Rather Be Healthy

By now, nearly everyone interested in healthy living is aware of the recent research linking Monsanto’s GMO corn to cancer tumors and an increase risk of premature death in both men and women. News of the research is spreading like wildfire across the ‘net, and support for Proposition 37 — which seeks to label GMOs in foods — is growing by the day.

But the media has not yet reported on the everyday foods being sold in grocery stores right now and made with Monsanto’s genetically modified corn (GM corn). Which foods are most likely to contain Monsanto GM corn? To answer this question, I visited a local grocery store in Austin, Texas and purchased 10 breakfast cereals made with high levels of non-organic corn.

According to the Center for Food Safety, up to 85% of the corn grown in the United States is genetically modified. This means corn-based cereals that use non-organic corn have a very high likelihood of containing GM corn.

The following list presents the top 10 popular breakfast cereals most likely to contain Monsanto’s genetically modified corn. For the record, none of these cereals claim to be GMO-free, nor made with organic corn. The exact GMO content of these cereals remains a mystery precisely because manufacturers of these cereals refuse to label them with their GMO content. This lack of full disclosure by the food industry underscores the urgent need for a labeling law so that consumers can make an informed decision.

Legal note: In no way are we claiming these cereals will cause cancer tumors to grow in your body or that they pose an immediate risk to your health. Those studies have not yet been done on humans. GM corn is an experimental crop with unknown long-term effects of humans. Breakfast cereals made with GM corn may turn out to pose a significant long-term risk to human health, but that has not yet been determined. This article is presented in the public interest, reflecting reasonable caution over a common food ingredient which French scientists have now convincingly linked to cancer and premature death in studies conducted on rats.

The top 10 popular breakfast cereals most likely to contain Monsanto’s GM corn
Cocoa Puffs and Corn Chex

Frosted Flakes and Honey Graham Oh’s

Honey Nut Chex and Kashi Heart to Heart

Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Kellogg’s Corn Pops

Kix and Barbara’s Bakery Puffins Peanut Butter

Which cereals contain no GMOs? Nature’s Path
There is only one brand of breakfast cereal I know of that’s 100% non-GMO and 100% organic across their entire product line. That company is Nature’s Path:

If you buy breakfast cereal, and you don’t want to eat Monsanto’s GM corn, always choose cereals from Nature’s Path. This is my No. 1 most highly trusted cereal company.

Many “natural” brands that appear to be healthful and natural are actually not organic or GMO-free. For example, “Barbara’s Bakery” cereals are not organic. Although they are positioned in store shelves alongside other organic cereals, they are actually made with conventional crops grown with pesticides which may include Monsanto’s Roundup.

You may also notice that most of the cereals most likely to contain GM corn are children’s cereals. It is the children in America who are being fed the most GMOs. This represents a highly unethical food experiment being conducted on an entire generation, and the long-term effects of human consumption of GMOs are simply not known.

What we do know is that rats fed this very same Monsanto GM corn developed shockingly large cancer tumors.

The photo released by the French research team, showing large cancer tumors growing at a strongly heightened risk in rats fed a “lifetime” of Monsanto’s GM corn, is shown below. According to that study, 70% of females died premature and showed significant damage to their liver, kidneys and other organs.

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Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037315_Monsanto_GM_corn_breakfast_cereals.html#ixzz2OC69xMQi

Your support needed to stop the Monsanto Protection Act from becoming law

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039585_Monsanto_Protection_Act_Congress_HR_933.html#ixzz2OC3zETkw

The U.S. Congress is right now moving forward with the passage of the 2013 Agricultural Appropriations Bill (AAB), also known as H.R. 933, which currently contains an added “rider” that would allow agricultural biotechnology corporations like Monsanto to bypass the legal system in approving, growing and selling illegal genetically-modified (GM) seeds and crops.

Dubbed the Monsanto Protection Act by an unofficial cohort of family-scale farmers and health freedom advocates, the so-called Farmer Assurance Provision of the Agricultural Appropriations Bill threatens to undo constitutional guidelines that allow the justice system to rightly intervene in cases where the safety of illegally-approved GMOs are called into question.

If passed, the Farmer Assurance Provision would basically allow GMO purveyors like Monsanto and BASF to continue marketing and planting GM seeds found to have been illegally approved by federal regulatory bodies. Currently, federal courts can enact a moratorium while a case is in progress, but the Farmer Assurance Provision would nix this power and allow the biotechnology industry to continue business as normal without restraint.

“The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards,” explains a letter to the House signed by family farmers and others opposed to the biotech rider.

“Further, it would compel USDA to allow continued planting of that same crop upon request, even if in the course of its assessment the Department finds that it poses previously unrecognized risks.”

Put another way, the Farmer Assurance Provision, which is located in Section 733 of H.R. 933, would block organic and non-GMO farmers from equal protection under the law, particularly in cases involving crop contamination and patent infringement. This means Monsanto and others would have ruthless new freedoms to exploit the agricultural system at the expense of small-scale farms and the public.

Your support needed to stop the Monsanto Protection Act from becoming law
Last summer, the Center for Food Safety (CFS), Food Democracy Now (FDN), the National Organic Coalition (NOC), and dozens of other businesses, retailers, family farm groups, and others signed an official letter of opposition to the Monsanto Protection Act that they collectively sent to the House of Representatives. But this letter appears to have been ignored, as the threat of the rider’s passage looms imminent.

So the Alliance for Natural Health – USA (ANH-USA) has issued a new and urgent warning about the Monsanto Protection Act, urging health freedom advocates everywhere to bombard their state Senators and Representatives with opposition to its passage. According to the alert, a secret, “backroom” deal may have already been made, as debates over H.R. 933 have officially ended without the illicit rider having been removed, but there is still time to stop it.

“If this provision becomes law, it will be a huge blow to the justice system, completely overriding judicial safeguards that protect both farmers and the public, and rendering judges’ rulings irrelevant,” says ANH-USA.

“The general consensus on the Hill is that once the Senate acts, the House Appropriations Committee leadership is prepared to take the modified Senate CR (Continuing Resolution, which still contains the Monsanto rider), directly to the House floor, possibly as early as Thursday. This is why urgent grassroots action is required to ensure that does not happen.”

ANH-USA is urging the public to contact both chambers of Congress immediately, and demand that the Monsanto rider be removed from H.R. 933. You can access the ANH-USA Action Alert portal here:

URGENT Action Alert to Congress—Stop the Monsanto Rider!

Sources for this article include:

URGENT Action Alert to Congress—Stop the Monsanto Rider!

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

I believe many of our country’s chronic health problems would simply disappear if greater attention was paid to the root problem — the food you eat.

Americans’ reliance on processed foods is a major factor that drives the rampant disease increases in the US, such as diabetes. According to a new report from the American Diabetes Association,1 an estimated 22.3 million people were living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes in 2012, up from 17.5 million in 2007.

But why do Americans buy so much processed food and junky snacks? Well, first of all, junk foods are heavily promoted by the US government via agricultural subsidies for crops like corn and soy.

Add to that misleading yet highly effective marketing, and — the focus of this article — the addictive nature of junk food, which is a science in and of itself.

In order to protect your health, I advise spending 90 percent of your food budget on whole foods, and only 10 percent on processed foods. Most Americans currently do the opposite, and this will undoubtedly have an effect on your health, especially in the long term.

The Food Industry’s Role in America’s Health Crisis

In the featured New York Times article,2 investigative reporter Michael Moss writes about the extraordinary science behind taste and junk food addiction, and how multinational food companies struggle to maintain their “stomach shares” in the face of mounting evidence that their foods are driving the health crisis.

In it, he mentions a 1999 meeting between 11 CEO’s in charge of America’s largest food companies, including Kraft, Nabisco, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and Mars. He writes:

“James Behnke, a 55-year-old executive at Pillsbury… was anxious but also hopeful about the plan that he and a few other food-company executives had devised to engage the C.E.O.’s on America’s growing weight problem. ‘We were very concerned, and rightfully so, that obesity was becoming a major issue… [T]here was a lot of pressure on food companies.’

…[Behnke] was engaged in conversation with a group of food-science experts who were painting an increasingly grim picture of the public’s ability to cope with the industry’s formulations — from the body’s fragile controls on overeating to the hidden power of some processed foods to make people feel hungrier still. It was time, he and a handful of others felt, to warn the C.E.O.’s that their companies may have gone too far in creating and marketing products that posed the greatest health concerns.”

The Parallels Between Cigarettes and Junk Food

On that day in 1999, Michael Mudd, vice president of Kraft, did “the unthinkable” during his speech — he drew a connection between processed foods and cigarettes. We no longer condone cigarette ads for teens, having clearly established the health hazards associated with smoking, despite decades-long denials from the industry.

Yet we now blindly accept the same kind of misleading tactics being applied to junk food, even though the health ramifications rival, if not surpass, those of smoking. Mudd presented a plan to address the obesity problem, which would help defuse the criticism building against the food industry.

In my view, the criticism was, and still is, justifiable. As just one example, General Mills created Yoplait that same year (1999), which “transformed traditional unsweetened breakfast yogurt into a veritable dessert,” to use Moss’ own words. In fact, Yoplait yoghurt contained 100 percent more sugar per serving than the company’s Lucky Charms cereal! Yet everyone recognized yoghurt as a wholesome food, and sales of Yoplait soared.

Mudd proposed employing scientists “to gain a deeper understanding of what was driving Americans to overeat.” Once they knew that, products could then be reformulated; salt, sugar and fat use could be reined in, and advertising could be repositioned. The 1999 meeting didn’t go well. It effectively ended when Stephen Sanger, head of General Mills, allegedly stated he would not jeopardize the sanctity of the recipes that had made his products so successful in order to appease the critics.

Fast-forward a decade and we now have novel biotech flavor companies like Senomyx, which specializes in helping companies do what Mudd proposed — finding new flavors to reduce sugar and salt content in processed foods.

These “flavor enhancers” are created using secret, patented processes, and they do not need to be listed on the food label. The lack of labeling requirements is particularly troublesome and will most likely become an issue in the future. As of now, they simply fall under the generic category of artificial and/or natural flavors. What this means is that the product will appear to be much “healthier” than it might otherwise be, were a flavor enhancer not used. The question is, are chemical flavor enhancers safe? Or are food companies simply exchanging one harmful substance for another? That remains to be seen.

This is a Flash-based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices.

The Flavorists. Morley Safer reports on the multibillion dollar flavor industry, whose scientists create natural and artificial flavorings that make your mouth water and keep you coming back for more. For transcript, see CBSNews.com

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

Canadian and American obesity statistics are now neck-to-neck, with about one-quarter to one third of adults in the obese category. A staggering two-thirds of Americans are overweight. This in turn drives skyrocketing diabetes rates.

