A Few More Ideas re: Nutrition

Quick heads up of research I ran across today:  They found that one out of three college athletes have low Vitamin D levels making them more prone to injury and more pain.

Pregnant women with low Vitamin D levels have more painful labors.  Get your Vitamin D level checked.  Sweet spot according to the best info I can find is 50-70.

You’ve ‘heard’ me talk about nutrition for a while now.  If nutrition is perfect, health and vigor is perfect.  That’s the premise I support.  Otherwise we’d not be a successful species.  The following article link is a parallel demonstration of that idea from the plant world.  Below is just an excerpt from that article.  By the way, the premise is not about blame or trying to induce guilt, but rather gaining knowledge and getting back to real food, supplementing where it is advisable and losing the toxic components we’ve been brainwashed into accepting as nutrition.

The Amish Farmers Reinventing Organic Agriculture

By studying the immune systems of plants, they've developed a technique that eliminates the need for chemicals.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-amish-farmer-replacing-pesticides-with-nutrition/380825/

Kempf is the unlikely founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture, a consulting firm established in 2006 to promote science-intensive organic agriculture. The entrepreneur’s story is almost identical to Zook’s (the farmer in this story).  A series of crop failures on his own farm drove the 8th grade-educated Kempf to school himself in the sciences.  For two years, he pored over research in biology, chemistry, and agronomy in pursuit of a way to save his fields.

The breakthrough came from the study of plant immune systems which, in healthy plants, produce an array of compounds that are toxic to intruders.  “The immune response in plants is dependent on well-balanced nutrition,” Kempf concluded, “in much the same way as our own immune system.”  Modern agriculture uses fertilizer specifically to increase yields, he added, with little awareness of the nutritional needs of other organic functions.  Through plant sap analysis, Kempf has been able to discover deficiencies in important trace minerals which he can then introduce into the soil. With plants able to defend themselves, pesticides can be avoided, allowing the natural predators of pests to flourish.

"Instead of trying to grow crops that are healthy with fungicides and pesticides, I started to grow crops that are healthy with nutrition."  (Zook)

And one more point to ponder today.  In Great Britain the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN),  is in the process of updating the Government’s recommendations for carbohydrate consumption.  Of the 40 scientists in the SCAN group, all but 13 have received funding from sugar and related industries. 

Lest we Americans get big heads about England’s level of corruption, our own is just as bad or worse.  What’s wrong with having the sugar industry (or wheat farmers or corn farmers) dictate government nutrition recommendations? 

Why is Cancer Prevention Using Nutrition Not in the Media a Lot More?

If it’s clear from the literature that cancer prevention hinges mainly on minerals, Vitamin D and blood sugar (staying low) why don’t we hear more about cancer prevention using these strategies?

To answer that, ask yourself who benefits from the use of these (minerals, Vitamin D and low blood sugar)?  The general public could, but the general public is not trying to make a buck treating sick people. 

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Would the pharmaceutical companies benefit from minerals, vitamins?  Nope.

Would the junk food industry who wants to sell you lots of their sugar saturated junk?  Nope.

Would your doctor benefit by taking an hour to tell you all about selenium, iodine, magnesium, Vitamin D and keeping blood sugar low?  Nope.

How about the oncologist who makes a living once you HAVE cancer? Nope.

 

There is no one who benefits from pushing this information—not even me who has spent the better part of six weeks finding out all this information and talking about it?  Nope.  Except my own wellness has benefited.  For not only are these cancer prevention but they are disease prevention as well.  And cure. 

 

So today, a short blog and I leave you with this Amazon review for the book “Megans’s Cure” which is a book about a cure for cancer.  And when you finish, ask yourself, “How sick is that?”

 an Amazon review of a kindle book, Megans cure

”Several decades ago, one of my college professors told my class that the world cannot afford to find a cure for cancer. It would undermine not just the US economy but the entire world economy. He went on to discuss things such as how many people are employed because of cancer... doctors, nurses, technicians, hospital personnel (even the maids, cafeteria workers and admission clerks), insurance company personnel, pharmacists (and their clerks, buyers, warehouse and delivery people), drug company personnel, researchers, grant writers and other research fund-seekers, workers in hotels, taxis and airlines who deliver loved ones to where they need to be and all the people who design, build, lease/sell and maintain the health facilities, just to name a few. If there were no cancer, he told us, a huge percentage of our workforce would be unemployed. And don't forget the loss in tax revenue from all of these people and companies who are no longer earning taxable money. I didn't know if I believed him then. But years later I still mull over the premise and have to confess that I have, indeed, come to believe him.”

I do too.

Cancer Prevention Number Five

 As I get to the final post in this series on cancer prevention, let me review what I’ve already talked about.  The following nutrients have enormous numbers of scientific studies backing up their role in keeping you free of cancer as well as many other unpleasant and deadly conditions.

