Marc Joseph Nutrition - Blog

Researchers from the from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology have found what could be a potentially important link between inflammation and cancer:

[T]he study, published in the January 26 issue of the journal Cell, shows that what scientists thought were two distinct processes in cells—the cells’ normal development and the cells’ response to dangers such as invading organisms—are actually linked. The researchers . . . say that the linkage of these two processes may explain why cancer, which is normal growth and development gone awry, can result from chronic inflammation, which is an out-of-control response to danger.

Here’s a visual depiction of that concept:

Normal dialogue between cell defense and development (left) and chronic inflammation leading to hyperactive developmental signaling that may promote cancer (right). (Credit: Alexander Hoffmann, UCSD)

Specifically, the research team found a protein that is common to both inflammation and cancer development pathways:

[The research] team showed that these pathways are not distinct from one another because they are linked by a protein called p100. They found that inflammation leads to an increase in p100, but that p100 is also used in certain steps in development. Therefore p100 allows communication between inflammation and development.

Importance of Balance

Your body needs some inflammation to fend off invaders (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.), but excessive, chronic inflammation is detrimental and implicated in many chronic conditions (e.g., cancer, diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, etc.). You need a balance.

To be clear, the inflammation I’m referring to is not necessarily visible or felt. It’s not like a red, swollen joint or a scratch on your arm. This inflammation is chronic and low-level, like invisible fires simmering underneath the surface. But over time, this inflammation causes damage to the cells, tissues, and systems of your body, and in turn, leads to the development of disease.

The Role of Nutrition

Nutrition can play an important role in helping to keep inflammation in check. For example:

• Omega-3 fats, as found in fish oil, can help to reduce inflammation. These fats produce substances (prostaglandins) that inhibit inflammation in cells throughout the body.
• Conversely, excess consumption of most Omega-6 fats, as found in vegetables oils, such as the corn and soybean oils used in high amounts in processed and restaurant-prepared foods, can promote the production of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins.
• One Omega-6 fat, gamma linolenic acid (GLA), found in borage, evening primrose, and black currant oils, actually can help to promote the production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins, as well as encourage normal cell death (apoptosis) — a primary process gone awry in cancer.
• Trans fats promote chronic inflammation.
• High sugar and refined grain intake, and the resulting chronically elevated blood glucose and insulin levels, is another primary cause of chronic inflammation.

There are numerous other substances found in both foods and supplements that can help to reduce and/or manage chronic inflammation, including:

• Vitamin D (primary source: sunshine)
• Tumeric
• Ginger
• Boswellia
• And many others …

Avoiding chronic inflammation is one of the most important steps you can take in helping to reduce the risk of developing many chronic diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline, arthritis, and more.

Michael Pollan, journalism professor and author, begins his provokingly-titled essay (”Unhappy Meals: How nutritional science has ruined the way we eat“) in today’s NY Times Magazine with a pithy summary of what people should eat:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. . .That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. . . a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products.

Certainly sound advice.

The essay’s thesis is that nutritional science has both confused and misguided consumers to eat in unhealthy ways, that “nutritionism” has taken over food in society’s discussion on eating.

Let’s take a look at some of the essay’s main points:

1. The focus shifted in the 1970s and 1980s from food to nutrients.

Pollan notes how a Senate Select Committee on Nutrition held hearings in 1977 and found that heart disease rates had soared since World War II in the U.S., and that other cultures that ate traditional diets based largely on plants had very low rates of chronic disease. Yet, thanks to lobbying by the meat and dairy industries, the original committee recommendation (”reduce consumption of meat”) was instead replaced by, “Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake.”

Pollan criticizes this compromise, the focus on politically-unconnected nutrition science terms like “saturated-fat,” and the subsequent development of “the official new dietary language” (e.g., polyunsaturated, cholesterol, monounsaturated, carbohydrate, fiber, polyphenols, amino acids, carotenes, etc.):

Henceforth, government dietary guidelines would shun plain talk about whole foods, each of which has its trade association on Capitol Hill, and would instead arrive clothed in scientific euphemism and speaking of nutrients, entities that few Americans really understood but that lack powerful lobbies in Washington.

Comment: Fair enough. Political interference in food policy exists, is bad, and leads to government food recommendations that aren’t always in the best interest of individuals. No argument there. Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor and author, covers this topic in depth in her book, “Food Politics.” However, is nutrition science (understanding how nutritional components may affect physiology and the potential risk for disease) the culprit? Or, is it the application of nutrition science in the political sphere that is flawed? I’d argue it’s the latter.

