Marc Joseph Nutrition - Blog

It’s a true tragedy that better warnings and precautions weren’t provided by city and government agencies to the more than 40,000 police, firefighters, and other people who worked on cleaning up the debris at Ground Zero.

In fact, agencies assured people living and working in the surrounding area that there was nothing to worry about:

Literally before the dust had cleared, the administration of New York’s then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani assured a terrified city that the air was safe. On September 16, the city’s health department issued a public statement declaring that “the general public’s risk for any short or long term adverse health [effects is] extremely low.” The same day, EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman volunteered her own bill of clean health: “There’s no need for the general public to be concerned.”

Of course, we now know that wasn’t true. Even a federal judge has concluded Whitman’s statements were “deliberate,” “misleading,” and even “conscience shocking.”

Now the effects of those decisions are being felt:

Today, increasing numbers of emergency service workers are reporting breathing and digestive problems and rashes, and their incidence of cancer is higher than normal. At least one death, that of Detective James Zadroga in January, from heart and lung complications, has been linked by a medical examiner to work at Ground Zero; six other responders in their 30’s and 40’s have died from causes like heart failure and lung cancer…

…A study of more than 12,000 firemen and emergency medical workers at the site, recently published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, found that on average they had a reduction in lung function equivalent to what would be caused by 12 years of aging.

Fortunately, the health of some people is improving with the help of heavy metal detoxification:

Doctors and other health practitioners at the Olive Leaf Wholeness Center, in downtown New York…, have detected heavy-metal poisoning in many of the Ground Zero workers they have seen. They have given these workers detoxification treatments — including chelation for many patients. Chelation, a treatment often used on children exposed to lead paint, involves giving the patient a sulfur compound that draws heavy metals from the tissues.

These practitioners have found that after three to four months of detoxification therapy, the afflicted Ground Zero workers see most of their symptoms diminish or disappear.

You can learn more about heavy metal toxicity and treatment here.

A worldwide problem — and growing fast:

About one fifth of the one billion overweight or obese people in the world are Chinese. China was once considered to have one of the leanest populations, but it is fast catching up with the West in terms of the prevalence of overweight and obesity; disturbingly, this transition has occurred in a remarkably short time.

Data from the 2002 national nutrition and health survey showed that 14.7% of Chinese were overweight (body mass index (BMI; kg/m2) > 25) and another 2.6% were obese (BMI > 30), such that there are currently (2002) 184 million overweight people, and a further 31 million obese people, in China, out of a total population of 1.3 billion. Although the prevalence of obesity in China is relatively low compared with Western countries such as the United States, where over half of adults are either overweight or obese, it is the rapid increase of the condition, especially among children, that is particularly alarming. Data from the China national surveys on the constitution and health in school children showed that the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children aged 7-18 years increased 28 times and obesity increased four times between 1985 and 2000, a trend that was particularly marked in boys.

The common culprits are cited: changes to the traditional diet, reduced levels of physical activity, and increased sedentary lifestyles.

A recent Commonwealth Fund study shows that the challenges and concerns of high health care costs are extending into the upper middle class, too:

Forty-eight percent of individuals in families earnings between $35,000 and $49,999 said they had either a somewhat serious or very serious problem paying their medical bills in the last two years, according to a study by The Commonwealth Fund. Meanwhile, 50 percent of adults in that income bracket said they had difficulties affording their health insurance.

Meanwhile, 33 percent of individual in families earning between $50,000 and $74,999 a year said they had trouble paying for medical bills while 21 percent of people in families earning $75,000 or more reported such a dilemma. Fifty percent of individuals in families earnings less than $35,000 annually reported such a problem.

Thirty-five percent of people in families with an annual income of between $50,000 to $74,999 reported they had trouble paying for health insurance while 23 percent of those in families earning $75,000 or more said the same. Forty-eight percent of those in families with incomes of less than $35,000 said they the premium cost represented a problem.

Unfortunately, the system likely won’t be changing for the better any time soon. The need for better preventive care and avoiding the need to use health care services in the first place is greater than ever. Nutrition plays a central role in helping to do that.

The American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation recently announced the Healthy Schools Program initiative as part of their own Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

The program sets up a criteria-based recognition program that recognizes schools that adopt nutrition and exercise guidelines. The nutrition guidelines include calorie, fat, sugar, and salt content of foods sold in the schools and served in the schools’ cafeterias.

With 16% of all U.S. school children (11 million) overweight (and that’s a 2002 number), the program is an admirable effort to help improve the nutrition and overall health of children.

Changing the system in dramatic and significant ways, though, won’t be easy. As mentioned in this recent interesting article (”The School Lunch Test“) highlighting the efforts of one group to implement improvements to several school districts’ food offerings, such efforts face resistance from both school districts and the children.

Surprisingly, as the article notes, some of the biggest resistance to change comes from parents. Without the parents on-board and reinforcing the healthy habits at home, it’ll be difficult to see significant change.

Calorie-restriction has been highlighted as a way to slow the aging process in general. Recent research looks at the potential for calorie-restriction to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).

The researchers fed mice bred to develop AD a reduced-calorie diet (mostly through the reduction of carbohydrate intake), and found that the mice had fewer disease symptoms and better memories than the control group fed a regular-calorie diet.

In a separate study, the same researchers applied SIRT1, one of the sirtuin proteins with increased expression seen in calorie restriction and believed to play an important role in slowing aging, into the nerve cells affected by AD. They found that SIRT1 helped to prevent the cleavage of beta-amyloid precursor molecules, which, in turn, slowed the formation of plaques.