1.       Selenium

2.      Iodine

3.      Magnesium

4.      Vitamin D

 

These are not controversial.  The science is good and pretty overwhelming.  That they are not more mainstream reflects the lack of profit from them, rather than questions about their effectiveness in prevention.  They are also nutrients that are in short supply in nearly all populations.  You need all of them—and you probably do not get what you need.  New info about Vitamin D supplementing is worth reading.  Found here  http://preview.tinyurl.com/l8gl7fu  If you are older they are now recommending 8,000 iu per day.

 

The final subject of this series is an anti-nutrient—something you need less of than you’re probably getting.  It is sugar.  

 

The sugar industry would have you believe sugar is innocuous and that because it begins life as cane, beets or corn, it is “natural” and ok as part of your diet.  More and more research and even mainstream information indicates this is far from the truth.  In this series of articles my premise has been about the things known to prevent development of cancer.  High blood sugar is without doubt a player in that development.  The question remains, how much is too much.  

 

Here’s a study done in Sweeden in 2007 published in Diabetes Care.  When researchers looked at specific types of cancer, they found that both men and women with the highest blood sugar levels were more likely to have pancreatic cancer, urinary tract cancer, and malignant melanoma (the most deadly type of skin cancer) than those with the lowest blood sugar levels.  And for women, endometrial and breast cancer risk was highest for those with the highest blood sugar.

 

Because there is too much information on this anti-nutrient for this venue, and because I am busy writing a whole chapter on it for my upcoming book, I will briefly mention a few items of proof. 

 

Those  with highest glucose levels are 63% more likely to develop breast cancer.  A study of 33,293 women – which measured fasting and after meal glucose spikes – found those in the highest range were 75% more likely to develop other cancers. 

 

Pancreatic cancer is more likely to occur in people who have long-standing (over 5 years) diabetes than in people who do not have diabetes. In pancreatic cancer patients who have had diabetes for less than five years, it is unclear if the diabetes contributed to the cancer or if the precancerous cells caused the diabetes.

 

From a Feb 2013, study in Madrid, what is less well known is that diabetes and obesity are linked to an increase in cancer risk. The diabetic population has up to twice the risk of pancreatic or colon cancer among others.  Dr. Custodia García said "We were surprised to realize that changes in our metabolism caused by dietary sugar impact our cancer risk. We are now investigating what other dietary components may influence our cancer risk. Changing diet is one of easiest prevention strategies that can potentially save a lot of suffering and money."

 

The connection between diabetes and cancer was first reported in 2004 in large population studies by researchers from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. It is not controversial. What it means is that you are more likely to get cancer if you’re diabetic than if you’re not, and you’re more likely to get cancer if you have metabolic syndrome than if you don’t.

 

Suggesting that sugar might kill us is what zealots do. But Robert Lustig, who has genuine expertise, has accumulated and synthesized a mass of evidence, which he finds compelling enough to convict sugar.  It is given in his hour and a half long indictment of sugar widely seen on Youtube (found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM )

 

If it’s sugar that causes insulin resistance, then the conclusion is hard to avoid that sugar causes cancer — some cancers, at least — radical as this may seem and despite the fact that this suggestion has rarely if ever been voiced before publicly.  For just this reason, neither of these men (Robert Lustig and Gary Taubs, Author of Good Calories, Bad Calories) will eat sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.  

 

As if that were all not bad enough, sugar—high blood sugar is implicated in many, many diseases and health problems.  Nancy Applegate, author of “Lick the Sugar Habit” lists dozens of them based on research and studies that prove or strongly suggest the connections.  

 

Of particular concern to me at this age, is the connection between high blood sugar and brain shrinkage and dementia/Alzheimers.  Dr. Permutter, a Neurologist and author of “Grain Brain” preaches constantly about sugar (from any source) and the dangers to brain health.  His blog and newsletters are worth the time to read/watch.

 

One last thing in this shortened version of this topic.  The mechanism by which high blood sugar does the damage that it does, is inflammation.  We are not designed for high blood sugar.  The actual role of insulin in a healthy metabolism is to move nutrients into cells.  It’s lesser role of reducing blood sugar was designed to be only an emergency purpose in rare cases of elevated blood sugar.    Both high blood sugar and high insulin are highly inflammatory and inflammation causes damage—ultimately all disease and un-healthy states.

 

Blood sugar comes from what you put in your mouth.  Not only the sugar in sodas and desserts and junk food, but from the added sugar in virtually every processed food in the grocery store.  Read labels.   But even for people trying hard to eliminate that sort of sugar, remember that grains are huge condensed packages of sugar.  Look up glycemic load of any wheat, rice or corn product here http://nutritiondata.self.com/ (and even the “good” grains like quinoa and the like or gluten-free substitutes.)

 

Protein and fat do not convert to blood sugar in digestion.  All carbohydrates do, some in dangerously high amounts and quickly.  For lifelong health, freedom from cancer, especially, but good brain health into old age, less sugar—from all sources-- is mandatory.

 

Next article will examine why the information in the last few article is not more widely known and promoted.