2. The assumption that the key to understanding food is the nutrient (an ideology Pollan calls “nutritionism”) is flawed. It creates a situation where consumers are dependent on scientists (and journalists who present their ideas to the general population) to explain these mysterious, hidden nutrients, in order to understand what to eat.

Comment: If the media did a better job of understanding the science and presenting its implications to consumers, perhaps there would be less confusion. Sensationalist headlines and storylines sell. The fact is that different nutritional components of foods can affect health in both positive and negative ways. Can scientific studies and results be skewed by both the people conducting the research and the people presenting the information to the general public? Sure. But is that a good reason to not seek out a better understanding of how different nutrients may affect our health?

3. A weakness of nutritionist ideology is that it has trouble discerning qualitative distinctions between foods. Food manufacturers exploit this when designing and marketing foods.

[Foods] through the nutritionists’ lens become mere delivery systems for varying quantities of fats and proteins and whatever other nutrients are on their scope. Similarly, any qualitative distinctions between processed foods and whole foods disappear when your focus is on quantifying the nutrients they contain (or, more precisely, the known nutrients).

This is a great boon for manufacturers of processed food, and it helps explain why they have been so happy to get with the nutritionism program.

By comparison, the typical real food has more trouble competing under the rules of nutritionism. . .The fate of each whole food rises and falls with every change in the nutritional weather, while the processed foods are simply reformulated.

Comment: Food manufacturers gaming the system by enhancing nutritionally poor food choices with added nutrients isn’t a “nutritionist ideology,” it’s a “food manufacturist ideology.” No knowledgeable, ethical nutritionist would suggest to eat such artificially enhanced foods. The focus is on emphasizing whole, unprocessed foods. Pollan uses the term “nutritionists” as a proxy for food manufacturer product developers and marketers. I think many clinical nutritionists who work with patients to help them to understand how to make healthier food choices and prevent/treat chronic disease would strongly disagree with that terminology and grouping.

4. Nutrition science and policy recommendations haven’t been sound.

Pollan states:

Oddly, America got really fat on its new low-fat diet — indeed, many date the current obesity and diabetes epidemic to the late 1970s, when Americans began binging on carbohydrates, ostensibly as a way to avoid the evils of fat …

… While it is true that Americans post-1977 did begin binging on carbs, and that fat as a percentage of total calories in the American diet declined, we never did in fact cut down on our consumption of fat. Meat consumption actually climbed. We just heaped a bunch more carbs onto our plates, obscuring perhaps, but not replacing, the expanding chunk of animal protein squatting in the center.

Pollan claims these consumer actions are the fault of “nutritionism”:

How did that happen? I would submit that the ideology of nutritionism deserves as much of the blame as the carbohydrates themselves do — that and human nature. By framing dietary advice in terms of good and bad nutrients, and by burying the recommendation that we should eat less of any particular food, it was easy for the take-home message of the 1977 and 1982 dietary guidelines to be simplified as follows: Eat more low-fat foods. And that is what we did. We’re always happy to receive a dispensation to eat more of something (with the possible exception of oat bran), and one of the things nutritionism reliably gives us is some such dispensation: low-fat cookies then, low-carb beer now.

Comment: I agree that it’s a mistake to emphasize one aspect of diet (e.g., low-fat, low-carb) as a panacea. As Pollan notes, though, human nature plays a big role. With the advent of inexpensive, high-calorie foods, and food manufacturers designing foods to fit the latest fad, consumers are going to likely eat more of whatever is deemed “healthy.” However, a knowledgeable, ethical nutritionist isn’t going to push a dietary fad as a foundational approach to eating, and certainly wouldn’t be reluctant to encourage eating less of certain foods. Again, Pollan seems to group all nutritionists, government food policy designers, and food manufacturers under one umbrella — definitely an unfair characterization.

5. Nutrition science is flawed because it only looks at one nutrient and nutrients in foods are synergistic.

Most nutritional science involves studying one nutrient at a time, an approach that even nutritionists who do it will tell you is deeply flawed. “The problem with nutrient-by-nutrient nutrition science,” points out Marion Nestle, the New York University nutritionist, “is that it takes the nutrient out of the context of food, the food out of the context of diet and the diet out of the context of lifestyle.”