So, calorie-restriction (with adequate nutrition) may be one way to help slow the progression of aging and cognitive decline. Other potential approaches to preserving cognitive function are discussed here.

Many of the healthy compounds found in vegetables, including:

• carotenoids
  • beta-carotene
  • lycopene
  • lutein
• vitamin E

are fat-soluble nutrients. What that means is that these nutrients are best absorbed from the digestive tract in the presence of fat.

The differences in absorption when fat is or is not included in the meal can be large and significant. For example, as this recent article notes, when an avocado (a fatty fruit) was added to a salad, seven times the amount of lutein and 18 (!) times the amount of beta-carotene were absorbed from the other salad ingredients.

The type of fat matters. The article also mentions another study that found the consumption of unhealthy trans fats actually reduced the absorption of vitamin E.

Vitamins D and K are also fat-soluble, with the latter nutrient found in high quantities in leafy greens such as spinach and kale.

The takeaway is that it’s important to include healthy fats, such as olive oil, as a regular/moderate part of meals to help ensure the best absorption of fat-soluble nutrients. Not all fats are bad.

(Of course, fats are high in calories, so you don’t want to overdo it. The key is reducing the consumption of empty calorie foods high in sugar and refined grains, and replacing them with healthy fats, whole grains, vegetables, and lean protein.)

As discussed in other posts, limited amounts of regular sun exposure can help the body to maintain adequate vitamin D levels.

It’s also clear, though, that excessive sun exposure may damage the skin and increase the risk for skin cancer. That’s why the recent trend toward frequent use of tanning salons, especially by young women, is especially concerning.

As noted in the article linked above, “Caucasian women between age 16 and 49 make up 70 percent of those who regularly visit tanning salons.”

And yet, this group of mostly fair-skinned people actually needs the least amount of sun exposure. It’s kind of scary when you read comments like this:

“I was a high school teacher, and I remember sending one girl to the school nurse because her skin was so leathery I thought she had a condition of some sort,” said Vivian Viloria-Fisher, the Suffolk County legislator who sponsored the measure. “The nurse just said, ‘Oh, she’s just been tanning at a salon.’ ”

Hopefully this trend of always trying to maintain a mid-summer beach tan will fade away, and people will start to once again value blemish-free skin that doesn’t leave people looking like wrinkled leather in their 30s and 40s.

Pretty amazing:

“The bottom line is it’s more hazardous than the Pentagon admits,” Fahey said, “but it’s not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there’s a real dearth of information about how DU [depleted uranium] affects humans.”

There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.

Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.

Iraqi authorities “found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities,” the U.N. reported.

Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.

In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops.

Unfortunately, there aren’t really good treatments for quickly/safely removing uranium from the body. Supplementing with iron may help to reduce the body’s levels.

You can find more info on heavy metal detox here.

Here’s an interesting article discussing the potential role that microbes (bacteria, viruses, etc.) may play in helping to cause obesity.

Trying to identify any potential contributing factors to obesity is an important goal. With more than 30 percent of the U.S. population obese, and the risk of premature death from all causes 50 to 100 percent greater compared to individuals of normal weight, the stakes are high.

The article discusses the importance of a balanced gut flora (the trillions of microbes that inhabit our gastrointestinal tracts) and the many important functions that they perform, e.g.:

• producing vitamins
• digesting plant fibers
• extracting calories from carbohydrates and fats
• metabolizing cholesterol and bile acids

The authors note how different ratios of different bacteria may play a role in determining how likely someone is to gain fat.

The article goes on to discuss the potential roles of viruses. It notes that a certain virus previously thought to only infect chickens may, when it infects human, lead to greater weight gain (and, surprisingly, lower cholesterol and triglycerides). The article mentions other viruses as well, such as those that may affect the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates appetite.

The research is clearly preliminary, but it’s worth checking out. Whatever the outcome, digestive health is certainly key in maintaining good overall health.

Tuna industry sales are down 10 percent over the last year, primarily as a result of consumer concerns about the mercury content of the fish.

A recent Consumer Reports analysis found that canned light-chunk tuna, often believed to be a safer, lower-mercury choice, may actually have at least as much of that metal as albacore (or white-chunk) canned tuna.

The contamination of the fish is certainly not the tuna industry’s fault. The mercury enters the environment primarily through other industries (e.g., coal-fired power plants, cement plants) that release the metal into the air. It then settles into bodies of water, small organisms (e.g., plankton) absorb it and are eaten by larger organisms (e.g., fish), and it accumulates as it moves up the food chain.

That said, based on the mercury levels and the potential risk, especially among children, pregnant women, and women of child-bearing age, it makes sense to avoid/minimize consumption of fish that may be high in mercury and other potential contaminants.

An easy-to-use mercury in fish calculator can be found at GotMercury.org.

(Note: Relying on the calculator alone may not be such a good idea. The calculator uses mercury levels in fish as provided by the FDA. For some fish, the number of fish sampled is very small and/or the samples were drawn many years ago. A good example is light-chunk tuna, which shows an average level of ~0.12 ppm. Yet, as the Consumer Reports analysis showed, the actual level of mercury could be three or more times that.)

In general, I would:

• Steer clear of large, predatory fish such as tuna
• Choose safer forms of seafood, such as wild salmon, tilapia, sardines, herring, shrimp, and clams
• Supplement the diet with tested, contaminant-free fish oil to get adequate amounts of healthy Omega-3 fats on a regular basis