According to the latest report from the American Diabetes Association,3 an estimated 22.3 million people were living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes in 2012, up from 17.5 million in 2007. Last year 246,000 deaths were attributed to diabetes. The UK also recently released updated statistics, showing a record three million Britons are now diagnosed with diabetes,4 which equates to 4.6 percent of the British population. Another 850,000 Britons are believed to have undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes.

The total cost of diagnosed diabetes in the US last year was $245 billion, a whopping 41 percent increase from the $174 billion spent in 2007.5 Obesity also drives rising rates of heart disease, kidney failure, gout, and blindness, just to name a few associated health problems, all of which contribute to soaring health care costs.

So who or what is to blame? As it turns out, poor will power is NOT the heart of the matter.

According to Moss’ four-year long investigation, interviewing more than 300 people in or formerly employed by the processed-food industry, there’s a conscious effort on behalf of food manufacturers to get you hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive to make. I recommend reading the featured article in its entirety, as it offers a series of case studies that shed light on the extraordinary science and marketing tactics that make junk food so hard to resist.

Finding Your Bliss Point

Moss’ work also resulted in the book Salt Sugar Fat, in which he dissects the $1 trillion processed food industry. Sugar, salt and fat are the top three substances making processed foods so addictive. In a Time Magazine interview6 discussing his book, Moss says:

“One of the things that really surprised me was how concerted and targeted the effort is by food companies to hit the magical formulation. Take sugar for example. The optimum amount of sugar in a product became known as the ‘bliss point.’ Food inventors and scientists spend a huge amount of time formulating the perfect amount of sugar that will send us over the moon, and send products flying off the shelves. It is the process they’ve engineered that struck me as really stunning.

When it came to fat, it was the amazing role of what the industry calls the ‘mouth feel.’ That’s the warm, gooey taste of cheese, or the bite into a crisp fried chicken that you get. It rushes right to the same pleasure centers of the brain that sugar does…

When it comes to salt, what was really staggering to me is that the industry itself is totally hooked on salt. It is this miracle ingredient that solves all of their problems. There is the flavor burst to the salt itself, but it also serves as a preservative so foods can stay on the shelves for months. It also masks a lot of the off-notes in flavors that are inherent to processed foods.”

One of the guiding principles for the processed food industry is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” Moss describes this as “the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm your brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more.” The greatest successes, whether beverages or foods, owe their “craveability” to complex formulas that pique your taste buds just enough, without overwhelming them, thereby overriding your brain’s inclination to say “enough.”

“Vanishing calorie density” is another term used to describe foods that melt in your mouth, which has the effect of making your brain think it doesn’t contain any calories. End result — you keep eating. Cheetos is one such example. In all, potato chips are among the most addictive junk foods on the market, containing all three bliss-inducing ingredients: sugar (from the potato), salt and fat. One 2011 study cited by Moss determined that the top contributors to Americans weight gain included red meat, processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, potatoes, and topping the list: potato chips.

“The coating of salt, the fat content that rewards the brain with instant feelings of pleasure, the sugar that exists not as an additive but in the starch of the potato itself — all of this combines to make it the perfect addictive food,” Moss writes.

Sugar — One of the Most Addictive Substances Known

While food companies abhor the word “addiction” in reference to their products, scientists have discovered that sugar, in particular, is just that. In fact, sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Research7 published in 2007 showed that 94 percent of rats who were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between sugar water and cocaine, chose sugar. Even rats who were addicted to cocaine quickly switched their preference to sugar, once it was offered as a choice. The rats were also more willing to work for sugar than for cocaine.

The researchers speculate that the sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on the tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to modern times’ high-sugar consumption. Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms, and thus lead to addiction.

Even more interesting, their research found that there’s also a cross-tolerance and a cross-dependence between sugars and addictive drugs. As an example, animals with a long history of sugar consumption actually became tolerant (desensitized) to the analgesic effects of morphine. Today, prescription pain killers have surpassed illegal drugs as the preferred “high,” and pharmaceutical drug overdoses now rank second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of accidental death in the US. Unfortunately, since it’s all legal, no one is really cracking down on this growing drug problem that is wrecking lives each day.

According to Moss:8

“[T]he food industry defends itself by saying true narcotic addiction has certain technical thresholds that you just don’t find in food addiction. It’s true, but in some ways getting unhooked on foods is harder than getting unhooked on narcotics, because you can’t go cold turkey. You can’t just stop eating.”

It’s important to realize that added sugar (typically in the form of high fructose corn syrup) is not confined to junky snack foods. For example, most of Prego’s spaghetti sauces have one common feature, and that is sugar — it’s the second largest ingredient, right after tomatoes. A half-cup of Prego Traditional contains the equivalent of more than two teaspoons of sugar.

Two Moms Take on Kraft

In related news, two moms have taken on Kraft. They started an online petition, calling for the food giant to remove two artificial food ingredients, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6, from its Macaroni and Cheese. These artificial dyes have been linked to hyperactivity in children, and are banned for use in the UK. More than 220,000 signatures have been collected so far. Kraft’s response?

“… in the US, we only use colors that are approved and deemed safe for food use by the Food and Drug Administration.”

If you, like so many others, aren’t impressed by this response, feel free to sign the petition, available on Change.org.

This is a Flash-based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices.

Troubled Meats Get a Makeover

Another food many don’t automatically view as health-harming is processed meats. Moss includes the case story of Bob Drane, vice president of Oscar Meyer, who in 1985 was tasked with figuring out how to contemporize their processed meat offerings. Interviews with harried mothers revealed that the most important issue for them was time, which resulted in the development of a convenient prepackaged lunch containing the company’s pre-sliced bologna and ham, better known as Lunchables. A later line of the lunch trays, called Maxed Out, contained, two-thirds of the maximum recommended sodium allowance for kids, and a staggering 13 teaspoons of sugar.

The Atlantic9 recently reported that “consuming processed meat went along with other unhealthful lifestyle choices, such as eating few fruits and vegetables, being more likely to smoke and, for men, consuming large quantities of alcohol.”

The new study, which reconfirms results from previous studies, found processed meat consumption was strongly associated with premature death.10 According to the researchers, reducing daily processed meat consumption to less than 20 grams a day could reduce mortality rates across Europe by three percent annually. This includes bacon, sausage of all kinds, sandwich meats (cold cuts), and any other processed “meat product.”

In 2011, the World Cancer Research Fund came to the sobering conclusion that no one should eat processed meats, ever, due to its cancer-causing potential. Hot dogs, bacon, salami and other processed meats may also increase your risk of diabetes by 50 percent, and lower your lung function and increase your risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A 2007 analysis by WCRF found that eating just one sausage a day can significantly raise your risk of bowel cancer. Specifically, 1.8 ounces of processed meat daily — about one sausage or three pieces of bacon — raises the likelihood of the cancer by 20 percent. Other studies have also found that processed meats increase your risk of:
•Colon cancer by 50 percent
•Bladder cancer by 59 percent
•Stomach cancer by 38 percent
•Pancreatic cancer by 67 percent

What Do Processed Food Company Executives Eat?

Another interesting tidbit offered up by Moss is the eating habits of the food scientists and processed food company executives themselves, whom he met while researching his book. Just like many of our American Presidents, they apparently know more about maintaining their own health than they want you to know about.

Last year, I wrote about political supporters of genetically engineered (GE) foods insisting on all organic fare for themselves and their families while promoting unlabeled GE foods for everyone else. This includes President Obama, who vowed to label GMO’s if elected, but then spent the first four years appointing one Monsanto shill after another into key federal positions that wield near-absolute power over agricultural issues, and never took affirmative action on the labeling issue, even during the height of the California Prop 37 campaign. In the same vein, Moss discovered that many of the food executives and scientists he met avoid their own foods for a variety of health reasons:

“It was everything from a former top scientist at Kraft saying he used to maintain his weight by jogging, and then he blew out his knee and couldn’t exercise, his solution was to avoid sugar and all caloric drinks, including all the Kool-Aid and sugary drinks that Kraft makes,” Moss says.

“It ranged from him to the former top scientist at Frito Lay. I spent days at his house going over documents relating to his efforts at Frito Lay to push the company to cut back on salt. He served me plain, cooked oatmeal and raw asparagus for lunch. We toured his kitchen, and he did not have one single processed food product in his cupboards or refrigerator.

…One reason they don’t eat their own products, is that they know better. They know about the addictive properties of sugar, salt and fat. As insiders, they know too much. I think a lot of them have come to feel badly…”

As Moss says, it’s not that these companies have the demise of your health as a defined business goal. But they do want you to buy their product, and the more the better. Taste is a major, if not overriding factor here, and processed food without generous amounts of sugar, salt and unhealthy fats (like trans fat) would simply be too unpalatable to most. So while some companies, such as Kraft, have tried to alter their formulas to make them “healthier,” the fact remains that processed food is inferior to the real thing no matter how you finagle it. You simply cannot compete with the nutrition found in whole, unprocessed foods.

“Ultimately, they ran into the problem that the whole industry faces, which is the huge pressure from Wall Street and the investment community to increase profits,” Moss says.

How to Eat Real Food on a Budget

This concerted effort by the industry is further enhanced by stimulating your metabolism to burn carbs as its primary fuel. As long as you are in primary carb-burning mode you will strongly crave these types of foods. But once you start decreasing your carbs and protein and replace them with high quality fats, and start to engage in intermittent fasting, your cravings for these junk foods, no matter how cleverly enhanced, will dramatically diminish, if not vanish altogether.

In order to protect your health, I believe you should spend 90 percent of your food budget on whole foods, and only 10 percent on processed foods (unfortunately most Americans currently do the opposite). This requires three strategies, especially if you’re working with a tight budget:
•Become resourceful: This is an area where your grandmother can be a wealth of information, as how to use up every morsel of food and stretch out a good meal was common knowledge to generations past. What I mean is getting back to the basics of cooking — using the bones from a roast chicken to make stock for a pot of soup, extending a Sunday roast to use for weekday dinners, learning how to make hearty stews from inexpensive cuts of meat, using up leftovers and so on.
•Plan your meals: This is essential, as you will need to be prepared for mealtimes in advance to be successful for if you fail to plan, by default you are planning to fail. Ideally this will involve scouting out your local farmer’s markets for in-season produce that is priced to sell, and planning your meals accordingly, but you can also use this same premise with supermarket sales. You can generally plan a week of meals at a time, make sure you have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you’re short on time in the evenings.
•Avoid food waste: According to a study published in the journal PloS One,11 Americans waste an estimated 1,400 calories of food per person, each and every day. The two steps above will help you to mitigate food waste in your home, You may also have seen my article from earlier this year titled 14 Ways to Save Money on Groceries. Among those tips are suggestions for keeping your groceries fresher, longer, and I suggest reviewing those tips now.

When choosing real foods to feed your family, remember that some of the healthiest foods are incredibly affordable, even under $1 a serving, such as:
•Raw organic milk
•Raw nuts and seeds
•Two cage-free organic eggs
•Avocado, berries and broccoli
•Fermented foods you make at home

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Children’s health and full potential are being limited before their lives have begun, starting in the womb and continuing through birth and the early years.

A number of abuses to their developing bodies and minds come from their mothers’ diets, standard childbirth practices, and poor nutrition. To give your children the best chance for full and healthy lives, you need to know the difference between what’s harmful and what’s healthy.

Trouble can start before your child is conceived. To give birth to a healthy baby, your own health is critical, but concerns don’t end there.

You need to know how to protect your baby and yourself from harmful medical practices during birth and to provide them with nutrition that develops sound bodies and minds.

Serious Health Problems Can Start with Mother’s Excess Weight

Babies of obese mothers are born with thickened aorta walls, a common sign of impending cardiovascular disease, according to a new study. The research team expressed concern that the earliest signs of heart disease are seen in a thickened abdominal aorta, so these babies may be at far higher risk of heart disease and stroke.1

The newborn’s weight does not appear to make a difference. Researchers found that when mothers are obese, babies are born with thickened aortal walls and a likely predisposition to cardiovascular disease.

If you’re a woman with weight problems, it would be helpful to take steps to address this major risk factor it before becoming pregnant. You can, though, take heart in knowing that every pound of unhealthy weight you lose will benefit your baby, because the study found that less weight means thinner arteries, even if you aren’t able to reach your ideal weight.

If you’ve tried to follow typical diet plans that focus on restricting calories, be sure to investigate my Nutrition Plan which will help you get away from the yoyo of quick weight loss followed by rebounding and gaining even more than before the diet.

The Type of Fat Consumer Seriously Affects Baby’s Health

A new University of Kansas study reports multiple benefits for infants of mothers given the omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, during pregnancy. Their babies not only weighed more at birth, their weight was less likely to be low, and they had a better chance of being born full term.2

DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) is one of the omega-3 fatty acids that your body cannot synthesize and is required for health. While it’s usually best to get nutrients from your food, omega-3 fatty acids are an exception. The best food sources are fish, but unfortunately, they’re often polluted with mercury, PCBs, and other toxins. Therefore, this is one exception to the rule. You’re better off taking an animal-derived omega-3 supplement than eating most of the foods that provide it.

Some Beverages Should Be Avoided During Pregnancy

You are what you eat — and your baby’s nutrition comes from your diet. That’s why two beverages should probably be limited or stricken from the pregnant woman’s diet altogether: coffee and alcohol. New studies have documented that both have bad effects on a baby’s health.
•Caffeine consumption during pregnancy can result in two seemingly contradictory results. Babies may suffer from low birth weight and pregnancies may be too long.3 There is also a well known correlation with caffeine consumption, especially during early pregnancy, and increased risk of birth defects and miscarriage.4
•Alcohol abuse during pregnancy has been implicated in 1 of 6 cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and 3% of other infant deaths.5

Of course, the drink you associate most with caffeine is probably coffee, which does have a beneficial side, if it is high quality and made safely. Pregnancy, though, is a game changer. Although the study’s authors are cautious in pointing out that a cause and effect connection hasn’t been shown between coffee and low birth weight or extended pregnancy, do you really want to take a chance with your baby’s well-being?

You are probably aware already that fructose can be harmful to your health. At a minimum, it exacerbates many conditions, and is the cause of many others. Particularly significant during pregnancy, though, is that fructose’s even more evil offspring, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) causes obesity.6 Fructose is similar to alcohol, so it’s not surprising that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause so much harm to babies in the womb.

The Best Start in Life Is Natural Birth

Trillions of microorganisms in the human gastrointestinal tract form an intricate, living fabric of natural controls affecting body weight, energy, and nutrition, according to a recent study.7 Anything that upsets the natural balance of gut bacteria could negatively impact your newborn’s health.

Babies born by caesarian sections are missing an entire group of bacteria normally found in the gastrointestinal tract, according to a New York Times report of a new study.8 It found that the microbiota of infants born by caesarian delivery is particularly low in bacterial numbers and diversity.9 Children born by caesarians are five times more likely to suffer with allergies than those born naturally.

Scientists believe the loss of bacterial diversity provided by passage through the birth canal is the reason. Prevent Disease reports that lead researcher, Dr. Christine Cole Johnson, says, “We believe a baby’s exposure to bacteria in the birth canal is a major influencer on their immune system.” C-section-delivered children are far more likely to develop allergic reactions to common household substances, such as dust mite droppings and pet dander. Prevent Disease reports other health problems more common to children born by caesarian deliveries:10
•A Danish study of 34,000 deliveries found that C-section births may be causing babies to suffer four times more respiratory problems.
•Obesity rates may be doubled.
•Food allergies are more common.

Mothers who undergo caesarian deliveries also suffer health problems. They are more likely to have placenta problems during a second pregnancy. The risk of a uterine rupture during a later vaginal delivery is 50 times more likely! One study from Latin America reports that non-emergency caesarians double the mother’s risk of illness and death.

In fact, there is a growing body of clinical evidence that caesarian deliveries increase the risk of over 30 adverse health outcomes, which is all the more tragic considering how many are now being performed electively as a “convenience” or “precaution.”11 Suffice it to say, you should avoid caesarian deliveries unless it’s medically necessary for both your baby’s health and your own.

Natural Birth Is More Than Avoiding Caesarian: Cord Clamping

The standard routine in most hospitals, and even by most midwives, is to clamp the umbilical cord as soon as possible.12 It may be the single most harmful medical procedure because it is done to nearly everyone. At birth, about one-third of a newborn infant’s blood is in the cord. It is your child’s birthright. Here’s what happens because of impatience to clamp the cord:
•Iron deficiency anemia is a serious problem in newborns. By waiting until the cord blood has literally pulsed into your infant’s body, this risk is almost eliminated.
•Oxygen deprivation is one of the greatest causes of neonatal death. Early cord clamping loses a third of a baby’s oxygen.
•Red blood cells carry that life-giving oxygen, so babies start life without a third of their blood.
•White blood cells and antibodies are one of the most important factors in fighting infections. A full third of newborns’ ability to fight pathogens is stolen from them.
•Stem cells in cord blood are everyone’s birthright. By clamping the cord early, the equivalent of an autologous stem cell transplant is lost.

If you insisting on waiting to cut the umbilical cord until it stops pulsing, rarely more than 90 seconds, you will be providing your newborn an edge that may save her life.

Your baby loses up to a third of the blood that rightfully belongs to him because of routine cord clamping. Dr. Alan Green gave an entertaining and impassioned TED Talk, “90 Seconds to Change the World,” explaining how it came to be routine and what is lost to nearly every person born today:

Breast Milk: Perfect Nutrition from Birth

While in the womb, your baby’s nutritional needs are met by you. Most women can continue to provide the perfect food. Breastfeeding is not only the least expensive way to feed and protect your new child’s health, it also helps you transition into being a mother. Your brain is activated to respond to your own infant’s cry and helps to build the empathy needed to develop a strong mother-child bond.13

The same study that demonstrated the importance of natural childbirth for healthy gut microbiota also showed that babies fed breast milk have a better balance of bacteria than formula-fed babies. As a result, their digestion and immune systems are better, and inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, cancer, or allergies are less likely to afflict them. Breast milk provides several critical factors that affect your baby’s wellbeing for the rest of his life:
•Antibodies are transferred to the baby, providing immunity to the same diseases that the mother is protected from.
•Neurotrophic factors — from ancient Greek meaning nerve nourishing factors — help your baby’s brain grow to her best potential.
•Cytokines in breast milk are involved in cellular communication and immune response.
•Protein extracts from breast milk increase survival of intestinal neurons and growth of neurites, which are extensions of neurons.

The brain and gut grow from the same tissue during early fetal development. They’re connected by the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain to the abdomen, allowing them to coordinate and communicate. The gut is truly a second brain. So providing your child’s digestive tract with well balanced gut flora also improves brain function, and after birth nothing does that better than breast feeding.

Breastfeeding Saves Babies’ Lives

A report from Save the Children calls breast milk “Superfood for Babies.” It estimates that 830,000 newborns’ lives could be saved each year if they were breastfed during the first hour of life.14 That simple change is all it would take because the mother’s milk during the first couple of days after birth is colostrum, which contains more concentrated nutrients and antibodies, specially made to nourish and protect newborns whose digestive systems are quite small.

Colostrum has a mild laxative effect, helping the newborn expel the first stool, called meconium. This stool contains excess bilirubin, which results from the large number of red blood cells produced to help prevent jaundice.16 It also contains high quantities of white blood cells called leukocytes to help protect the new child from disease. The first hour of birth is referred to as the power hour. Not only does beast feeding your baby early provide a jumpstart to a life of good health, it also helps assure that you’ll continue breastfeeding for at least six months.15

However there are many factors that impair a woman’s ability to breastfed. So rather than feeling guilty and stopping breast feeding, if you or someone you know finds yourself in that group that it would be wise to consult with a lactation consultant or contact LaLeche League to guide you through the process of seeking to address the reasons that are preventing you from breastfeeding.

Do You Know What Your Children Are Eating?

National Public Radio (NPR) conducted a poll to see if children are actually eating what their parents believe. The disappointing results showed that the reality was not as parents thought. NPR reported that 87% of parents believed their children were eating much healthier food than proved to be the reality.17

One parent, Deborah Richards of Oakland, California, said that her son, Donta, ate well. NPR reported that she believes he eats a healthier diet than she does. That proved not to be true. Donta said that his regular breakfast consists of a pack of Skittles candies. Obviously, in today’s busy world it is very difficult to know just what your children are eating. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that good eating habits are instilled very early in life.

Your Child’s Lifelong Welfare Depends on You

People did not always need to think about health. Hunter-gatherer diets were naturally healthy. Exercise was a given, because survival required being physically active. Now, though, things have changed. Food does not generally arrive through foraging or hunting. Employment keeps most of us inside and inactive most of the time. Natural methods of giving birth have given way to ritualized medical techniques that run counter to both the child’s and mother’s wellbeing. Children don’t spend most of their time with parents, learning how to survive by watching and receiving instruction as needed.

Today, far too many people have little awareness of their basic health requirements, and the result is showing up in the misery of chronic disease. Young children are suffering diseases that their grandparents saw only in their own grandparents. It has become critical to educate yourself so that you can save your children from lives circumscribed by ill health.

Whether already born or still a twinkle in their father’s eye, if you want your children to lead full and healthy lives, you need to optimize your own health and your knowledge of foods and methods that support health.

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Montana Restaurant

The radio station America FM was doing one of its ‘Is Anyone Listening?’ bits this morning. The first question was; ‘Ever have a celebrity come up with the, ‘Do you know who I am?’ routine?’

A woman called in and said that a few years ago, while visiting her cattle rancher uncle in Billings, MT, she had occasion to go to dinner at a restaurant that does not take reservations. The wait was about 45 minutes; many local ranchers and their wives were waiting.

Ted Turner and his ex-wife Jane Fonda came in the restaurant and wanted a table. The hostess informed them that they’d have to wait 45 minutes.

Jane Fonda asked the hostess, ‘Do you know who I am? The hostess answered,’Yes, but you’ll have to wait 45 minutes.’

Then Jane asked if the manager was in. When the manager came out, he asked, ‘May I help you?’.

‘Do you know who we are?’ both Ted and Jane asked.

Yes, but these folks have been waiting, and I can’t put you ahead of them.’

Then Ted asked to speak to the owner. The owner came out, and Jane again asked, ‘Do you know who I am?

The owner answered, ‘Yes, I do. Do you know who I am? I am the owner of this restaurant and I am a Vietnam Veteran. Not only will you not get a table ahead of my friends and neighbors who have been waiting in line, but you also will not be eating in my restaurant tonight or any other night. Good Bye.’

Only in America , is this a great country or what?

To all who received this, this is a true story and the name of the steak house is:

Sir Scott’s Oasis Steakhouse
204 W. Main ,
Manhattan , MT 59741
(406) 284-6929

If you ever get there, give this fellow a sharp salute, buy a steak, and tip the waitress. They have ten steaks on their simple menu from 12 oz. to 32 oz. OH, there toothpicks on every table!

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What’s Fueling the Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Bugs?

Infections associated with antibiotic resistant “super germs” are increasing in hospitals across the United States. First it was MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), once rare but now far too commonplace in medical settings.

Although mortality rates have decreased, MRSA is believed to kill 18,650 people each year in the US, which is more than are killed by AIDS.1 But recently, concerns have shifted to even more dangerous bacteria called CRE.

When bacteria such as Klebsiella produce the enzyme carbapenemase (referred to as KPC-producing organisms), the class of antibiotics called carbapenems will not kill them, giving rise to the name carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE.2 CRE has been dubbed a “nightmare bacteria” by the CDC’s Director Tom Frieden because of their extreme resilience—it’s nearly impossible to kill them.

These super germs pose a triple-threat that makes them nearly impossible to kill with conventional antibiotics:3
•CRE are resistant to virtually all antibiotics, including the ones doctors use as a last-ditch effort to treat an infection
•The organisms can transfer their virility to other bacteria, making containment much more of a challenge.
•CRE bacterial infections are quite deadly, with a fatality rate as high as 50 percent.

According to a CDC Fact Sheet:4
•About four percent of US hospitals had at least one patient with CRE infections during the first half of 2012, and about 18 percent of long-term care hospitals had at least one case of CRE
•CRE germs have increased from one to four percent over the past decade, and one type has increased from two to 10 percent
•These nightmare bacteria have now been confirmed in medical facilities in 42 states over the past ten years5

The Star of This Horror Show: Klebsiella

Klebsiella6 are Gram-negative bacteria that can cause a number of different infections, including pneumonia, bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections, wound or surgical site infections, and meningitis. Klebsiella are often found in the human intestinal tract, where they are normally harmless. But if your immune system is compromised and you get exposed to this especially virulent form of Klebsiella, the consequences to you can be deadly. Children and the elderly are particularly susceptible. Factors that may increase your risk include the following:
•Hospitalization (especially in an ICU), major surgery, or severe illness
•Prolonged use of invasive medical devices
•Immunocompromised states (e.g., diabetes, cancer, poor diet, excess stress)
•Antimicrobial therapy (by killing the weaker microbes, which allows the more virulent types to flourish)
•Inadequate infection control practices

According to the CDC, Klebsiella infections tend to occur in patients whose care requires medical devices such as ventilators and IV catheters. The infection is spread by contaminated medical equipment and by physical contact between patients and healthcare personnel. These superbugs are growing increasingly resistant to the standard sterilization procedures used on medical equipment.

According to Thomas Frieden, Director of the CDC, if these bacteria spread to more common organisms such as E. coli, which are common causes of urinary tract infections, then the problem will be far more serious than it is now. And if the hypervirulent organisms make their way into the general public, we’ll really have a problem on our hands.

Well, it appears that may already be happening.

According to an article in Science Daily,7 drug-resistant strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae have been identified in several North American cities (including Buffalo, New York) and in Europe, Canada, Israel, and South Africa. University of Buffalo researchers characterize it as “under-recognized” by both physicians and microbiology laboratories. Infections typically present as a liver abscess in young and healthy people in the community, then tends to spread to other areas of their body, such as their lungs, brain and eyes, where it can cause brain damage and/or blindness. Between 10 and 30 percent of cases are fatal, which is a frighteningly high number for an otherwise healthy population!

What’s Fueling the Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Bugs?

In order to effectively combat this issue, it’s important to realize that antibiotic-resistant infections are a man-made problem caused by overuse of antibiotics both in medicine and agriculture. It’s not merely lack of hygiene or improper disinfection techniques that have made these superbugs impervious to nearly all of the drugs at our disposal. Superbugs have been known to survive on medical equipment that’s been disinfected with bleach!

About 70 percent of antibiotic use in the United States is for agricultural purposes. Animals are often fed low-dose antibiotics to prevent diseases and promote growth, and not only are those antibiotics transferred to you via your meat and even manure used for fertilizer but they also result in producing a highly antibiotic-resistant subpopulation of bacteria that end up on and within your food and eventually your body if you eat it.

The antibiotic resistance problem is abundantly evident when you look at what’s commonly found in grocery store meat and poultry—nearly half of the meat in the US is crawling with antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria.

The prophylactic use of antibiotics in livestock is unnecessary if the animals are raised correctly. One chicken farmer has demonstrated that even large-scale animal farming can manage without routine administration of antibiotic drugs by instead using an herbal blend of oregano oil and cinnamon.

Antibiotic overuse is a major threat to public health. Recent research shows children whose mothers took antibiotics during their pregnancies were more likely to develop asthma. It is also well known that the use of intrapartum antibiotics at birth in women who have tested positive for group B Streptoccous results in significantly increased risk of late-onset, serious antibiotic-resistant infection in those infants.8

A baby gets his or her first “inoculation” of gut flora from the mother’s birth canal during childbirth, which is why a mother’s use of antibiotics during pregnancy or at birth may predispose her child to asthma and a variety of other ailments, including neurological dysfunction and autoimmune disorders. You can help yourself and your community by using antibiotics only when absolutely necessary and by purchasing organic, antibiotic-free meats and other foods.

IF You are Hospitalized, These Vital Strategies Could Save Your Life

Download Interview Transcript

In the US, more than two million people are affected by hospital-acquired infections every year, and 100,000 people die as a result. According to the 2011 Health Grades Hospital Quality in America Study,9 the rate of medical harm exceeds 40,000 incidents per day.

If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of requiring hospitalization, then I strongly suggest being proactive in your care. There are strategies you can use to minimize your chances for adverse events related to your hospital stay. A good start is to listen to my interview with Dr. Andrew Saul, linked above, who is an expert on this matter. You might want to purchase a copy of the book he co-authored, Hospitals and Health.

Ideally, you should always have a personal advocate with you when you’re in a hospital—someone who can look after your best interests in the event you’re unable to speak for yourself. Understand that you, the patient, are the most powerful entity within the entire hospital system. However, the system works on the assumption that the patient will not claim that power. Knowing your rights and responsibilities can help ensure your hospital stay is a safe and healing one.

Protecting Yourself from CRE and Other Deadly Infections

The key to protecting yourself from infections of all kinds is twofold: first, you must optimize your immune system, and the second part is minimizing your exposure to infectious agents. As stated above, keep your antibiotic drug use to a minimum, avoiding them whenever possible, including those making their way into your food supply.

If you do truly require antibiotics, then take them exactly as prescribed. Insist that all medical personnel and visitors wash their hands before touching you or handling medical equipment that will touch you. Refrain from touching other patients, and if you do, make sure your hands are clean. Wash you hands often, including after the following:
1.After using the restroom, or ideally use a bidet so you don’t even have to touch your rectal area. The bidet will clean it far cleaner than paper and you only have to dry yourself.
2.Before preparing or eating food.
3.Before touching your eyes, nose, or mouth, and after coughing or sneezing or blowing your nose.
4.Before and after touching wound dressings or bandages.
5.After touching hospital surfaces such as bed rails, bedside tables, doorknobs, remote controls, or your phone.

Fending off Super Germs Means Supercharging Your Immune System

Your lifestyle choices are the most critical factors in determining the health of your immune system, which determines your ability to resist infections. The stronger your immune defenses, the less chance a microbe will have of gaining a foothold in some part of your body. Below are some basic strategies for supercharging your immune system. You may also want to download my free special report about how to protect yourself from super germs.
•Optimize your diet. Avoid foods that tax your immune system such as synthetic trans fats, fried foods, processed foods, sugar and grains; reduce carbohydrates (sugar, grains, fructose) and protein, replacing them with high-quality fats. Fifty to 70 percent of your total intake should be fat. Most of your diet should be fresh, whole foods, like organic vegetables and grass-pastured meats and dairy, and beneficial fats, such as butter and fermented dairy from grass-pastured animals, cheese, egg yolks, and avocados.

A great portion of your immune system resides in your GI tract, which depends on a healthy, balanced gut flora. One of the best ways to support this is by incorporating naturally fermented foods into your diet, working up to 4-6 ounces per day. One large serving of several ounces of fermented foods can supply you with around 10 trillion beneficial bacteria, which is about 10 percent of the population of your gut.

The best way to learn how to ferment foods properly is to get the GAPS book or listen to my interview with Caroline Barringer. You can take a high quality probiotic supplement, but the actual fermented foods offer the highest benefit.
•Exercise regularly. Exercise improves the circulation of immune cells in your blood. The better these cells circulate, the more efficient your immune system is at locating and eliminating pathogens in your body. Make sure your fitness plan incorporates weight training, high intensity exercises, stretching and core work.
•Get plenty of restorative sleep. Recent research shows sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical stress or disease, which is why you may feel ill after a sleepless night.
•Have good stress-busting outlets. High levels of stress hormones can diminish your immunity, so be sure you’re implementing some sort of stress management. Meditation, prayer, yoga, and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) are all excellent strategies for managing stress, but you’ll have to find what works best for you.
•Optimize your vitamin D levels. Studies have shown that inadequate vitamin D can increase your risk for MRSA and other infections, which can likely be extended to other superbugs. Your best source of vitamin D is through exposing your skin to the sun or using a safe tanning bed. Monitor your vitamin D levels to confirm they’re in the therapeutic range, 50-70 ng/ml. If you can’t get UV exposure, consider taking an oral vitamin D supplement.

In addition to the basic lifestyle measures listed above, there are several natural agents that science has shown to be naturally antibacterial. The following deserve special mention.
•Vitamin C. Vitamin C’s role in preventing and treating infectious disease is well established. Intravenous vitamin C is an option, but if you don’t have access to a practitioner who can administer it, liposomal vitamin C is the most potent oral form. For more information on vitamin C, listen to my interview with Dr. Ronald Hunninghake, an internationally recognized vitamin C expert. If you chose to use supplement vitamin C liposomal C seems to be the best form to use.
•Garlic. Garlic is a powerful antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal. It can stimulate your immune system, help wounds heal, and kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria (including MRSA and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis), plus has shown more than a hundred other health promoting properties.10 For highest potency, the garlic should be eaten fresh and raw (chopped or smashed.)
•Olive leaf extract. In vitro studies show olive leaf extract is effective against Klebsiella, inhibiting its replication, in addition to being toxic to other pathogenic microbes.
•Manuka honey. Manuka honey, made from the flowers and pollen of the Manuka bush, has been shown to be more effective than antibiotics in the treatment of serious, hard-to-heal skin infections. Clinical trials have found Manuka honey can effectively eradicate more than 250 clinical strains of bacteria, including resistant varieties such as MRSA.
•Tea tree oil. Tea tree oil is a natural antiseptic proven to kill many bacterial strains (including MRSA).11, 12
•Colloidal silver. Colloidal silver has been regarded as an effective natural antibiotic for centuries, and recent research shows it can even help eradicate antibiotic-resistant pathogens. If you are interested in this treatment, make sure you read the latest guidelines for safe usage of colloidal silver as there are risks with using it improperly.
•Copper. Replacing fixtures with certain copper alloys can help kill bacteria, even superbugs. Installing copper faucets, light switches, toilet seats and push plates in germ-infested areas such as hospitals and nursing homes could potentially save thousands of lives each year.

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Can reading yourself to sleep or texting into the wee hours of the morning raise your risk of cancer? You bet it can. Exposing yourself to artificial light at night shuts down your body’s production of an important hormone called melatonin.

Melatonin has roles in cancer prevention, strengthening your immune system, and may even slow down cellular aging; in fact, it has been the subject of preclinical research on over 100 different disease applications.1 It’s your body’s “Superhero of the Night,” and light is his number one nemesis.

For the past century or so, the developed world has been performing an open-ended experiment on itself by lengthening its days and shortening its nights in an effort to become a 24-hour per day, ever-productive society.

But light pollution generated by modern technologies is taking a heavy biological toll on humans, as well as other forms of life on Earth.

For more than 200,000 years, humans and other life forms evolved organs that took advantage of environmental cues. We developed a biological clock governed by Earth’s cycles of light and darkness.

Artificial lighting disrupts your biological clock and melatonin production, with unfortunate effects on your health. As Dr. Russel Reiter says in the presentation above, “light may be killing you.”

The Dark Side of Night

In humans as with all mammals, your biological clock resides in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of your brain (SCN), which is part of your hypothalamus. Based on signals of light and darkness, your SCN tells your pineal gland2 when it’s time to secrete melatonin.

Light comes in through your eyes and travels up your optic nerves to the SCN, which is exquisitely sensitive to cycles of light and darkness.

When you turn on a light at night, you immediately send your brain misinformation about the light-dark cycle. The only thing your brain interprets light to be is day. Believing daytime has arrived, your biological clock instructs your pineal gland to immediately cease its production of melatonin.

Whether you have the light on for an hour or for just a second, the effect is the same — and your melatonin pump doesn’t turn back on when you flip the light back off.

Since humans evolved in the glow of firelight, the yellow, orange and red wavelengths don’t suppress melatonin production the way white and blue wavelengths do. In fact, the range of light that inhibits melatonin is fairly narrow — 460 to 480 nm. If you want to protect your melatonin, when the sun goes down you would shift to a low wattage bulb with yellow, orange, or red light. Dr. Reiter suggests using a salt lamp illuminated by a 5-watt bulb in this color range.

The Massive Health Benefits of Melatonin

The hormone melatonin produces a number of health benefits in terms of your immune system. It’s a powerful antioxidant and free radical scavenger that helps combat inflammation. In fact, melatonin is so integral to your immune system that a lack of it causes your thymus gland, a key component of your immune system, to atrophy.3 Melatonin may even have a role in slowing the aging of your brain.

In addition to helping you fall asleep and bestowing a feeling of overall comfort and well being, melatonin has proven to have an impressive array of anti-cancer benefits.4 Melatonin inhibits the proliferation of a wide range of cancer cell types, as well as triggering cancer cell apoptosis (self destruction). The hormone also interferes with the new blood supply tumors require for their rapid growth (angiogenesis).5 Melatonin can boost efficacy and decrease the toxicity of cancer chemotherapy.6

Melatonin May Be Breast Cancer’s Worst Nightmare

Peer-reviewed and published research has shown melatonin offers particularly strong protection against reproductive cancers. Cells throughout your body — even cancer cells — have melatonin receptors. So when melatonin makes its nightly rounds, cell division slows. When this hormone latches onto a breast cancer cell, it has been found to counteract estrogen’s tendency to stimulate cell growth.

In fact, melatonin has a calming effect on several reproductive hormones, which may explain why it seems to protect against sex hormone-driven cancers, including ovarian, endometrial, breast, prostate and testicular cancers. GreenMedInfo lists twenty studies demonstrating exactly how melatonin exerts its protective effects against breast cancer.

But melatonin’s anti-cancer effects don’t stop there. While causing cancer cells to self-destruct, melatonin also boosts your production of immune stimulating substances such as interleukin-2, which helps identify and attack the mutated cells that lead to cancer. Through these dual actions, melatonin delivers a one-two punch! The greatest area of melatonin research to date has to do with breast cancer. Some of the more impressive studies include the following:
•The journal Epidemiology7 reported increased breast cancer risk among women who work predominantly night shifts
•Women who live in neighborhoods with large amounts of nighttime illumination are more likely to get breast cancer than those who live in areas where nocturnal darkness prevails, according to an Israeli study8
•From participants in the Nurses’ Health Study, it was found that nurses who work nights had 36 percent higher rates of breast cancer9
•Blind women, whose eyes cannot detect light and so have robust production of melatonin, have lower-than-average breast cancer rates10
•When the body of epidemiological studies are considered in their totality, women who work night shift are found to have breast cancer rates 60 percent above normal, even when other factors such as differences in diet are accounted for11

Melatonin Improves Cancer Patients’ Longevity

Glioblastoma is a nasty, aggressive form of brain cancer with a poor prognosis and not much in the way of effective treatments. However, melatonin may offer some hope. In one clinical trial,12 patients with a glioblastoma were given either radiation and melatonin, or radiation alone. Twenty-three percent of the patients receiving the melatonin were alive one year later, while none who received radiation alone were still alive.

Another study found that melatonin reduced the growth of prostate cancer.13 Studies show similarly encouraging results for lung, pancreatic, colorectal and other types of cancer. An article in Life Extension Magazine14 contains a table summarizing studies with one-year cancer survival rates that are vastly improved when melatonin is a treatment modality. Authors of a systematic review of melatonin for the treatment of all types of cancer concluded:15

“Effects were consistent across melatonin dose, and type of cancer. No severe adverse events were reported. The substantial reduction in risk of death, low adverse events reported and low costs related to this intervention suggest great potential for melatonin in treating cancer.”

Due to the strength of the scientific research, in 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a decision to classify shift work as a “probable carcinogen.”16 That puts the night shift in the same health-risk category as exposure to such toxic chemicals as trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). If this isn’t a testament to the importance of melatonin for human health, I don’t know what is!

How to Optimize Your Melatonin Levels

Two common environmental “noise” factors that can make sleep elusive are light pollution and temperature. The following suggestions can improve your sleep hygiene and help you optimize your melatonin production. For a comprehensive sleep guide, please see my article 33 Secret’s to a Good Night’s Sleep.
•Avoid watching TV or using your computer in the evening, at least an hour or so before going to bed. These devices emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it’s still daytime. Normally your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 and 10 pm, and these devices emit light that may stifle that process.
•Make sure you get BRIGHT sun exposure regularly. Your pineal gland produces melatonin roughly in approximation to the contrast of bright sun exposure in the day and complete darkness at night. If you are in darkness all day long, it can’t appreciate he difference and will not optimize your melatonin production.
•Sleep in complete darkness, or as close to it as possible. Even the slightest bit of light in your bedroom can disrupt your biological clock and your pineal gland’s melatonin production. Even the tiniest glow from your clock radio could be interfering with your sleep, so cover your radio up at night or get rid of it altogether. Move all electrical devices at least three feet away from your bed. You may want to cover your windows with drapes or blackout shades.
•Install a low-wattage yellow, orange or red light bulb if you need a source of light for navigation at night. Light in these bandwidths does not shut down melatonin production in the way that white and blue bandwidth light does. Salt lamps are handy for this purpose.
•Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes too warm (particularly their upstairs bedrooms). Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees.
•Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This increases your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you are ready to sleep.
•Avoid using loud alarm clocks. Being jolted awake each morning can be very stressful. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, you might not even need an alarm.
•Get some sun in the morning, if possible. Your circadian system needs bright light to reset itself. Ten to 15 minutes of morning sunlight will send a strong message to your internal clock that day has arrived, making it less likely to be confused by weaker light signals during the night. More sunlight exposure is required as you age.
•Be mindful of electromagnetic fields in your bedroom. EMFs can disrupt your pineal gland and its melatonin production, and may have other negative biological effects as well. A gauss meter is required if you want to measure EMF levels in various areas of your home.

Should You Supplement with Melatonin?

Current scientific research suggests that melatonin deficiency may come with some profound biological disadvantages, such as higher levels of inflammation, a weakened immune system, and an increased risk of cancer. One of the surest ways of compromising your body’s natural melatonin production is by exposing yourself to artificial light at night — even briefly. Multiple studies have found that night shift workers have higher rates of cancer, particularly breast cancer.

Supplementation may be beneficial but it is FAR more beneficial and certainly less expensive to have your body produce its own melatonin. This way you will get the “perfect” dose of melatonin for you, the “Goldilocks’” dose, not too much and not too little, because your body will use important feedback loops to adjust the dose just right. If, for whatever, reason you are unable to increase your melatonin naturally as described above, they you can consider a supplement, but it would still be wise to continue the listed suggestions.