If nutritional scientists know this, why do they do it anyway? Because a nutrient bias is built into the way science is done: scientists need individual variables they can isolate.

Comment: Of course the relationships between nutrients in foods are complex and interdependent. But does that mean that it’s useless to conduct research looking at the effects of changing intake levels of individual nutrients? There are confounding variables in nearly every study in any area of scientific research. Does that mean we shouldn’t conduct research in those areas, too? The fact is that well-designed nutrition science studies can help researchers (and the media and consumers) to better understand how different intake levels of nutrients may impact the risk of developing and/or treating various diseases and conditions. Whether those study results are presented and interpreted properly is a different story — and a function of the parties in the information chain.

6. People who take supplements aren’t healthier because of the supplements, but instead because they are better-educated, more-affluent, and take a greater interest in their personal health.

People who take supplements are healthier than the population at large, but their health probably has nothing whatsoever to do with the supplements they take — which recent studies have suggested are worthless. Supplement-takers are better-educated, more-affluent people who, almost by definition, take a greater-than-normal interest in personal health — confounding factors that probably account for their superior health.

Comment: This claim is both sensationalist and unsupported. That’s the entire quote above. There is no evidence presented in Pollan’s essay to expand upon what he’s said. It’s the kind of thing one would expect to hear on The O’Reilly Factor. The unnamed “recent studies” he cites suggesting some supplements are “worthless” not only represent a very small percentage of the overall body of research, but several of the studies likely alluded to have also been debunked for poor research design and analysis.

It’s funny, but when a study suggests supplementing with a particular nutrient is not helpful, the media touts it as the gospel truth. But when a study suggesting the same nutrient is helpful in a particular condition, the media either ignores it or heavily qualifies the finding. That double-standard probably has nothing to do with the amount of money that pharmaceutical companies spend on media advertising.

7. Nutrition advice hasn’t made us healthier.

But what about the elephant in the room — the Western diet? It might be useful, in the midst of our deepening confusion about nutrition, to review what we do know about diet and health. What we know is that people who eat the way we do in America today suffer much higher rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity than people eating more traditional diets. (Four of the 10 leading killers in America are linked to diet.) Further, we know that simply by moving to America, people from nations with low rates of these “diseases of affluence” will quickly acquire them. Nutritionism by and large takes the Western diet as a given, seeking to moderate its most deleterious effects by isolating the bad nutrients in it — things like fat, sugar, salt — and encouraging the public and the food industry to limit them. But after several decades of nutrient-based health advice, rates of cancer and heart disease in the U.S. have declined only slightly (mortality from heart disease is down since the ’50s, but this is mainly because of improved treatment), and rates of obesity and diabetes have soared.

No one likes to admit that his or her best efforts at understanding and solving a problem have actually made the problem worse, but that’s exactly what has happened in the case of nutritionism. Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health.

Comment: I agree that the average Western diet is poor and pales in nutritional quality in comparison to a traditional, whole foods diet. And I also agree that the focus on individual diet characteristics (e.g., low-salt, low-fat, high-protein) has in general been convenient from a marketing standpoint, but less than helpful in improving health outcomes. I think human nature and the convenience factor are primarily to blame, though.

Suggesting that nutrition science has taught us little or nothing about how to improve our health is simply ridiculous. I’d argue that much has been learned, little has been applied, and still more has been misinterpreted. Pollan notes disease rates remain high after years of nutrition advice. Yet, he knows as well as anyone that such advice is often ignored by consumers or co-opted by industry to market questionable food choices. And that’s nutrition science’s fault?

8. Four large-scale changes have altered our relationship with food.

A. From Whole Foods to Refined. “The case of corn points up one of the key features of the modern diet: a shift toward increasingly refined foods, especially carbohydrates. Call it applied reductionism.”

B. From Complexity to Simplicity. “Chemical fertilizers simplify the chemistry of the soil, which in turn appears to simplify the chemistry of the food grown in that soil. . . Processing foods depletes them of many nutrients, a few of which are then added back in through “fortification”. . . The astounding variety of foods on offer in the modern supermarket obscures the fact that the actual number of species in the modern diet is shrinking. For reasons of economics, the food industry prefers to tease its myriad processed offerings from a tiny group of plant species, corn and soybeans chief among them. Today, a mere four crops [corn, soybeans, wheat and rice] account for two-thirds of the calories humans eat.”

