The Deadly Fake Fat Lurking in the Supermarket -- Still!

www.huffingtonpost.com - June 11th, 2013

Artificial trans fat -- the kind that comes from partially hydrogenated oil -- has been called a "metabolic poison" and the "most dangerous fat in the food supply." It promotes heart disease by raising one's "bad" cholesterol (LDL), which clogs arteries, and lowering one's "good" cholesterol (HDL), the kind that guards against heart disease. According to the Institute of Medicine, there is no safe level for trans fat intake, and the American Heart Association recommends limiting it to less than 2 percent of calories per day. That's about two grams. Unless you're a vegan, that's about as much as you can expect to get from the smaller amounts of naturally-occurring trans fat in milk and meat. In other words? There's no room in your diet for anything partially hydrogenated.

Since 2006, when the federal government required trans fat to be listed on nutrition facts labels, most responsible manufacturers of processed foods began reformulating their product lines to get rid of artificial trans fat. (And fortunately, these reformulated products typically end up lower in saturated fat as well as trans fat.) But as a new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Preventing Chronic Disease (I'm a co-author) shows, some stubborn manufacturers are still sticking with this discredited industrial ingredient despite the consensus that it is dangerous and unnecessary.

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Sugar vs fat? Know Your Poison

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk - April 11th, 2013

Despite living in the 'low-fat' era, many of us have been implicating sugar (and refined and processed starchy foods generally), not fat, as the dietary driving force behind many of our twenty first century health woes. Of course, the 'low-fat' paradigm remains a virtually impregnable stronghold, propped up by official government agencies and their perpetuation of (so-called) healthy eating advice and an omnipotent food industry flogging us 'low-fat' products at every turn (all in the name of good health, you understand). But is the veneer finally beginning to fade on the low-fat hypothesis? Is the pendulum finally swinging away from fat as the harbinger of all things evil, to a new culprit, sugar?

A new meta-analysis published last week in the BMJ, examining prospective cohort studies and randomised controlled trials, found that both types of studies showed an adverse effect of sugar on body weight in adults [1]. This only really marks the tip of the iceberg of the deleterious effects of sugar on health. As spelled out in an accompanying editorial, consumption of sugar, and carbs in general, raises postprandial blood sugar levels and adversely affects aspects of the metabolic syndrome, increasing insulin and triglycerides, whilst reducing levels of protective HDL cholesterol [2].

This will come as nothing new to readers of our award-winning book The Health Delusion in which we not only reveal that strong evidence implicating saturated fat in heart disease just doesn't exist, but worse still, replacing it with high GI carbs dramatically increases the risk. For example, in a cohort study of 53,644 men and women over 12 years, replacing 5% of calories from saturated fat with high GI carbs was associated with a dramatic 33% increase in heart attack occurrence [3]. Stop and think about that and you see just how dumb 'low fat' foods, typically laced with terrifying amounts of added sugars to make them palatable, really are.

The eminent Willett and Ludwig, in their editorial, sum up the scale of the problem by drawing parallels between the harm caused by sugar to that of tobacco and alcohol when they conclude "Healthcare providers could play an important role by routinely asking about consumption of sugar sweetened drinks as well as tobacco and alcohol use, by setting a good example, and by assuming leadership in public efforts to limit sugar as a source of harm" [2]. It's hard not to be seduced by parallels with the tobacco industry. Intake of added sugars accounts for 15% of our total energy (that's the equivalent to eating nothing but sugar one day each week), and powerful economic interests are vested in keeping the sugar flowing via the production and sale of sugar-laced foods and beverages. That the sugar lobby continues to be vociferous in their denials that sugar is bad for health, has more than faint echoes of a tobacco industry that once tried every trick in the book to perpetuate the lie that smoking didn't kill.

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Harvard Study Confirms Fluoride Reduces Children's IQ

www.huffingtonpost.com - April 4th, 2013

A recently-published Harvard University meta-analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded that children who live in areas with highly fluoridated water have "significantly lower" IQ scores than those who live in low fluoride areas.

