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Additional Factors Identified in Parkinson’s Disease
Recently diet and lifestyle factors have been identified as possible contributing factors to the development of Parkinson’s Disease. For many years Parkinson’s Disease and Parkinsonian like disorders were considered to be primarily of hereditary origin, and we may have thought we were “destined” to follow in our family’s foot-steps. However, like many other recent findings regarding genes, environment and nutrition (nutrigenomics etc) participate in a significant interplay, and we actually may be able to have some input into our genetic expression, and the development of degenerative or chronic diseases.
Avoiding exposure to toxins and pesticides has often been recommended in the fight against neuro-degenerative conditions. Pasteurized milk has not yet been considered by mainstream America as a “toxic food product” (although proponents of raw milk will be happy to itemize the reasons why this might be true), it has been attributed to the onset of Parkinson’s Disease. Other risk factors include:
- Environmental toxins and pesticides
- Petroleum based hydrocarbon solvents like glues and paints
- Aspartame (artificial sweetener found in many diet sodas and low calorie foods – think “blue packet”)
- Excess Iron in your body
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Folate deficiency
- Pasteurized milk
It is important to note that all of these are lifestyle-related issues, and that making simple changes can be a powerful tool to fight degenerative and chronic diseases.
What you eat matters!
Baby Carrots – True and False Information
I often have clients asking me about “baby carrots”….
The concern with which they ask me about these “devil” vegetables prompted me to look into the claims that they are from (A) deformed, larger carrots, and (B) that they are marinated in chlorine – the known carcinogen – and that when they have been in the refrigerator for a few days and they get a white film on them – this is the chlorine coming through.
So – what I could ascertain – and the Snopes link is listed below – is that both (A) and (B) are PARTIALLY true and partially false!
(A) Baby carrots may have been produced from “imperfect” larger carrots when first introduced to the market, but in fact they are now made from specially engineered carrots that are sweeter and brighter in their orange color to be more appealing and tastier.
(B) An antimicrobial treatment that does contain chlorine is applied to the product to reduce the risk of contamination. Prior to packaging the product is rinsed with water and the excess chlorine is supposed to be removed during this rinse.
The “white” that appears on the carrots is reported to be from dehydration of carrots on the exposed surfaces.
So, in moderation, as part of a balanced, whole food meal or snack, you can enjoy your sweet baby carrots without fear of some internet email conspiracy affecting your food choices…
http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/carrots.asp
Food Coloring
For many years I have warned about the less than innocuous coloring in foods – even in “so-called” healthy foods:
Gatorade and fruit flavored yogurts
Think – irritability, hyperactivity, depression, anger…. Many are also considered carcinogens (possible cancer causing agents)
Many colors are allowed in the U.S., yet banned in most European nations and Canada. Do they know
something we don’t? Not likely – they are just more willing to admit a correlation between these toxic ingredients
and the mood and brain function influences they have. Many colors are derived from petroleum or coal tar.
Just because they look pretty doesn’t mean they are good for you!
Even without the “proof” from the FDA parents are removing these coloring from children’s diets and noticing significant improvements in focus, temper and behavior.
Here’s a little info on Blue No. 1, Yellow No. 5, and Red No. 40. From http://idsgn.org/posts/an-edible-color-palette/
These numbers make up part of an artificial color palette approved by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration. First introduced in 1906, the FDA’s Pure Food and Drug Act (and later the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) was put in place to ensure the safety and wholesomeness of food products. Before this, more than eighty dyes were used to color food, without regulation—the same dye could be used to color both clothing and candy.
Currently, the FD&C color palette features seven colors that can be used in the production of food, along with two additional colors for limited use.
In the European Union, a similar system is in place for assessing food additives (both artificial and natural), denoted by E numbers. But for the purpose of this article, we’ll stick to the FD&C numbers.
Artificial dyes have been used to color food for decades, giving us the unnaturally neon food we’ve grown to love. Without them, soft drinks would be clear, Cheetos would be beige, Froot Loops would just be Cheerios, and Easter eggs wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
While it may not come as a surprise that Cheetos are not naturally dayglo-orange (or naturally anything, for that matter), its color may be more important than we think. As revealed in a recent New York Timesarticle, taste testers at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab who sampled a Yellow No. 6-less version of the snack were left feeling unsatisfied.
Their fingers did not turn orange. And their brains did not register much cheese flavor, even though the Cheetos tasted just as they did with food coloring.
“People ranked the taste as bland and said that they weren’t much fun to eat,” says Brian Wansink, a professor at Cornell. Of course, it couldn’t help that naked Cheetos appear as an unappetizing off-white—or as the New York Times describes, “like shriveled larvae of a large insect.”
Besides making our food colorful, these artificial dyes—made up of tar derivatives, long-chain hydrocarbons, and other petrochemicals—have been linked to hyperactivity in children (although the FDA says evidence is inconclusive), and have even been tested to cure spinal injuries in lab rats.
So what exactly are they?
Typical of modern dyes, Blue No. 1 was originally derived from coal tar. Today, most manufacturers produce it synthetically from an oil base. Also known as “Brilliant Blue FCF,” it is used to color products like Gatorade, soft drinks, candy, and mouthwash. Along with Yellow No. 5 and Red No. 40, it is one of the most commonly used colors, and can be combined with Yellow No. 5 to create various shades of green. In 2003, The FDA warned of several reports of toxicity associated with its use, including death.
This royal blue dye is a synthetic version of the plant-based indigo, the same colorant used to dyeblue jeans. It can be found in soft drinks, candy such as M&Ms, frozen deserts, breakfast cereals, and bakery products. It is use medical dyes, surgical sutures, and for testing milk. The World Health Organization gives Blue No. 2 a toxicology rating of B: Available data not entirely sufficient to meet requirements acceptable for food use.
Like many of the other current FD&C colors, Green No. 3 was created as a replacement for another dye that was delisted after health concerns (replacing Green No. 2 in this case).Green No. 3, or “Fast Green FCF,” is used in products like canned peas, candy, fish, and vegetables. The dye is not permitted in the European Union due to animal studies which showed it to be a possible carcinogen.
Derived from coal tar, Tartrazine is a lemon yellow azo dye. It is one of the most widely used additives, found in products like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Mountain Dew, Doritos, breakfast cereals, candy, chewing gum, jam, pickles, yogurt, vitamins, and prescription drugs. The dye is banned in Norway and the Britain’s Foods Standard Agency has called for a voluntary phase-out of its use in foods due to links to hyperactivity in children.
As the name suggests, Sunset Yellow is a reddish yellow coloring. Like Yellow No. 5, it is derived from coal tar, and its effects on health have been questioned. It is banned in Norway and Finland, and was included in the UK’s push for voluntary phase-out. It can be found in orange soda, hot chocolate mix, breakfast cereal, and candy like Reese’s Pieces.
Red No. 3, also known by its chemical name Erythrosine, is a cherry-pink dye used to color products like maraschino cherries, pistachios, canned fruit, candy, popsicles, cake decorating gels, and toothpaste. It is also used in printing inks, as a biological stain, a dental plaque disclosing agent, and in X-rays. In 1990, the U.S. FDA placed a partial ban on Red No. 3 after research showed high doses could cause cancer in rats.
Allura Red is the newest color of the bunch, approved in 1971, and was introduced to replace the banned Red No. 4. Despite the popular misconception, Red No. 40 is not derived from insects (that would be carmine). This azo dye wasoriginally manufactured from coal tar, but is now mostly made from petroleum. It is banned in Denmark, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Sweden. It was also included in UK’s voluntary phase-out in 2009, due to hyperactivity in children. Red No. 40 can be found in sweets like Twizzlers, soft drinks, condiments, and cosmetics.
LIMITED USE COLORS
Derived from coal tar, Orange B is limited for use only in hot dog and sausage casings. In 1978, the FDA announced its use could result in exposure to beta-naphthylamine, a known cancer-causing additive. Beta-naphthylamine is listed on the Center for Disease Control’s Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards.
An azo dye approved for use only in coloring citrus peels. The dye is used in Florida to mask color variations with oranges and tangerines throughout the seasons (it is not used in California). According to A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives, studies have shown health problems including cancer from heavy ingestion and from exposure to the skin.
According to Gatorade’s website, artificial colors are added to its products to “help in flavor perception and enable you to tell different flavors apart.” They also are quick to point out, “All colors and ingredients in Gatorade qualify for human consumption according to the requirements of the FDA, added at the lowest possible level to achieve the desired color.”
Some grocery stores, including Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, have put an outright ban on artificially colored foods.
Not all food coloring is as scary as the FD&C color palette, however. Cola gets its color from caramelized sugar (although that’s been recently scrutinized too), cheddar cheese gets its orange color from annatto and paprika, and some modern brands are turning to natural options like turmeric or beets for color.
Other brands have recently decided to do away with color completely in some of their products, including Kraft’s Kool-Aid Invisible and Organic White Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese.
April – Stress Awareness Month
This is taken from my submission to our local newspaper.
As ski season comes to an end many of you might be able to let out a sigh of relief, only to come back in a few weeks for a busy summer season. “Stress Awareness?”, you might exclaim, “I could be the poster child for stress awareness”! Most of us however, are usually only aware of the stress that happens from the neck up.
I often use the “iceberg” example when talking about stress. What we “know” about – usually our mental stress or the stress we feel in our neck and shoulder area, is like the iceberg that is above the water.
Over the past few years the economy put many of us in “survival mode”. If it wasn’t broken we just kept going. As time has passed some of us are noticing things we may have neglected and the toll the past few years has taken on us. We may have been aware of the headaches, neck tension and tight shoulders when we casually remarked “I hold my stress in my shoulders”, however, we didn’t always know what was happening to our bodies from the neck down when it comes to stress.
From experience however, we know that the majority of the iceberg is really hiding below the surface. In our example – below our neck and shoulders. These types of “stress” tend not to be as easily recognized as emotional stress, yet they are often the type of stress that lead to long-term illness and chronic disease.
These stresses can be classified as physical, structural and chemical stress, and they are the forces that affect our body, usually on a subconscious level, until they begin to cause pain, or give us signs of dysfunction. Unfortunately, by the time we experience signs or symptoms, so much degeneration has occurred that we likely have developed a disease.
For example, if our blood sugar is constantly out of balance, and goes untreated, over a period of years we might develop Type II Diabetes. It is likely we were not monitoring our blood glucose numbers, because usually the only people who are doing so are people who already know that they have diabetes or some type of blood sugar disorder. What we want to do is take notice of, and learn to identify the early warning signs of these types of stressors. We want to look for subtle indicators, and use preventative measures to delay or even avoid the development of long-term diseases, which ultimately decrease our quality of life.
Going back to our blood sugar instability example; if you experience fatigue after eating; shakiness or irritability between meals, or if meals are missed; if your waist circumference is larger than your hips; if your cholesterol numbers are creeping up; if you crave sweets after meals, or if sweets don’t satisfy your cravings; these may be early indicators that you have blood sugar instability. Making diet and lifestyle changes during these early stages may reduce the risk of developing further symptoms or other disorders associated with diabetes such as cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure, as well as reduce the risk of requiring long-term medication to manage your condition.
Other common imbalances that place a significant amount of stress on the body include anemia (often from iron or Vitamin B deficiency), thyroid dysfunction, adrenal dysregulation, hormone imbalance, and digestive distress. Heartburn, gas, bloating and constipation may be common in today’s society, however these symptoms are not normal. If you experience any of these discomforts, it is likely that they are an early warning sign that your body is under a fair amount of stress and it is trying to send you a message. April is Stress Awareness Month – please learn how to listen to your body. For information on structural and physical stress mentioned previously, please contact Dr. Slavin.
Dr. Slavin is a functional medicine practitioner and the owner of Functional Wellness in Avon. Working to reduce the various sources of stress on the body can allow you some breathing room and keep you below threshold so you don’t get sick as often, or injure your body when you are constantly operating in the red-zone. To learn more about how to address the complex web of stress in your body please call 970-376-7779.
Radiation Frenzy – Misguided and Possibly Harmful
Over the past few days a plethora of opinions and advice have spread across the internet, chain emails and social media websites. At best the information might be harmless, at worst inaccurate and potentially dangerous.
Much of the recent coverage has centered around high doses of potassium iodide (KI) to prevent uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid. While this information has some accuracy, what was released at the Fukushima reactor was radioactive cesium. Trace amounts of radioactive iodine were found very close to the reactor itself, but for the moment, if there were to be a radioactive issue – it would likely be cesium.
Some of the 60 worldwide detectors used to monitor the global ban on the testing of nuclear arms have found minuscule levels of cesium-137 and iodine-131 (the highly dangerous byproducts of reactor operation); the measured levels are judged to be millions of times lower than concentrations that would pose a danger to human health.
Although many news media sources and government agencies are reporting that the plume’s radiation had been “diluted enormously”, that concentrations are “very low” and that it would have “no health consequences in the United States”, some self-proclaimed “experts” on the internet are trying to scare consumers into purchasing “protective miracle pills” at five or ten times the regular cost.
Most of these “miracle pills” are potassium iodide (KI), which is often used as a supplement for various health concerns including thyroid dysfunction. Although potassium iodide itself is not harmful within dosage guidelines, if you have a diagnosed or even undiagnosed thyroid condition, especially one that has an autoimmune component to it (Hashimoto’s or Grave’s Disease), increasing your iodine intake may actually exacerbate your autoimmune condition, and prove more dangerous to your thyroid and overall health than any exposure to the minimal radiation levels we are currently seeing.
Back to the cesium versus. iodine issue. Cesium is very different from iodine, and the tissues that could be involved with cesium-137 would more likely be muscle (and other tissues) as compared to the thyroid with iodine-131. Cesium is treated by the body as if it were potassium, so a potassium deficiency would tend to make you more receptive to any potential hazards. The good news is that potassium is abundant in our average diet, and deficiencies would likely only been seen with excessive use of diuretics or electrolyte imbalances due to excessive fluid loss. Unfortunately, increased iodine consumption can lead to overstimulation of the thyroid which can actually contribute to a potassium deficiency. There are other nuances to the physiology, so these examples are illustrative and not intended to be comprehensive, but it is important to convey the message about not taking iodine unnecessarily.
Additionally, potassium regulation is also affected by magnesium. These nutrients are often found together in green leafy vegetables, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, as well as black beans. So, if you were considering supplementing your diet with potassium and magnesium, your best choice would be to choose whole food sources that supply natural sources of the nutrients as compared to artificially synthesized sources.
Whole foods provide the enzymes, co-factors and other molecules that help you to digest and absorb the valuable components from the food. Synthetically manufactured supplements often isolate one molecule from thousands of compounds in a food, and then highly concentrate and often heat and compress it into a pill that may not be easily digested, nor well assimilated into the body. For example, if you ate whole fresh strawberries that might contain 50mg of Vitamin C, and contain all the natural components I mentioned, enzymes, co-factors, isoflavones, etc; you might absorb and utilize 90% of the available Vitamin C, thereby yielding approximately 40mg from the strawberries. If however you took a synthetic version of Vitamin C – ascorbic acid – as a 250mg tablet, you might only absorb 10%, or 25mg, because the body needs all the components available in the whole food to help you digest, absorb and utilize the nutrients. Not all supplements are manufactured the same way, so become an educated consumer and ask your healthcare provider how your supplements are produced to make sure you are getting the high quality product you need.
There are some other supplements that can be very helpful in protecting DNA from mutations. These are specialized products that have been formulated for specific use and circumstances. Some can be found in liposomal delivery creams that bipass the digestive tract and changes that would occur during metabolism. If you are interested in these products please consult with your healthcare provider.
Finally, it is important to remember that every person’s body is unique, both in its inherited composition (DNA) as well as experiences in life and from the environment, so a “one size fits all” approach doesn’t always work on unique individuals when it comes to health, nutrition and supplementation. Your body’s individual history and composition might require special consideration, so please be cautious when reviewing marketing hype and advertisers promising a “cure” that sounds too good to be true. Seek the guidance of a well informed healthcare provider who has up-to-date knowledge of current research and technology to help you determine what will be best for you and your body, whether it’s the latest radiation scare tactic, or miracle weight-loss and anti-ageing cures. Take the time – become an informed consumer.
Sources: – New York Times – Radiation Plume Reaches U.S., but Is Said to Pose No Risk; William J. Broad – March 18, 2011
NaturalNews .com – Precautionary and restorative measures to take in the event of radioactive contamination; Tony Isaacs – March 17, 2011
Mike Mutzel, MSc – Nuclear Scare, Importance of DNA Stability – March 16, 2011
Dr. Gavriel Cousens MD – On the Events in Japan and Our Health – March 16, 2011