C. From Leaves to Seeds. “[W]e’re eating a lot more seeds and a lot fewer leaves, a tectonic dietary shift the full implications of which we are just beginning to glimpse. If I may borrow the nutritionist’s reductionist vocabulary for a moment, there are a host of critical micronutrients that are harder to get from a diet of refined seeds than from a diet of leaves.

D. From Food Culture to Food Science. “The sheer novelty and glamour of the Western diet, with its 17,000 new food products introduced every year, and the marketing muscle used to sell these products, has overwhelmed the force of tradition and left us where we now find ourselves: relying on science and journalism and marketing to help us decide questions about what to eat. Nutritionism, which arose to help us better deal with the problems of the Western diet, has largely been co-opted by it, used by the industry to sell more food and to undermine the authority of traditional ways of eating.”

Comment: Each of these changes are legitimate risks to better health, but are they a function of nutrition science or food economics? I’d argue it’s the latter. Refined foods sell. The number of crops are minimized for efficiency purposes. Grains (seeds) are easily stored and traded. New products appeal to consumers’ desire for novelty and variety. Nutrition science, as Pollan notes, was co-opted by industry to sell more food. Does that make nutrition science itself a bad thing? I don’t think so.

9. Accepting fast food as our food culture is financially not an option.

It might be argued that, at this point in history, we should simply accept that fast food is our food culture. Over time, people will get used to eating this way and our health will improve. But for natural selection to help populations adapt to the Western diet, we’d have to be prepared to let those whom it sickens die. That’s not what we’re doing. Rather, we’re turning to the health-care industry to help us “adapt.” Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick. It’s gotten good at extending the lives of people with heart disease, and now it’s working on obesity and diabetes. Capitalism is itself marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into lucrative business opportunities: diet pills, heart-bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But while fast food may be good business for the health-care industry, surely the cost to society — estimated at more than $200 billion a year in diet-related health-care costs — is unsustainable.

Comment: Couldn’t agree more. It’s not sustainable. I’d argue, though, that helping people understand nutrition, not in a reductionist sense, but in a holisitc sense, is critically important. Just telling people to eat a more traditional, whole foods diet, given all the existing processed, convenient food choices that predominate the marketplace, will be confusing to many people who haven’t had good food consumption role models. Pollan acknowledges this issue in his first dietary rule of thumb below.

10. Suggested rules of thumb

A. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier said than done. So try this: Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.)

Comment: Makes sense.

B. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best.

Comment: Yep.

C. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.

Comment: Second that.

D. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won’t find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer’s market; you also won’t find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.

Comment: Excellent idea if you have access to a farmers market and can afford to get food there.

E. Pay more, eat less. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should.

“Eat less” is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling.

Comment: Definitely agreed on the “eat less” part. The “pay more” part is more difficult. This isn’t 1947. While food costs are way down, education and health care expenses are way up, while wage growth has slowed. For those who can afford to buy better quality foods, that’s great. But one doesn’t have to shop at farmers markets and expensive grocers to eat healthy.

F. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

Comment: No arguments there.

G. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren’t a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn’t still be around.

Comment: Uh-huh.

H. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden.

Comment: Ideal and definitely a goal to shoot for, but not as realistic for households with two working parents and kids. There are some healthy packaged food alternatives out there that can help to make things easier (e.g., as found at Trader Joe’s).

I. Eat like an omnivore.

Comment: Ok, but a well-designed vegetarian diet can work, too.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I agree with many of Pollan’s points. The emphasis on whole foods and traditional diets makes a lot sense. Where I primarily disagree with him is with his blanket anti-nutrition science approach. Much has been learned through nutrition science that can be applied to help prevent and treat chronic disease. The fact that food manufacturers have co-opted nutrition science to market products and influence food buying habits doesn’t make nutrition science itself a bad thing. Using nutrition science to better understand how nutrients (which form the primary basis for cell function and thus life) affect our health and influence our risk for developing disease is both a worthwhile and necessary cause.

In a recent study published in Nutrition and Metabolism, researchers found that interesterified (IE) fat, which is being pushed as a replacement for trans fats, may actually have more negative health effects than trans fats themselves.

The negative health effects of trans fats have been widely known for some time:

• increase bad cholesterol (LDL)
• decrease good cholesterol (HDL)
• impair endothelial cell (e.g., arterial) function
• associated with greater risk for heart disease and diabetes

Beginning in 2006, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) began requiring all food manufacturers to list trans fats separately on the Nutrition Facts labels on packaged foods:

That move certainly has helped make it easier to select healthier products at the grocery store.

And, late last year, in a move that may start a trend, New York City banned trans fat use in restaurants.

Questions remain, though. What will replace trans fat products? Many products have been developed for both frying and baking. Will the replacements be any healthier?

Interesterified (IE) fats have been developed as one alternative. These fats are made by combining liquid oils (e.g., canola oil) with solid fats (e.g., palm oil) and mixing them with acids or enzymes to form a fat of desired consistency. The process is called interesterification.

The study mentioned above put study participants in three groups using the following test fats (~30% overall fat, >70% test fat):

• palm oil (a saturated fat) - PO
• partially hydrogenated soybean oil (containing 3.2% trans fat and 6.5% palm oil) - PHSO
• and an interesterified fat (with 12.5% stearic acid, a saturated fat) - IE

Researchers found that after four weeks:

• Blood glucose levels were 40% higher after meals in individuals using the IE diet versus those using the PO or PHSO diet.
• Fasting insulin levels were 10% lower in those using the PHSO diet and 22% lower in those using the IE diet.
• HDL (or good cholesterol) fell by 8 percent for the PHSO diet and 7 percent for the IE diet.

Not so good. Although the results of this study need to be replicated (this study was funded and staffed by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board), it seems like IE fats may be ones that you’ll want to avoid.

Your best bet is including in your diet unaltered fats in healthy combinations. For example, try using olive oil (high in monounsaturated fats) as your primary dietary oil, and layering on essential fats (Omega-3 fats as found in fish oil and small amounts of Omega-6 fats as found in vegetable oils).

Arthritis and related conditions cost U.S. citizens more than $128 billion in 2003. These costs will only continue to grow as the population continues to get older and heavier.

The costs include $81 billion in direct costs, such as medical expenses, and $47 billion in indirect costs, such as lost wages.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more than 46 million people were treated for arthritis and related conditions in 2003. Nearly 30 million of those people lost wages as the result of missed work. And, the CDC estimates that 8 million more people will acquire an arthritis or a related condition by 2015.

That’s a lot of creaky, painful joints.

There is, however, much that you can do using diet and nutritional supplementation to prevent or slow the development of arthritis-related conditions. You can read more about these approaches here.

In a recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers found that long-term exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs) may significantly increase bladder cancer risk. THMs are created when chlorine, which is used as a water disinfectant, comes in contact with organic matter in the water system, such as leaves, branches, etc.

The study’s authors examined over 1,219 people with bladder cancer and 1,271 control people without the disease. They found that long-term exposure to high THM levels through drinking, bathing, and swimming in chlorinated water significantly increased bladder cancer risk.

• Individuals who drank chlorinated water were at 35% greater risk for developing bladder cancer.
• Individuals taking the longest showers had an 83% greater risk of getting bladder cancer.
• Individuals who regularly swam in pools with chlorinated water were 57% more likely to develop bladder cancer.

Overall, households with long-term exposure to THM levels greater than 49 mcg/L had more than a two-fold increased bladder cancer risk versus households in areas with THM levels less than 8 mcg/L.

THM levels are monitored by water municipalities, with current regulations limiting THM levels in treated water to 80 mcg/L. Water municipalities in industrialized countries often have THM levels greater than 50 mcg/L. As noted above, such levels of chronic THM exposure may put consumers at risk.

Your best bet for avoiding both chlorine and their THM by-products is to use an in-home water filter. You can find information on different filters and what contaminants they remove through NSF International’s water treatment unit review database.

Note that not all filters remove THMs. It’s important to check the review listings to make sure the one you’re considering purchasing will remove THMs and other contaminants of potential concern, such as heavy metals.

This past week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with urging from a petition from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), rejected a pesticide industry proposal to infuse wood for decks and playsets with the chemical chromium-6 (hexavalent chromium) as part of the preservative ACC (acid copper chromate). Chromium-6 is a toxic substance that may increase the risk of developing several cancers, especially if inhaled.

This is the second potentially cancer-causing compound that has been banned from use in construction. In 2004, based in part on EWG’s research and lobbying on the risk of kids’ exposure to arsenic-based wood preservatives, the EPA banned preservatives containing arsenic. Such preservatives were used in outdoor decks, picnic tables, playground equipment, and other construction for many years.

