Drinking one or two daily sugar-sweetened beverages can lead to excess weightgain and a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In the most comprehensive review of the evidence on the health effects of sugar-sweetened beverages to date, the researchers also took a closer look at the unique role that the sweetener fructose may play in the development of these conditions.
The paper was published online September 30, 2015 in the Journal of theAmerican College of Cardiology.
Fructose is metabolized in the liver where it can be converted to fatty compounds called triglycerides, which may lead to fatty liver disease and insulin resistance, a key risk factor for developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The major source of fructose in the diet comes from fructose-containing sugars—sucrose and high fructose corn syrup—found in sugar-sweetened beverages, according to the researchers.
In the new paper, which reviewed recent epidemiological studies and meta-analyses of these studies, the researchers found that people who consumed one or two sugary drinks a day had a 35% increase in risk for heart attack or fatal heart disease, a 16% increase in risk for stroke, and a 26% increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes, when compared with people who drank fewer sugar-sweetened beverages.
“Our findings underscore the urgent need for public health strategies that reduce the consumption of these drinks,” said Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology and lead author of the paper. Research scientist Vasanti Malik co-authored the study.
You may want to pay attention to the type of beef you buy
Store-bought ground beef often contains a variety of bacteria that can make humans sick and is resistant to the drugs used to treat it, according to new data from Consumer Reports.
While most bacteria in meat can be killed when cooked correctly, many Americans prefer to eat their meat rare, putting them at a greater risk for illness—especially when the meat comes from conventionally raised cows, which are treated with antibiotics and hormones, according to a new Consumer Reports study. The study found that nearly 20% of ground beef in the U.S. tested from conventionally raised cows had bacteria resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics. Only 9% of ground beef that was sustainably made had antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
For the report, Consumer Reports purchased and tested 300 packages of conventionally and sustainably produced ground beef sold in stores around the U.S. The meat was tested for five common types of bacteria that can be found in beef: Clostridium perfringens, E. coli, Enterococcus, Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus. Bacteria of some kind was found in all of the beef samples, though sustainably produced beef was less likely to have harmful strains.
More than 80% of conventional ground beef had two types of bacteria and nearly 20% of the samples contained C. perfringens, which causes close to a million cases of food poisoning every year. “There’s no way to tell by looking at a package of meat or smelling it whether it has harmful bacteria or not,” Urvashi Rangan, executive director of the Center for Food Safety and Sustainability at Consumer Reports, said.“You have to be on guard every time.”
The research also found that 10% of the samples had a strain of S. aureus that produces a toxin that can make people ill and is not killed even when the meat is cooked properly. Still, cooking meat at 160 degrees Fahrenheit should kill most bacteria.
The findings suggest that consumers may want to look for ground beef that’s sustainably produced, with labels reading “no antibiotics,” “grass-fed,” and “organic,” according to Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports says “grass-fed organic” may be one of the best labels to go by since it means the cattle eat organic grass and forage and do not receive antibiotics or hormones.
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) secretary Tom Vilsacksaid in a statement that the agency has put tight food safety standards in place over the last six years to avoid public health problems. “Measures taken to improve ground beef safety include a zero-tolerance policy for six dangerous strains of E. coli, better procedures for detecting the source of outbreaks, improved laboratory testing, and more. USDA’s food safety inspectors work in every meat facility, every day, to reduce illnesses across all products we regulate, and we’re proud to report that illnesses attributed to those items dropped by 10% from 2013 to 2014,” he said.
A virus found in beef and dairy products may be a possible risk factor for breast cancer, according to a case-control study published in PLoS One. Researchers examined 239 donated breast tissue samples from the Cooperative Human Tissue Network archives for exposure to the bovine leukemia virus (BLV).
BLV in breast tissue was strongly associated with breast cancer diagnosis, as the virus appeared in 59 percent of those with cancer.
The researchers found 38 percent of cows used for beef and 84 percent of cows used for dairy were infected with BLV and hope these results may point to preventive techniques in the future.
Buehring GC, Shen HM, Jensen HM, Jin DL, Hudes M, Block G. Exposure to bovine leukemia virus is associated with breast cancer: a case-control study. PLoS One. 2015;10:e0134304.
