about as good an example as you can find of the health care mess. The number of lumbar fusions performed in this country has more than tripled since the early 1990s, and Medicare now spends more than $600 million a year on the procedure. It’s one reason your health insurance bill has gone up.

The article’s author notes that the call for universal health care may be a good idea, but that without dealing with the key cost driver (increasing usage of the system, especially expensive procedures), such an approach will be infeasible.

If we are really at the start of a once-in-a-generation push to fix health care, we need to be clear about the true problem. The main reason so many people lack health insurance is because of its cost. And a big reason for that cost is the explosion of expensive, medically questionable care, be it knee replacement, preventive angioplasty or lumbar fusion. The route to an affordable health insurance solution runs straight through this thicket.

Several individuals, including politicians on both the left and right and even the head of the Congressional Budget Office, have suggested that a cost-effectiveness institute needs to be established to figure out which kind of health care services really work.

This institute would sort through the scientific research on, say, spinal fusion and help people understand when it may make sense and when it’s likely to be just another big medical expense that doesn’t solve anything.

Medicare and private insurers could then use the research findings to determine when a procedure or a drug would be covered. There would be room for exceptions, based on a doctor’s judgment. In general, though, a doctor and a patient could proceed with dubious treatment only if they didn’t stick the rest of us with the bill.

Of course, not everyone would be happy with such a system.

[W]e shouldn’t be naïve: a lot of people would lose if medical care came to be based more on what actually worked. Right now, drug companies and medical device makers can go to the Food and Drug Administration and get approval for an expensive new product so long as they show that it’s as effective as its predecessor. They can then turn around and suggest to doctors that the new product is more effective than its predecessor. The doctors often profit, too. And many patients demand the latest, most expensive procedure, regardless of the evidence.

Ultimately, we have to make choices. To say we should just cover everyone for everything isn’t financially realistic.

Shifting Costs

Increasingly, choices and costs are being shifted to individuals through both high-deductible insurance plans and greater managing and monitoring of employee health by employers.

The LA Times recently had an interesting article on high-deductible plans (High Deductibles a Pain for Some Insured). The article notes that although high deductible plans are a good fit for relatively healthy people with some financial means, people who don’t fit this profile are increasingly choosing such plans because they’re the only plans they can afford. If/when an unexpected accident or major illness occurs, things can quickly go wrong.

When Nancy Warrington became pregnant five years ago, she quit her job to become a full-time mom. With that, she lost the family’s employer-subsidized health benefits.

Shopping for individual health insurance on their own, Warrington and her husband, Todd, settled on a plan with a $2,500 annual deductible and a $335 monthly premium.

“We were just looking for something [with a premium] we could afford,” said Warrington, 35. “The high deductible didn’t even dawn on me.”

The insurance was a mixed blessing. Although it covered Nancy’s appendicitis, Todd’s back injury and an assortment of other medical needs over the years, the annual deductible also saddled the San Diego couple with more than $10,000 in debt.

That’s the direction health insurance is headed, though. Today, there are approximately 10 million people with high deductible plans. By 2009, it’s estimated there will be 30 million people with such coverage.

Encouraging Healthy Employees

Even those people fortunate enough to have health insurance through their employers are seeing a greater focus on cost management.

Another recent NY Times article (Health Costs Push Companies to Set Targets for Workers) discusses the incentives employers are putting into place to encourage workers to adopt healthier habits, with the goals of reducing insurance premiums and health care costs.

The BB&T Corporation, a bank holding company with a big presence in the Southeast, allows workers to save 20 percent on their premiums by filling out an annual health questionnaire, allowing blood to be drawn for a medical work-up and taking a fitness test on a stationary bike.

“We have a lot of sedentary employees,” said Steve Reeder, BB&T’s benefits manager, who said more than 90 percent of the 24,000 workers with health coverage participate in the program.

If the health test finds that a BB&T employee does not meet the medical norms for his or her age and sex, the worker is assigned to a nurse who helps the person set healthy living targets and then meets with the employee periodically to see how things are going.

“If the nurse feels they are not making sufficient progress, they do have the ability to drop them from the program,” Mr. Reeder said, in which case the employee would lose the insurance discount.

Such voluntary programs have their critics (corporation as Big Brother), but they do help reduce health care usage and costs, while improving employee health.

With its testing, BB&T says it has beat its competitors on medical expenses. The $193 million that BB&T and its workers expect to spend on health care this year works out to about $8,042 an employee. The company calculates that to be about $1,100 less per person than what comparable banking companies and their workers will typically spend.

If employers have to incentivize employees to manage their own health, so be it, if it helps to improve employee health and reduce health care costs for society overall.

What You Can Do

As health care costs continue to rise and shift to the individual, nutrition is the biggest factor under your control that can reduce your risk of developing expensive chronic conditions.

The goal: Avoid the need to use health care services in the first place (except for regular preventive care).

You can learn more about nutrition, environmental, and lifestyle factors for different chronic conditions on both this blog and my main site.

You can also sign up on my main site for individualized assistance putting together an organized, comprehensive plan to prevent and deal with these conditions — and keep your long-term health care costs low.

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(Image: The New York Times)

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Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition