Medicinal Effects of Foods - Part 4

OK - here goes: SWEETENERS

I have to take a deeeeeep breath here because this is a huge topic of interest and concern for my clients. This is one of those places where politics, money, marketing, health, science, habits, and the force of denial come crashing into each other. In my experience, artificial sweeteners are in the top 3 of the most controversial and heatedly debated food topics today, the other two being dairy and soy (followed closely by GMOs and pesticides).

For starters, people don't want to believe that food is political. We KNOW this on one level, but we don't want to know it at another. If you've worked with me for even a short amount of time you've likely heard me say that denial is a force stronger than gravity. Our denial is like burying our heads in the sand or refusing to see what is actually right in front of us. Denial allows marketing agents to play on our fears and our habits that keep us from making changes that will cost their clients money. Denial allows back room dealings between politicians and the industrial food industry to remain relatively hush hush because we really don't want to know that Donald Rumsfeld was instrumental in getting the drug aspartame pushed into our food supply; or that huge industry efforts were made to silence scientist Dr Mary Enig when she started to speak out about the health dangers of trans-fats; or that the beef industry waged a terrifyingly large law suit against Oprah for saying she wouldn't eat conventional beef on national TV. Denial allows us to walk into our average grocery store and assume that whatever is being sold on the shelves must be safe to consume. So first off I'm going to ask my readers to put denial aside for a few minutes and read on.

Here in the industrialized world we have been operating for decades on the belief that we can have better lives through scientific manipulation of our environment, our foods, our cleaning products, our water... actually nearly everything. At the sustenance level, we have gotten it into our heads that we are smarter than Mother Nature and we can create better foods than the ones our bodies developed utilizing over eons. With an exceptionally limited understanding of how the human body and all of it's systems work, we think we can create substances that will provide our bodies with exactly what they need as well as feed the habits of desire without consequences. So, we end up with things like "no calorie sweeteners" in the form of aspartame or sucralose, and "fat substitutes" like olestra. The trouble begins when you start looking a bit more closely at how the body utilizes these "Frankenfoods". For this post, I'm going to limit this glimpse to artificial sweeteners. Here are just a few simple verifiable facts:

Fact: Aspartame (aka NutraSweet, Equal, AminoSweet, and Candarel) breaks down in the human body into 2 amino acids, and methanol. Methanol, also known as "wood alcohol", is broken down in the body to formaldehyde. Yup, you read that right. Formaldehyde, the same stuff that those frogs were floating in before you dissected them in high school biology class.

Fact: Formaldehyde is a carcinogen and neurotoxin. There is no safe level of human exposure to formaldehyde (which is why those frogs are no longer preserved in it for biology classes).

Fact: Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle Laboratories before taking office in the Reagan administration. After his appointment, he vowed to get aspartame approved for use in the American food supply. It had been denied for the previous 16 years due to significant health concerns.

Fact: Sucralose is a laboratory-made chlorinated hydrocarbon with the same base as DDT made by using phosgene which is a neurotoxin used in World War I as a choking gas. Phosgene is also used to make plastics and pesticides.

Fact: Chlorine is a highly reactive substance in the body and one of the most active pro-oxidants in the human system. Chlorine gas was used against troops extensively in World War II.

Fact: The company that makes sucralose (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson) is in the midst of a lawsuit for false advertising and misleading the public into believing it's actually just sugar that has had its calories magically removed.

Fact: The long term use of no-calorie artificial sweeteners will actually cause weight gain and worsen diabetes.

Fact: Sucralose can cause shrinkage of the thymus gland, enlargement of the liver and kidneys, decreased red blood cell count, blood sugar disregulation, reduced fetal and placental weights, and miscarriage.

Fact: There are over 92 significant side effects of aspartame ingestion including: migraine, seizures, blindness, tinnitus, dizziness, confusion, severe depression, anxiety, aggression, heart palpitations, increased blood pressure, bloody diarrhea, birth defects and brain damage.

Heard enough yet? I could go on and on, but it gets me really riled up so I'm stopping here. Your body knows what to do with sugar. It's 10 calories per teaspoon.

Get smart. Get healthy. Get REAL.

Medicinal Effects of Foods - Part 3

I have many clients who come to see me worried about weight gain and what has become known in our culture as "emotional eating". These clients want to stop using eating as a way to medicate themselves. The thing is, everything we put in our systems has biochemical effects. Keep in mind that thoughts and emotions are "things" from a biological standpoint. They are real biochemical processes with ingredients and metabolic outcomes that can be tracked. The simplest form of medication that we've learned over the millennia is the use of food and drink to change the way neurotransmitters in the gut and brain behave. Because eating is something we must do, changing the way we relate to food as medicine is important. You can easily see why it would be important to quit smoking and you can make efforts to do so. But a person can't just quit eating. This is why it's so difficult to tease apart.

Let's start here: You can't take food and emotions apart. Because emotions and thoughts are built from the basic ingredients we take in. When looking at "emotional eating" it is important to really understand this statement. The foods (and other substances) you ingest become you. There are whole supermarkets full of "food products" that have little or no connection with what could be conceived of as Real Food. Just as real food becomes the biochemical building blocks of your muscles, your organs, your immune system, your thoughts and your emotions, so too do all the new-fangled chemicals that have entered our food supply in the last 100 years. It is vital that you start asking yourself "Is this what I want to build myself out of today?"

For most of us, sugar is our biggest weakness and the thing that has the biggest negative impact. Sugar is pro-inflammatory, depresses the immune system, contributes to mood instability, creates an acidic internal environment, worsens PMS symptoms, and hastens aging, just to name a few. But we love the stuff! Why? It makes perfect sense from a biochemical standpoint. The same bank of lights in the brain that gets turned on by serotonin (the neurotransmitter that makes us feel happy) also gets amped up by sugar. When we feel down, depressed, stressed, unhappy or need an escape, flooding the system with sugar can help to temporarily change our internal environment. The trouble is that sugar is like jet fuel: it burns hot and fast. Once the body has overcome the flood of sugar, the natural levels in the bloodstream are even lower than where they were before the sugar rush. A signal from the brain says "hey, running out of juice up here, need more of that feel good stuff!" and off we go to find another fix. The trick here is to short circuit the response and reach for foods that increase natural serotonin rather than settle for the quick fix that only temporarily bandaids the situation. In this case, reach for protein. The best choices would be eggs, turkey, elk, pork, crab, shrimp, and salmon (vegetarian options include 200 kcal portions of spirulina, spinach, and watercress) because they are high in tryptophan which is what the body uses to create serotonin.

There are whole manifestos available on the detrimental effects of food additives and toxic residues out there so I won't go into a dissertation here. (If you are interested in a few good references check out "Aspartame Disease" by H. J. Roberts; "Excitotoxins: the taste that kills" by Russell Blaylock; "Diet for a Poisoned Planet" by David Steinman; and "Sweet Deception" by Joseph Mercola). Suffice it to say, each of these toxins has an impact. If you are susceptible, the way they are incorporated into your system will have worse effects. For example, there are case studies showing that you can actually fool your doctor into believing you have multiple sclerosis by ingesting just the right amount of aspartame (aka Nutrasweet). Aspartame is actually a drug, not a food, and we are misusing it in America. Artificial sweeteners are the worst offenders largely because they have become so common in foods. I urge you to get these toxins out of your diet, and especially out of the food supply for children. We are already seeing dire consequences of long term use, and I hate to see what's in store for our teens who are gulping down gallons of diet sodas.

Take control of the sweet portion of your food supply and you will solve big groups of issues including the craving for the sweet taste itself. It takes about 2-4 weeks. That's all. But you have to be vigilant. If you need help, enlist a good nutritionist to walk you through the process. Making changes to the way you look at, think about, shop for, prepare, and eat food is extremely difficult. It's not as easy as "just do it". There are so many reasons WHY we eat and in order to get a handle on some of the biggies, it's ok to ask for help. Sugar and sweet cravings are biggies. It's not just about willpower so stop beating yourself up. It's about biochemistry and learning to create the internal environment you want.

Get Smart. Get Fresh. Get Real.

Medicinal Effects of Foods - Part 1

As one of my dear friends and colleagues Jonathan Treasure says, the same substances can be food, medicine, or poison depending on amounts. This is a very important point that I try to make with my clients (and family and friends!). Just because something is "natural" doesn't mean there aren't potentially life threatening consequences in large amounts. Take alcohol as an easy example. It is a natural substance which in small quantities can be medicinal and in larger quantities becomes toxic (if you've never had a hangover, just watch the nature programs that show elephants and monkeys getting drunk on fermenting fruits). At high enough doses, alcohol becomes a poison that can kill you by causing total nervous system depression thereby shutting off vital communication that keeps the heart beating and the lungs breathing. As I mentioned in a previous post, what I find fascinating is when normally bright and intelligent people say to me "well it's natural and I was feeling better so I thought I'd take twice the dose to feel twice as good"... yeah... Hemlock is natural too...