Statin Muscle Toxicity New FDA warning labels citing risks of confusion, memory loss, new onset diabetes and muscle injury. Even people who don’t experience pain or weakness on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may be suffering muscle damage
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Say no to drugs by saying yes to more plants
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John McDougall MD: Pills Won’t Save You
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The Bisphosphonates: Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva, Reclast
The drugs like Boniva or Fosamax are called bisphosphonates. Bisphosphonates are very dangerous to someone’s health and should be taken off the market. That’s how dangerous these drugs are. The major problem with bisphosphonates is they increase by 50% the risk of atrial fibrillation, which is also known as irregular heart beats. Another problem with these drugs is that they stay in a woman’s tissues for longs periods of time of 5 to 10 years even after she has stopped taking them. So if a woman develops irregular heart beats as a result of taking bisphosphonates and then stops taking the medication, the irregular heart beats can continue for up to 5 to 10 years.
Bone undergoes constant turnover and is kept in balance (homeostasis) by osteoblasts creating bone and osteoclastsdestroying bone. Bisphosphonates inhibit the digestion of bone by encouraging osteoclasts to undergo apoptosis, or cell death, thereby slowing bone loss. This is not right. Bones are living tissues and we need our tissues to regenerate normally. The goal is not to stop the body from going through its normal course of homeostatis. The goal is to live an active lifestyle that prevents significant muscle and bone weaknesses to develop. If we inhibit the removal of old bone with drugs, then the bone that remains gets older, brittle and weaker than a bone that is kept healthy and flexible.
As a result of the poisoning of the osteoclasts, women taking bisphosphonates have 50% increased risk of wrist fractures and 84% increased risks of hip fractures compared to women not taking the medication. Therefore, a bisphosphonate taken to reduce bone fractures ends up increasing the risk of bone fractures! This is not a joke, it is the truth. These drugs are horrible and should be avoided.
The other negative effects of bisphosphonates include:
Reflux esophagitis and gastritis
Osteonecrosis of the jaw or dead jaw syndrome
Mid femur fracture after years of use
Bone pain, muscle cramping
Swollen ankles and feet
Finally, the long term safety data of these drugs is lacking. People are often surprised to hear the above negative information on bisphosphonates. The general thinking is that if it were true, our doctors would not prescribe these drugs. Unfortunately, we live in a world where most doctors do not read the scientific literature and are educated by pharmaceutical representatives trying to sell their drugs.
For more information on preventing or reversing osteoporosis, please refer to our section called osteoporosis.
Not long ago, it was hard to find fried foods that weren’t made with trans fat. (Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)
When all the talk tends to center around how the U.S. food system is failing people, it can be easy to forget its successes. But one of those instances has been brought to the forefront this morning.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it will implement a new near-zero tolerance ban of partially hydrogenated oils, the main source of trans fats. Food companies will be given three years to phase the ingredient out of their offerings. The decision comes on the heels of a 2013 announcement that a ban was imminent.
And it is a very big deal.
“It’s probably the single most important change in our food supply, if not in decades then ever,” said Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and a longtime advocate for the change. “This action alone will save many thousands of lives each year.”
There are various artificial sweeteners that have been banned over the years, including cyclomate in the 1960s. But none of them, Jacobson explains, have been so clearly linked to tens of thousands of deaths like trans fat. Even the introduction of nutrition facts labels in 1993, he says, though it has helped empower the population, hasn’t saved lives in such a way.
For more than a century, trans fat has been an essential part of the U.S. food system. Almost anything that was fried or baked had it. Foods that were made with trans fat tasted better, and, perhaps even more importantly, lasted longer. No one worried, because no one knew how dangerous that was.
But slowly, research started to catch on. In the 1970s and 1980s, studies began to suggest that eating the man-made fat might be tied to heart disease, at least in animals. Consumption dipped, due largely to fear that this effect might carry over to humans.
Then in 1990 a clinical study shook the ground. It found that eating trans fat led to higher levels of bad cholesterol and lower levels of good cholesterol. It also spurred a whirlwind of follow-up research, including a study by the USDA, which the food industry hoped would exculpate trans fat, but did just the opposite. Consuming it, study after study found, was associated with increased risks of heart disease.
By 2003, the government required that all foods made with trans fat carry a label.