In scientific studies, melatonin has been shown to help people fall asleep faster and stay asleep, experience less restlessness, and prevent daytime fatigue. Keep in mind that only a very small dose is required — typically 0.25mg or 0.5mg to start with, and you can adjust it up from there. Taking higher doses, such as 3 mg, can sometimes make you more wakeful instead of sleepier, so adjust your dose carefully.

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Whole Foods recently announced the health food giant will make labeling of genetically engineered (GE) ingredients mandatory in its American and Canadian stores by 2018.

(Whole Foods stores in Great Britain already require GE foods to be labeled.) Many expect other retailers to follow suit.

Despite the five-year deadline, which may seem long for some, this announcement is incredibly encouraging and represents a major sign that all the efforts most of you put into the Proposition 37 campaign have paid off. We may have lost that battle but this, and other signs, strongly suggest we are winning the war.

Prop 37 raised an enormous amount of awareness about genetically engineered (GE) foods (a.k.a. genetically engineered organisms or GMO’s). Many Americans didn’t even know they existed prior to the California campaign to require GE foods to be labeled.

The Prop 37 campaign also ushered conversations about food to the front pages of mainstream media. Over the past year, we’ve not only seen an increase in the number of stories on genetically engineered foods, more people are now also talking about other truth-in-labeling issues, and food safety in general.

People are waking up to the fact that we really don’t understand what we’re eating anymore, and they’re taking control of their food again. Now, other states, including Washington State and Missouri, are taking up the baton to label GE foods. In all, 22 states now have some sort of pending labeling legislation.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the National Cooperative Grocers Association (NGCA)1 recently wrote a letter to their members that now also urges food manufacturers to stop funding or opposing GMO labeling. This is an absolutely stupendous victory for our side that finally vindicates the hard work so many of you put into this effort last year.

Whole Foods Responds to Consumer Demand for GMO Labeling

Whole Foods Co-Chief Executive Walter Robb recently told the Los Angeles Times:2

“This is an issue whose time has come. With cases like horse meat discovered in the U.K., plastic in milk in China, the recalls of almond and peanut butter in the U.S., customers have a fundamental right to know what’s in their food…. ‘The government has not been willing to take on this issue, so it’s going to have to happen differently.'”

According to a February 2012 poll of potential voters in the 2012 US elections, 90 percent of responders were in favor of labeling GE foods. There’s really NO reason not to, aside from protecting the biotech industry’s profits. Americans are already responding favorably to those few products that are labeled. A. C. Gallo, president of Whole Foods, told the New York Times:3

“We’ve seen how our customers have responded to the products we do have labeled. ‘Some of our manufacturers say they’ve seen a 15 percent increase in sales of products they have labeled [non-GMO].’”

According to the featured article:4

“Whole Foods’ move will be copied by competitors, said Scott Faber, vice president for government affairs for the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group. ‘Clearly, they’re going to be the first of many retailers who will require labeling as a condition of sale in their stores.'”

It’s worth remembering that CA Prop 37 failed to be passed by just a few percentage points back in November, even though the food and biotech industry spent five times more money (a total of $46 million) on its propaganda campaign than the supporters of the measure. That’s really a good indication of how difficult this fight is for the industry. People want to know what they’re eating, and convincing Americans to lay aside their concerns about GE foods requires a lot of money and effort.

It’s a challenge they can overcome, no doubt. But people are increasingly seeing through the lame excuses, such as not wanting you to be “confused” by the labels, or that labeling would raise food prices, or that labeling is unnecessary because it’s “just as safe” as its conventional counterparts. It’s all nonsense, and fortunately, it’s not flying as well as it used to.

NCGA Urges All Vendor Partners to Support GMO Labeling Initiatives

As just mentioned, the National Cooperative Grocers Association5 (NGCA), a business services cooperative that represents 134 retail food co-ops across the US, sent out a letter on February 28 restating its support of GMO labeling, urging consumers to contact manufacturers directly with their concerns, and encouraging their vendor partners to “consider the kind of statement and negative impact that an organization makes by supporting or donating to campaigns designed to prevent the labeling of GMOs, whether on a state or national level.”

This is yet another sign that retailers and food manufacturers who opposed prop 37 have indeed been paying the price. Take the Cheerios fiasco, for example. General Mills spent over $1.1 million to deceive their customers by defeating Prop 37, and the backlash was significant. When General Mills’ Cheerios brand released a Facebook app last December asking “fans” to “show what Cheerios means to you,” thousands used the app to express their disgust over the company’s betrayal.

I believe we can expect far fewer brands to engage in biotech’s fight in future state initiatives. They really were not expecting the consumer backlash that followed in the wake of Prop 37, and are likely to be far less willing to take another bullet. The NGCA’s letter to their vendor partners reads in part:

“There was substantial consumer backlash from manufacturer financial support of campaigns to prevent GMO labeling in California. Now, campaigns calling for state level labeling of GMOs are active in a growing number of many other states. Many NCGA co-ops are supporting these campaigns and are also considering one or more of the following actions related to GMOs in food on a local level: discontinuing or boycotting items from companies that support antilabeling campaigns or whose products contain common GMO ingredients; excluding items that contain common GMO ingredients from store-level promotions and new item programs; and/or shifting more of their product assortment focus to certified organic brands.

…We believe GMO labeling will be a reality in the coming years and hope your organization will join us by showing leadership in this area through support of consumers’ right to information to make informed purchase decisions.”

Organic Consumers Association Calls on Whole Foods to Move Up Labeling Timeline

Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now! who served as co-chair of Prop 37, has criticized Whole Foods timeline, saying “Americans need labeling of GMO foods today, not five years down the road,”6 adding that “had they supported Prop 37 sooner, Americans may have labeling right now.”

Similarly, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) issued a response to Whole Foods’ plan on March 117 stating that, while it is encouraged by the plan, the five-year timeline is too long. The OCA urges Whole Foods to move up its labeling deadline to July 2015, and to “take the lead in the organic industry to end deceptive labeling practices by requiring all the stores’ products that include the word ‘natural’ in their labeling or packaging to be GMO-free.” According to the OCA press release:

“Washington’s I-522 is expected to pass in November 2013, becoming the first statewide mandatory GMO labeling law. The law establishes July 2015 as the deadline for compliance. Whole Foods Markets already complies with the U.K.’s mandatory GMO labeling law in its seven stores in that country. Whole Foods came under fire last year when the company dragged its feet in supporting Proposition 37, California’s Right to Know GMO Labeling citizens’ initiative. In October, CEO John Mackey confirmed in a blog post that Whole Foods stores knowingly sell Monsanto’s genetically modified corn, without labeling it.”

Monsanto Responds to ‘Affluent Consumer’ Concerns

On March 14, Monsanto President Brett Begeman discussed Whole Food’s move in an interview on NPR radio.8 According to NPR:

“Monsanto President Brett Begeman, speaking at an ag event this week in Decatur, Illinois, called the move ‘Big’ and said it shows that the agriculture industry needs to come together to address the concerns of what he called the ‘affluent consumer.’

Begemann: ‘How do we address their concerns and provide them the choice that they’re asking for without driving up the cost on the large part of the population that cannot afford another increase in the cost of food.’ The potential of higher costs is one of the concerns companies have raised about the Whole Foods plan. Begmann says the ag industry needs to figure how to cooperate and co-exist with those who have different food policy views.”

ORCA Takes Proactive Role to Address ‘Natural’ Products Intentional Mislabeling

In related news, the organic and fair trade standards watchdog the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), recently announced the creation of a new nationwide campaign called the Organic Retail and Consumer Alliance (ORCA). The announcement was made at the national Expo-West Natural Products convention. This new alliance includes public interest groups, food producers and retailers, including co-ops, natural food stores, farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) buying clubs and wholesalers.

ORCA’s mission is to “aggressively promote organic food and products, and expose and eliminate the misleading practice of ‘natural’ labeling and marketing that has slowed the growth of America’s $30-billion dollar organic sector.” In a press release, OCA’s National Director, Ronnie Cummins states:9

“Routine mislabeling and marketing has confused millions of U.S. consumers, and enabled the so-called ‘natural’ foods and products sector to grow into a $60-billion dollar a year powerhouse, garnering twice as many sales in 2012 as certified organic products. By exposing these misleading tactics, and promoting truth-in-labeling, we believe we can rapidly grow sales of certified organic and authentically natural food and products.”

This is indeed a huge problem, as numerous polls and surveys have shown that otherwise health-conscious Americans do not understand the qualitative difference between organic and so-called “natural” products. Contrary to reality, the majority of consumers believe the “natural” label equates to “almost organic,” and many believe the “all-natural” label means a product is better than organic! That’s the power of word-association, and these industries are well aware of how the word natural “feels” to consumers who are in the dark about the regulatory differences between the labels… As stated by Cummins:

“This is outrageous, given that organic food and products, by law and by third-party certification, are produced without the use of synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, animal drugs, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), irradiation, nanoparticles, or sewage sludge, whereas so-called ‘natural’ products are unregulated.”

To achieve its aims, ORCA members will use “a combination of public education, marketplace pressure, boycotts, class action lawsuits and state legislation to end misleading labeling practices in the ‘natural’ products sector.”

Consequences of 20 Years of Commercial Cultivation of GE Plants in the US

Just in time, as the GE issue is about to heat up once more, a critical assessment of the consequences of commercial cultivation of GE plants in the US was published. The report, published in Berlin, was commissioned in response to increasing pressure from biotech companies requesting broader authorizations to cultivate GE crops in the European Union (EU), where acceptance of such crops is much lower than the US. By looking at the effects that two decades worth of GE crop cultivation has had in the US, the report makes recommendations on how to best handle the technology in the EU. Presented by TestBiotech10 (which published the English version of the report),11 some of the principal findings include the following damaging assessments:
•Consequences for farmers: Because the weeds have adapted to the cultivation of the genetically engineered plants, farmers are experiencing a substantial increase in both working hours and the amounts of herbicide they require. Cultivation of insecticide-producing plants have led to “an arms race in the field” against the pest insects, which have adapted quickly. Genetically engineered plants have been created to produce up to six different toxins. Costs for seeds have increased dramatically, without there being a substantial increase in yields or significant savings in the amounts of spray required.
•Impact on the seed market: The seed industry in the US is largely dominated by agrochemical industries such as Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta. In the future, it has to be expected that developments in the US will be strongly influenced by the interests of agro-chemical companies pushing for the cultivation of genetically engineered plants.
•Consequences for producers who avoid genetically engineered crops: Contamination with non-authorized genetically engineered plants has already caused billions of dollars worth of damage in the US.
•Consequences for consumers: Consumers are exposed to a whole range of risks regarding unintended substances from plant metabolism, from residues from complementary herbicides and from the properties of additional proteins produced in the plants. As yet, there is no way of monitoring the actual effects that consumption of these products might have.