In a 32-page report that can be downloaded free of charge from Environmental Health Perspectives*, the researchers said:

A recent report from the U.S. National Research Council (NRC 2006) concluded that adverse effects of high fluoride concentrations in drinking water may be of concern and that additional research is warranted. Fluoride may cause neurotoxicity in laboratory animals, including effects on learning and memory ...

To summarize the available literature, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies on increased fluoride exposure in drinking water and neurodevelopmental delays. We specifically targeted studies carried out in rural China that have not been widely disseminated, thus complementing the studies that have been included in previous reviews and risk assessment reports ...

Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence ... The results suggest that fluoride may be a developmental neurotoxicant that affects brain development at exposures much below those that can cause toxicity in adults ...

Serum-fluoride concentrations associated with high intakes from drinking-water may exceed 1 mg/L, or 50 Smol/L, thus more than 1000-times the levels of some other neurotoxicants that cause neurodevelopmental damage. Supporting the plausibility of our findings, rats exposed to 1 ppm (50 Smol/L) of water-fluoride for one year showed morphological alterations in the brain and increased levels of aluminum in brain tissue compared with controls ...

In conclusion, our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children's neurodevelopment. Future research should formally evaluate dose-response relations based on individual-level measures of exposure over time, including more precise prenatal exposure assessment and more extensive standardized measures of neurobehavioral performance, in addition to improving assessment and control of potential confounders.

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*Download 32 Page Report 

Food Dyes: Why People Want Them Despite Potential Health Risks

www.huffingtonpost.com - February 26th, 2013

What, exactly, does familiarity breed? Apparently glow-in-the-dark food is one possibility.

That, in essence, is the message in a recent New York Times article by Gardiner Harris summarizing research and perspectives on the topic of artificial colorings and food dyes.

Mr. Harris points out that in the absence of FD&C Yellow No. 6, Cheetos would display the pallor, and apparently the appeal, of insect larvae. Studies have shown that foods lacking the expected color are rated lower on taste, even though taste is actually unchanged!

Pickles are bright green courtesy of food dyes; they would otherwise be grey. Jell-O, we're told, would be tan.

All of this sounds unappealing, and research confirms that's just how people respond. But then again, cauliflower is pale and it's not a problem. Steel cut oats are both pale, and somewhat grey, and taste just fine. Wheat toast (or for that matter, any toast) is tan, and no one objects.

The issue, then, seems not to be preference for a given color -- but preference for the expected color. Green pickles are good, but not because green is good -- but because it's expected. Green eggs, with or without ham, are not so good -- or at least take some getting used to! We prefer the familiar color.

We all know, of course, what the idiom tells us: familiarity breeds contempt. If we reflect on some things (or people) we should cherish every day, but tend to take somewhat for granted, we may be inclined to agree. But even the wisest and most time-honored of aphorisms are not unfailingly true.

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Is the Dietitians' Trade Group in Bed With the Junk Food Industry?

www.huffingtonpost.com - February 25th, 2013

The largest trade group of nutrition professionals -- the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics -- has a serious credibility problem.

The Academy represents 74,000 dietitians in the United States, and its mission is to promote optimal nutrition and well-being for all people. But according to an explosive report released by Michele Simon and her organization, the industry watchdog Eat Drink Politics, the Academy is sponsored by folks like ConAgra, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Kellogg's, Mars, and the National Dairy Council.

According to the report, Academy sponsors can become an "Academy Partner," which entitles them to "educate" nutrition professionals about the health benefits of their products, co-sponsor events, and conduct educational sessions at meetings. They also can use the Academy's logo in marketing campaigns.

The report from Eat Drink Politics details how registered dietitians can earn continuing education units from Coca-Cola, in which they learn that sugar is not a problem for children. In addition to Coca-Cola, companies on the Academy's list of approved continuing education providers include Kraft Foods, Nestlé, and PepsiCo.

Despite its enormous clout and its nutritional advocacy mission, the Academy has thus far refused to endorse some of the steps that many experts agree could improve public health and expand health freedom, including limits on soft drink sizes, taxes on sugary sodas, or the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Could there be any connection between the millions of dollars in sponsorship the Academy receives from junk food manufacturers, and a seeming lack of initiative on behalf of the public welfare?

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