Perhaps the most telling sign came in 2006, when New York City banned the lipid from all bakeries and restaurants. The food industry had long complained that removing trans fat would be costly, and replacing it would be very difficult. But eateries managed just fine, swapping out the banned ingredient for various other oils.
“That was really the key,” said Jacobson. “It showed that trans fat could be eliminated from pretty much anything.”
Americans have cut their intake of trans fat by roughly 85 percent over the past decade. The remaining 15 percent will be a squeeze for many food companies, which have held out. Those include some well known popcorn, frosting, and biscuit makers. Jacobson has made sure to keep track of themon Pinterest, where CSPI pictures all of the offenders.
In three years, that will no longer be necessary. What was once a staple of most commercially sold food in the United States will soon be phased out almost entirely.
“The food industry will probably continue to argue that there are some foods where you need it [trans fat],” said Jacobson. “But that’s just not true. The government knows that.”
Even if switching over proves a big expense for some confection makers, it’s safe to say that that’s trivial when compared to the health cost associated with continuing to serve trans fat to what is already one of the most obese countries in the world.
The governmental department will re-examine the science behind it, to the policies and programs that stem from it and it’s relevance to Canadians, the “changing food supply, population and demographics,” says spokesperson.
MARCUS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR
Health Canada is going to re-examine Canada’s Food Guide. Nutrition experts want fruit and vegetables put in different categories.
By:Michele HenryStaff reporter,Published on Fri Jun 12 2015
It’s sung as Canada’s gospel of proper nutrition; a trustworthy guide dispensing sound advice on how to eat well, feel well and keep thin.
But Canada’s Food Guide is under fire — within academic circles, among clinicians, in witness testimony at a senate subcommittee investigating obesity — and now, at Health Canada, which says it has decided to review the country’s official food rules.
The governmental department will re-examine every facet of Canada’s Food Guide, from the science behind it, to the policies and programs that stem from it and it’s relevance to Canadians, the “changing food supply, population and demographics,” spokesperson Eric Morrissette wrote in an email.
It’s part of a new, “recently implemented” review process to “ensure Canada’s Food Guide and related dietary guidance, continue to be current and useful,” the statement says.
The Food Guide, a rainbow graphic of food groups and portion sizes explaining how we should spend our daily calories, was last updated in 2007 — despite a rising chorus of criticism from academics and clinicians. They say it is outdated, based on observations rather than hard science and focused on nutrients when it should emphasize whole foods.
“We need to throw out the idea that dietary recommendations can be built off nutrient requirements,” says Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, a vocal critique of the guide. “We don’t shop for nutrients, we shop for food.”
Freedhoff adds that Canada’s official food rules do little for public health, but “quite a lot” to serve the interests of the food industry.
Health claims associated with the guide, such as “low in fat” and “no added sugar,” give hyper processed foods the illusion of “health in a box,” he says.
That puts the onus on the shopper to study “poorly designed nutrition fact panels,” and try to figure out whether the package is telling truth or not, he says.
Manual Arango, director of Health Policy for The Heart and Stroke Foundation, says it’s time the guide was revised — especially in its treatment of sugar.
Health Canada makes no distinction between added sugars, which are added in processing, and “free sugars,” which exist unbound from the whole foods they come from, he says, citing juice as a prime example.
Currently, the food guide says that a 1/2 cup of juice can stand in for a serving of whole fruit.
Calling it “sugar water,” Arango says he wants Health Canada to remove the recommendation immediately.
“It’s bananas,” he says. “Pure pulp fiction.”
Criticisms of the guide range widely: fruits and vegetables should be separated into two groups because Canadians already eat enough watermelon and grapes, but not enough veggies, like beets and eggplant, experts say.
Fats are absent — and they shouldn’t be, some experts say — especially with emerging evidence showing it is not fat that’s bad, but the food it comes from.
Even the science behind it is under scrutiny’s lens, says physician and University of Toronto nutritional sciences associate professor Dr. John Sievenpiper. “A big critique right now is that we don’t measure well,” he says. “We lack the big trials … the randomized trials.”
Valerie Tarasuk, professor at the University of Toronto’s Nutritional Sciences Department, says the guide, food groupings and portion sizes, are based on “sound scientific principles” and draw attention to how a healthy diet is made up of a spectrum of different foods.