The final recommendations come as no surprise to those well-versed in the many issues involved. It’ll be interesting to see if the EU will follow them or cave to industry pressure like the US. The report concludes:

“In light of the effects caused so far as a result of GE crop cultivation in the United States, the following recommendations can be made:
1.There must be no large-scale, commercial cultivation of GE herbicide-tolerant or insecticide-producing crops. Such crop cultivation is unsustainable and will lead to a ‘race’ to step up their cultivation.
2.Ensure that all potential situations are retrievable. Cultivation of crops such as rapeseed, which is extremely susceptible to spread through the environment, should be banned as a matter of principle. An absolute prerequisite for any release of such crops is that it must be possible to control their spread and their persistence in the environment.
3.Prevent cases of contamination. A particular focus on clean seed is needed because otherwise farmers will lose control over the cultivation of GE crops in their fields and it will no longer be possible to adequately differentiate between products in the subsequent stages of the food production chain.
4.Risk assessments and risk research should not be geared to economic interests. Under EU law, environmental and consumer protection clearly take precedence over other interests. This must be applied more rigidly in practice. Directives based on EFSA risk assessments must be tightened up significantly and the preconditions for independent risk research must be specifically fostered.
5.The health effects of consuming products made from GE crops must be monitored. Under EU law, the monitoring of the impact on public health and the environment of products authorized for marketing in the EU is compulsory, but has only been partially implemented.
6.To allow for the differentiation of products on the feed markets, labeling should be extended to include animal products. The EU should also focus specifically on the search for alternatives to existing feed production and import markets.
7.To prevent further concentration on seed markets, seed patenting must be stopped.
8.A plan for research into alternatives must be mapped out. In many areas conventional breeding is a cheaper, more productive and safer alternative for the production of new seed varieties. This approach should be specifically fostered in the future.”

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

“Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn’t required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn’t have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

Doesn’t it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers.”

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.
•No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
•If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
•For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
•Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

The “Land Meat” That Rivals Wild Salmon in Omega-3 Content — Grass Fed Beef & Other Grass Fed Meats

by Mike Geary – Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
Author of best-selling program: The Truth about 6-Pack Abs

I know you’ve heard all of the buzz over the last few years about the health benefits of wild salmon and other fish that have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids.

However, did you know that there’s a “land meat” that has similar omega-3/omega-6 ratios as wild salmon? In fact, this “land meat” not only contains as much, or even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, but without the possible negatives such as heavy metals (mercury, etc) and PCBs that can be found in fish frequently.

I’ve talked about this type of meat before and how it’s one of the healthiest forms of meat you can possibly eat… It’s grass-fed beef and other grass-fed ruminant meats such as bison, buffalo, lamb, and venison.

Now I know that a lot of people will try to convince you that meat is not good for you… and to be honest I partially agree with them when it comes to your typical factory farm-raised meat where the animals are fattened up with huge quantities of grains & soy that are not their natural diet & given unhealthy doses of hormones, antibiotics, etc.

However, when animals are healthy and eat the diet they were meant to eat naturally, the meat is actually healthy for us. Not only are grass-fed meats a super-high quality source of muscle-building proteins, but they are also a great source of healthy fats (surprisingly to most people).

Let’s take beef for example… When cattle eat mostly grain and soy, the fat composition of their meat becomes higher in inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids (which most of us already consume too much omega-6’s) and lower in beneficial omega-3 fatty acids (which are typically lacking in modern diets).

On the other hand, when cattle eat mostly grass instead of grains & soy, their meat becomes higher in omega-3s and lower in omega-6 fatty acids, achieving a more natural balance of omega-3 to omega-6 fats. In addition, grass-fed beef also contains much higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has shown some promising benefits in studies for losing body fat and gaining lean muscle mass.

Note – only the natural form of CLA from grass-fed meats and dairy has shown the fat loss and muscle building benefits in studies… beware of the supplement pill forms of CLA, which are artificially created.

A similar comparison can be made between wild salmon and farm raised salmon. Wild salmon is a healthier option than farm raised salmon and has higher levels of omega-3’s because the wild salmon eat what they’re supposed to eat naturally. On the other hand, farm raised salmon are fattened up unnaturally with grain/soy based food pellets which detrimentally changes the salmon’s fat ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.

The problem is that it is VERY hard to find healthy grass fed meats in typical grocery stores. In fact, even at health food stores, you might find some “organic” meats (which is at least a little better than standard), but it is often hard to find any real grass-fed meats.

Well, recently I did some searching and found a great website that sells all kinds of varieties of grass-fed beef and other healthy grass fed meats…

http://healthygrassfed.2ya.com

They have everything you could ever want… grass-fed burgers, ribeye steaks, filet mignon & any other quality beef cuts, grass-fed buffalo, grass-fed cheeses, and even free-range chicken and turkey!

And better yet, they deliver it right to your house with no shipping costs either… and I actually found that the prices were pretty comparable to what I usually pay at the grocery store anyway.

I’ll tell ya… I was like a kid in a candy store when I found this site. I placed my order for all kinds of goodies on a friday, I got a shipping notification email that Monday, and my delivery came right to my door the very next day in a sealed cooler… I couldn’t believe the service I got from this company.

Wouldn’t it give you peace of mind to know that you and your family are eating meat that is actually good for you instead of the mass produced junk at most grocery stores? I know I’m getting most of my meat from them from now on.

Everything in my order ended up being awesome… here’s my recommendations:
•the grass-fed filet mignons (delicious and tender!)
•grass-fed burgers and bison burgers when I need a quick but healthy 5-minute meal (use some grass-fed cheese and sprouted grain roll for the ultimate balanced meal)
•the free-range chicken and turkey sausages (makes great italian dishes or healthier breakfast sausage)
•grass-fed cheese and butter (higher in CLA and omega-3 than normal butter or cheese)
•they even have free-range turkeys available for big family meals (you won’t find free-range turkeys in stores)

Plus, besides getting much healthier meat than you’d ever find in the store, another benefit to this site was that it was like doing my grocery shopping from my living room, instead of fighting the crowds at the store.

Well, they’ve got me hooked, and thought I’d pass on this little discovery to you. Here’s the site again…

http://healthygrassfed.2ya.com

(FYI – from looking at the site, I believe you can only order the meats if you’re in the US and Canada)

Enjoy!

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

The “K” in “vitamin K” stands for “koagulation,” the German word for blood clotting. From its discovery in the 1930s through the late 1970s, we knew of no other roles for the vitamin.

The 1990s had come and nearly gone by the time awareness of its role in bone metabolism broke out of the confines of the vitamin K research community, and only in the twenty-first century has its role in preventing calcification of the blood vessels and other soft tissues become clear.

Vitamin K2, found in animal fats and fermented foods, is present in much smaller quantities in most diets when compared to vitamin K1, found in leafy greens.

Since researchers throughout the twentieth century saw the two forms of the vitamin as interchangeable, they ignored vitamin K2 as though its scarcity made it irrelevant.

The realization that vitamin K is not just for “koagulation,” however, led us to discover that vitamins K1 and K2 are not interchangeable after all: vitamin K1 more effectively supports blood clotting, while vitamin K2 more effectively ensures that calcium winds up in the bones and teeth where it supports health rather than in the soft tissues where it contributes to disease.

It was thus only in 2006 that the United States Department of Agriculture determined the vitamin K2 contents of common foods for the first time.1

Vitamins A, D, and K

While vitamin K2 languished in obscurity, vitamins A and D continually traded places with one another as the favored vitamin du jour. The pendulum initially swung in favor of vitamin D because rickets was common in the early twentieth century while eye diseases resulting from vitamin A deficiency were rare. It then swung in favor of vitamin A when that vitamin became known as the “anti-infective” vitamin.2

After World War II, the medical establishment had easy access to antibiotics and thus lost interest in battling infections with vitamin A.3 Vitamin D fared far worse, taking the blame for a British epidemic of infant hypercalcemia and eventually earning a reputation as “the most toxic of all the vitamins.”4 These days, the pendulum has swung full force in the opposite direction: we blame an epidemic of osteoporosis on vitamin A, and see vitamin D as the new panacea.5

Though a paradigm of synergy never took hold, it was not for want of opportunity. When Mellanby and Green first demonstrated in the 1920s that vitamin A prevented infections, they concluded that vitamin D could not be “safely substituted for cod-liver oil in medical treatment,” and that “if a substitute for cod-liver oil is given it ought to be at least as powerful as this oil in its content of both vitamins A and D.”

Consistent with this point of view, clinical trials in the 1930s showed that cod liver oil could reduce the incidence of colds by a third and cut hours missed from work in half.6 Cod liver oil also caused dramatic reductions in mortality from less common but more severe infections. The medical establishment, for example, had been successfully using it to treat tuberculosis since the mid-nineteenth century.7

Studies in the 1930s expanded this to the treatment of measles.8 These findings made the popularity of cod liver oil soar (Figure 1).9

The idea that vitamin A alone was “antiinfective,” however, led to similar trials with halibut liver oil, which is rich in vitamin A but poor in vitamin D. These trials often failed to show any benefit. I.G. Spiesman of the University of Illinois College of Medicine proposed a simple solution to this paradox: vitamins A and D worked together to prevent infection, he suggested, and both vitamins are needed to prevent the common cold.

He published his own clinical trial in 1941, showing that massive doses of each vitamin alone provided no benefit and often proved toxic. Massive doses of both vitamins together, however, caused no toxicity and offered powerful protection against the common cold.10 Nevertheless, as antibiotics grew in popularity after World War II, interest in the fat-soluble vitamins waned and cod liver oil use began its steady decline (Figure 1).

The emergence of molecular biology in the late twentieth century provided new evidence for synergy. Vitamins A and D both make independent contributions to immune function by binding to their respective receptors and thereby directing cellular processes in favor of healthful immune responses, but studies in isolated cells suggest that vitamin D may only be able to activate its receptor with the direct cooperation of vitamin A.11, 12

We now know that vitamins A and D also cooperate together to regulate the production of certain vitamin K-dependent proteins. Once vitamin K activates these proteins, they help mineralize bones and teeth, support adequate growth, and protect arteries and other soft tissues from abnormal calcification, and protect against cell death.

As described below, the synergistic action of the fat-soluble trio depends on support from other nutrients like magnesium, zinc, fat and carbohydrate, as well as important metabolic factors such as carbon dioxide and thyroid hormone.

FIGURE 1:
Cod liver oil imports to the U.S., 1912-1965. Adapted from the data in reference 9.

Magnesium and the Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Magnesium contributes to more than three hundred specific chemical reactions that occur within our bodies, including every reaction that depends on ATP, the universal energy currency of our cells.13 Magnesium also activates the enzyme that makes copies of DNA, as well as the enzyme that makes RNA, which is responsible for translating the codes contained within our genes into the production of every protein within our body. This process of translating the DNA code in order to produce proteins is called “gene expression.”