It is important to understand that the vast majority of the medications we take were derived from the natural world, at least at the beginning. Aspirin is derived originally from the bark of the white willow which is high in salicylic acid. Scientists started to create this acid in the laboratory cheaply and now it's available over the counter as aspirin. One of the problems is that salicylic acid causes internal bleeding both by damaging the gastric and gut mucosa (which you can't feel until the damage is severe), and by inhibiting platelet formation which is essential for proper clotting. And yes, even that 81mg "baby aspirin" causes these problems. There are ways to protect the mucosa from these detrimental effects, one of which is to pre and post medicate with l-glutamine powder or capsules.

Interestingly, there are common foods that are high in salicylic acid. Those with greater than 1 milligram per 100 grams (or about 3.5 ounces) include: green peppers, olives, mushrooms, tomatoes, radishes, apricots, blueberries, blackberries, cantaloupe, dates, raisins, guava, almonds and peanuts. Spices that also contain greater than 1 mg per 100g are: cumin, curry, dill, garam masala, oregano, hot paprika, rosemary, thyme, turmeric, and mustard. This is when your spice cabinet becomes your medicine cabinet! The salicylic acid content is in large part the reason why these foods and spices are anti-inflammatory. However, eaten alone, they can aggravate gastric symptoms in susceptible people.

So this is another good reason to combine foods when creating meals. When consumed with foods that contain l-glutamine (a common amino acid) and foods that provide good sources of minerals, salicylic acid is easier for the body to handle because of the healing effects of the l-glutamine and buffering effect of minerals. Good food sources for l-glutamine include: eggs, pork, dairy products, wheat germ and oats. Good sources of magnesium (which is the active ingredient in most antacids by the way) are barley, buckwheat, oats, almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, black beans, white beans and navy beans.

Starting to sound like another plug for eating REAL FOOD? You betcha!

"If 1 is Good, then 2 must be Great!"

With finances at the forefront of many American’s minds, we have begun reaching more often for alternatives to expensive standard healthcare options. Recent reports show that rather than running to the doctor with aches, pains and colds, people are using botanical medicines and nutritional supplements as a first line of defense. This is often a very good option, however, it is important to understand that just because something is “natural” doesn’t mean it is safe to take more than the recommended dose.

I can’t tell you how many times clients tell me “this tincture/supplement works so well I thought I’d take twice as much so I’d feel better even faster.” This is NOT how botanicals or nutritional supplements work. Just like pharmaceutical medicines, herbal medicines and supplements can be dangerous is high doses. Keep in mind that nearly all our pharmaceutical agents were originally derived from the plant kingdom. Simple examples are aspirin which was originally derived from white willow bark, and the heart medication digoxin which comes from the flower foxglove (aka digitalis).

Please follow the directions on the container if you are treating yourself, and absolutely follow the directions of your practitioner if you are working with a trained professional. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider what you are taking including all medications and supplements because some of them can interfere with each other in detrimental ways. When in doubt, work with a trained professional to help you make healthy choices for you and your loved ones. Don't play doctor just because you can purchase something over the counter at your health food store.

I'm laying this on thick because I care. Really.

Nanoparticles: What's the big deal?

You may be aware of the newest catchword in advertising: nanoparticles. These are some of the very smallest pieces of molecules that scientists have been able to manipulate. The reasons? Similar to the reasons for creating smaller faster microchips for computers, if certain aspects of a food or a material or a medicine can be made smaller, it is thought that it will function better and faster. Well, this may be the case in ways we never imagined. Part of the concern now is that these extremely small particles are able to create really big problems. They can undergo drastic structural changes really quickly which can cause them to react with their environment in unpredictable ways. Some can react in volatile ways with other chemicals, and others can change the way intracellular processes happen. There are reports that the toxicity of these nanoparticles increases as their size decreases. Until we know more about the long term effects on human and planetary systems, it is probably best to avoid products that tout these Frankensteinian characteristics. Choose a non-nano face cream, especially when it comes to sunscreens.