If Canadians could only follow it, they would meet their nutritional needs, she says. The controversy arises from a misunderstanding of what the guide should be used for. “It’s not a prescription,” she says. “It’s an educational tool.”
Kate Comeau, registered dietitian and Dietitians of Canada spokesperson, agrees the guide is effective at starting a conversation about nutrition — with some groups, she says. But it’s “not for everyone.”
And, says Joanne Lewis, of the Diabetes Association, it is certainly not the only factor that contributes to health, and chronic disease. The environment of eating, she says, including food labels, marketing and access to food — are all important to healthier eating, she says.
If anything, what’s broken, she says, is “the way we implement” the food guide. “I would hope that the food guide is revised based on any new evidence out there.”
Lifestyle changes are often more effective in reducing the rates of heart disease, hypertension, heart failure, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and premature death than almost any other medical intervention.
Doctor’s Note
Of course, to advise patients about nutrition they first have to educate themselves, as it is unlikely they received formal nutrition education in medical training:
If you want to take advantage of Dr. Barnard’s transformation, check out his amazing 21-Day Kickstart Program, a free public service that starts the first of every month on how to transition towards a healthier diet.
If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here.
Dietary factors are considered the most important environmental risk factors for cancer. Within recent years, a large number of naturally occurring health-enhancing substances of plant origin known as phytonutrients have been recognized to have beneficial effects on certain cancers. Beans, chickpeas, split peas and lentils are packed with all sorts of wonderful nutrients, but the reason they may protect against several degenerative diseases may be due to non-nutritive compounds, or even so-called “antinutrient” compounds like phytates.
Phytates have a somewhat negative reputation for binding to certain minerals (like iron, zinc and manganese) and slowing their absorption. But they have also been found to offer anti-inflammatory health benefits. “The reputation of phytate has had a roller coaster ride ever since its discovery; it has undergone alternate eminence and infamy.” (I previously explored the surprising new science about phytates in my video Phytates for the Prevention of Osteoporosis). Could they play a potential role in preventing colon cancer?
In the U.S., colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death, but some parts of the world have had just a tiny fraction of our rates, with the highest rates reported in Connecticut, and the lowest in Kampala, Uganda. The famous surgeon Denis Burkitt spent 24 years in Uganda and most of the hospitals he contacted there had never seen a case of colon cancer. Noting they live off diets centered on whole plant foods, he figured that maybe it was the fiber that was so protective.
Some studies have called that interpretation into question. Danes appear to have more colon cancer than Finns, yet Danes consume almost twice the dietary fiber. What else, then, could explain the low cancer rates among plant-based populations? Well, fiber isn’t the only thing found in whole plant foods, but missing from processed and animal foods. Maybe it’s the phytate.
Dietary phytate, rather than fiber per se, may be the most important variable governing the frequency of colon cancer, as phytate is known to be a powerful inhibitor of the iron-mediated production of hydroxyl radicals, a particularly dangerous type of free radical. So the standard American diet may be a double whammy, the heme iron in muscle meat plus the lack of phytate in refined plant foods to extinguish the iron radicals.
This may account for what researchers found in the Adventist study, highlighted in my video, Phytates for the Prevention of Cancer. They found excess risk of cancer for higher intakes of both red meat and white meat, suggesting all meats contribute to colon cancer formation — about twice the risk for red meat eaters, and three times the risk for those eating chicken and fish.
Those who eat meat could reduce their risk in two ways: by cutting down on meat or by eating more beans, an excellent source of phytates.
So it’s not just how much meat we eat, but our meat to vegetables ratio. Between the two extremes (high-vegetable and low-meat diets versus high-meat and low-vegetable diets) a risk ratio of about eight appears to exist, sufficient to explain a substantial part of the international variation in the incidence of colorectal cancer. Those with the worst of both worlds, high meat and low vegetable, were at eight times the risk.
Michael Greger, M.D., is a physician, author, and internationally recognized professional speaker on a number of important public health issues. Dr. Greger has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit, testified before Congress, appeared on The Dr. Oz Show and The Colbert Report, and was invited as an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous “meat defamation” trial. Currently Dr. Greger proudly serves as the Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States.
The Way To Eat 