Vitamins A and D carry out most of their functions by regulating gene expression, which means they rely directly on magnesium to carry out these functions. They also rely indirectly on magnesium because our cells can only produce their receptors and all the proteins with which they interact with the assistance of this critical mineral.

The well-studied interaction of magnesium with vitamin D and calcium provides an illustrative example. Magnesium is required for both steps in the activation of vitamin D to calcitriol, the form of vitamin D that regulates gene expression and stimulates calcium absorption. Even fully activated vitamin D (calcitriol), however, is useless in the absence of magnesium. Humans who are deficient in magnesium have low blood levels of both calcitriol and calcium, but treating them with calcitriol does nothing to restore calcium levels to normal. The only way to normalize calcium levels in these subjects is to provide them with sufficient magnesium. Magnesium also supports the cellular pumps that keep most calcium out of our soft tissue cells and make it available for the extracellular matrix of bones and teeth.

Altogether, these findings suggest that vitamins A and D can only fulfill their functions in the presence of adequate magnesium. As can be seen in Table 1, magnesium is abundant in many whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and vegetables, some fruit, and some seafood. It is less abundant in meat, by contrast, and almost entirely absent from refined grains and sugar.14 Thus, we would expect a well-rounded diet devoid of “the displacing foods of modern commerce” to be rich in magnesium and thereby support the synergistic action of the fat-soluble vitamins.

Zinc and the Fat-Soluble Vitamins

As with magnesium, the fat-soluble trio can only support health if our diets contain adequate zinc. The interaction between vitamin A and zinc is particularly well studied.15 Vitamin A supports the intestinal absorption of zinc, possibly by increasing the production of a binding protein in the intestines. Zinc, in turn, supports the formation of vesicles involved in transporting vitamin A and the other the fat-soluble vitamins across the intestinal wall.

Zinc is an essential structural component of many vitamin A-related proteins, including the primary protein that transports vitamin A through the blood, the enzyme that carries out the first step in the activation of vitamin A to retinoic acid, and the nuclear receptor that binds to retinoic acid and allows it to regulate gene expression.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the interaction between zinc and vitamin A in humans. For example, in humans with marginal zinc status, zinc supplementation supports vitamin A’s role in visual function16 and eye development (Figure 2).17

Although less well studied, zinc also interacts with vitamin D. Vitamin D and zinc most likely promote each other’s intestinal absorption.18 In rats, dietary zinc supports the production of the vitamin D receptor.19 Once the receptor is formed, zinc provides it with essential structural support. Although in the absence of this structural support the receptor still binds to vitamin D, the structural support is needed to allow this vitamin-receptor complex to bind to DNA.20 Studies with isolated cells illustrate the importance of this interaction: adding zinc to these cells increases the rate at which vitamin D activates the expression of genes.21

Altogether, these results suggest that vitamins A and D can only fulfill their functions in the presence of adequate zinc. As can be seen in Table 2, zinc is found most abundantly in oysters, beef, and cheese.22 Chicken and eggs have considerably less zinc than beef, while milk and most plant foods contain very little. We absorb zinc about five times more effectively from animal products than from plant products. Thus, we should expect a diet that contains liberal quantities of zinc-rich animal products to support the synergistic action of the fat-soluble vitamins.

Figure 2

Thirty-three Thai children ages six to thirteen with marginal zinc and vitamin A status were randomized in double-blind fashion to receive a placebo, 25 mg/day zinc, 1300 international units/day vitamin A, or a combination of the two supplements for six months. The figure shows the proportion of children with abnormalities in the conjunctiva of the eye, a characteristic sign of vitamin A deficiency. The synergistic interaction between zinc and vitamin A is statistically significant (P<0.02). The development of the surface of the eye and many other tissues is regulated by retinoic acid, the fully activated form of vitamin A. These results show that zinc supports the role of vitamin A in tissue development, probably by supporting the activity of enzymes involved in activating vitamin A to retinoic acid and by allowing the nuclear receptors for retinoic acid to bind to DNA and regulate gene expression. Adapted from reference 17. Fat, Carbs, Thyroid and Carbon Dioxide In order to absorb fat-soluble vitamins from our food, we need to eat fat. Human studies show that both the amount and type of fat are important. For example, one study showed that absorption of beta-carotene from a salad with no added fat was close to zero. The addition of a lowfat dressing made from canola oil increased absorption, but a high-fat dressing was much more effective.23 Canola oil, however, is far from ideal. Studies in rats show that absorption of carotenoids is much higher with olive oil than with corn oil.24 Similarly, studies in humans show that consuming beta-carotene with beef tallow rather than sunflower oil increases the amount we absorb from 11 to 17 percent. The reason for this is unknown, but it may be that oils rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids promote the oxidative destruction of fat-soluble vitamins in the intestines before we are able to absorb them. Thus, the more fat we eat, and the lower those fats are in polyunsaturated fatty acids, the more fat-soluble vitamins we absorb. While dietary fat is clearly important, there may be a role for dietary carbohydrate as well. Once vitamins A and D stimulate the production of vitamin K-dependent proteins, vitamin K activates those proteins by adding carbon dioxide to them. Once added to a protein, carbon dioxide carries a negative charge and allows the protein to interact with calcium, which carries a positive charge. The greater the supply of carbon dioxide, the better vitamin K can do its job.25 Carbohydrates are rich in carbon and oxygen, and when we break them down for energy we release these elements in our breath as carbon dioxide. Because carbohydrates are richer in oxygen, burning them generates about 30 percent more carbon dioxide per calorie than burning fat, and low-carbohydrate diets have been shown to lower blood levels of carbon dioxide (Figure 3).26 Ideally, we should study this further by determining whether dietary carbohydrate affects the amount of activated vitamin K-dependent proteins in humans. We also produce more carbon dioxide when we burn more calories, regardless of whether we are burning carbohydrate or fat. Intense exercise more than doubles the amount of carbon dioxide we produce compared to what we produce when at rest.27 Even working at a standing desk rather than a sitting desk increases both calories burned and carbon dioxide generated by about a third (Figure 4).28 Future studies should directly investigate whether exercise increases the activation of vitamin K-dependent proteins, but it seems reasonable to suggest that part of the reason exercise promotes cardiovascular health may be because it ensures a more abundant supply of carbon dioxide, which vitamin K uses to activate proteins that protect our heart valves and blood vessels from calcification. Thyroid hormone is a key regulator of the metabolic rate and may thus be a major determinant of the carbon dioxide available for activating vitamin K-dependent proteins. Theoretically, thyroid hormone should increase the rate of metabolism and a greater rate of metabolism should produce a proportionally greater supply of carbon dioxide. Thyroid hormone directly increases the production of vitamin K-dependent proteins and protects blood vessels from calcification in rats.29 The reason for this relationship is unclear. We could speculate, however, that our bodies in their infinite wisdom use thyroid hormone to tie the production of vitamin K-dependent proteins to the production the carbon dioxide needed to activate them. Figure 3: Low-Carbohydrate Diets Reduce Blood Levels of Carbon Dioxide Investigators fed twenty adult patients requiring artificial ventilation a standard or low-carb, high-fat diet through a feeding pump. The purpose of the study was to determine whether a low-carbohydrate diet could be used to reduce the need for a ventilator. Carbohydrates generate more carbon dioxide than fat, and we eliminate excess carbon dioxide by breathing faster. The study showed that patients on a low-carbohydrate diet generated less carbon dioxide, breathed more slowly, and required less time on a ventilator. Nevertheless, for healthy individuals who do not require artificial ventilation, dietary carbohydrates may support the activity of vitamin K, which activates certain proteins by adding carbon dioxide to them. Adapted from reference 26. Figure 4: Twenty healthy young adult men and women performed crossword puzzles and word finds for forty-five minutes either at a traditional sitting desk or at a standing desk. Adapted from reference 28 The Big Picture It is clearly time to move beyond viewing each vitamin in isolation. The fat-soluble vitamins not only synergize with each other, but cooperate with many other nutrients and metabolic factors such as magnesium, zinc, fat, carbohydrate, carbon dioxide and thyroid hormone. This paradigm has two important implications. At the level of scientific research, a study about one vitamin can easily come to false conclusions unless it takes into account its interactions with all the others. We should reverently and humbly bow before the complexity of these interactions, realizing how little we know and recognizing that we are always learning. At the level of personal health, these interactions emphasize the need to consume a well-rounded, nutrient-dense diet. Supplementation with an individual vitamin runs the risk of throwing it out of balance with its synergistic partners. The fat-soluble vitamins work most safely and effectively when we obtain them from natural foods within the context of a diet rich in all their synergistic partners. Zinc and the Dark Adaptation Test for Vitamin A Deficiency The role of vitamin A in vision is unusual. This vitamin carries out most of its known actions by regulating the expression of specific sets of genes. Vitamin A regulates gene expression only after being activated in a two-step process from retinol to retinal, and finally to retinoic acid. Vitamin A supports vision, however, in its semi-activated form as retinal. Retinal binds to a protein known as opsin, forming a vitamin-protein complex known as rhodopsin. Each photon of light that enters our eye and collides with rhodopsin causes the retinal to change shape and release itself from the complex. This event then translates into an electrical impulse that our optic nerve transmits to our brain. The brain synthesizes myriad such electrical impulses at every moment and interprets them as vision.30 While the function of opsin is to help generate visual images by binding and releasing vitamin A, opsin can only maintain its proper shape and function when it is bound to zinc. In addition, zinc supports the conversion of retinol to retinal, the form of vitamin A that binds to opsin. We could predict, then, that vitamin A would only be able to support vision in the presence of adequate zinc. This can be studied by determining dark adaptation thresholds, which determine the dimmest spots of light we are able to see after having spent a period of time in the dark to maximize our visual sensitivity. When vitamin A is insufficient, we lose the ability to see the dimmer spots of light. Robert Russell of Tufts University studied ten patients with deficient blood levels of vitamin A who also failed the dark-adaptation test. Eight of them achieved normal dark-adaptation thresholds after supplementing with 10,000 international units of vitamin A for two to four weeks. Two of them, however, had deficient blood levels of zinc. Vitamin A supplementation alone failed to normalize their visual function, but adding 220 milligrams per day of zinc to the regimen for two weeks brought it back to normal.16 These results show that vitamin A can only support healthy vision with the direct assistance of zinc. About the Author Chris Masterjohn has a PhD in nutritional sciences from the University of Connecticut, and has published five peer-reviewed papers on vitamins and supplementation. He researches fat-soluble supplements – A, D, and K – at the University of Illinois. He also maintains a blog, The Daily Lipid, and his website, Cholesterol-And-Health.com, which are dedicated to the issue of cholesterol. He's also active with the Weston A. Price Foundation. If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.