Arsenic-laced wood remains in 70 million backyards across the country, as well as in thousands of public and school playgrounds.

EWG has put together a site (All Decks on Hand) that includes the 2002 press release and report, as well as simple safety tips for reducing childrens’ exposures to arsenic-treated wood.

You can also test the wood in your deck or playset for arsenic (as well as the surrounding soil) with test kits available through the EWG site.

Reducing heavy metal exposure is very important, both for children and adults. These toxins can disrupt essential mineral transport, and in turn, contribute to the development of many disorders, including ones involving the neurological, immune, hormone, digestive, muscular, and skeletal systems.

You can learn more about approaches to dealing with heavy metal toxicity here.

Nestle appears to be developing an infant formula that will include both probiotics (bacteria that help to promote a healthy gut flora) and prebiotics (substances that help to feed these bacteria and promote their growth).

Researchers just completed a study, published in the journal Nutrition, using a formula containing both pro- and pre-biotics. The probiotic used was a strain of bifidobacterium (often found in large numbers in infant digestive tracts), and the prebiotics used were galacto- and fructo-oligosaccharides.

They found that:

Infants in the experimental [formula + pro/pre-biotics] group had fewer incidences of constipation and had stool characteristics that suggest that the experimental formula was tolerated well. Furthermore, these infants showed a trend toward fewer respiratory tract infections.

Infants on the experimental formula also experienced a slight increase in stool frequency, but that is what is usually seen in breastfed infants.

Importantly, the researchers found no significant differences in weight gain, height, or head circumference between the pre/pro-biotics formula and control group formula groups in the study.

Of course, breast milk is preferred over formula for many reasons, including*:

1. Provides hormones that promote physiological development.
2. Provides essential fatty acids that improve cognitive and vision development - e.g., docosahexanoic acid (DHA), arachidonic acid (ARA). These fatty acids have been added to some formulas.
3. Provides immunoglobuins and other protective factors that protect against infections - e.g., immunoglobulins, colustrum, probiotics, lactoferrin, and more.
4. Possibly protects against some chronic diseases later in life - e.g., type 1 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, etc.
5. Protects against food allergies - lower incidence of allergic reactions - e.g., asthma, recurrent wheezing, skin rash, eczema, etc.
6. Intimate feeding relationship promotes attachment to and affective interaction with the mother. Encourages socialization and positive feeding behavior.

But, for those people who can’t breastfeed their infants, it’s good to see that manufacturers are trying to improve their products to encourage better digestive and overall health in infants.

*You can read more about the advantages of breastfeeding, with references to medical studies, at this site.

A new study just out in Cancer Research journal found that tomato and broccoli consumption (10% of the diet) helped to significantly reduce prostate cancer tumor size in rats (34% and 42%, respectively). Interestingly, reduction in tumor size was even greater (52%) in rats consuming both tomatoes and broccoli.

On the other hand, rats given supplements of lycopene, a carotenoid found in tomatoes and associated with the prevention of prostate cancer, only saw reductions in tumor growth of 7 to 18 percent, depending on the dose. Not bad, but the foods themselves proved superior.

Broccoli and other vegetables, such as cabbage and cauliflower, are high in glucosinolates (e.g., sulforaphane, indole-3-carbinol) that are also associated with cancer prevention.

A few comments:

1. This study was an animal study and the results may not directly correspond to results in humans. However, as discussed in the links above, there is significant evidence that phytochemicals found in vegetables such as tomatoes and broccoli may have anti-cancer effects.

2. The study authors note that you’d likely have to eat a fairly large amount of tomatoes or broccoli daily to get the effects in this study (1.4 cups of raw broccoli and 2.5 cups of fresh tomato, or 1 cup of tomato sauce, or half a cup of tomato paste). That’s quite a bit (watch the salt on that tomato paste), but it’s doable.

3. I wouldn’t eat broccoli every day. As part of the cabbage family, it’s a goitrogen, and may inhibit thyroid function if eaten too frequently in large quantities. A few times a week should be no problem.

4. Lycopene seems to be better absorbed through food than supplements.

5. Lycopene and other carotenoids are best absorbed with meals
containing fat (e.g., olive oil).

6. An easy, inexpensive way to incorporate tomatoes into your diet on a regular basis is to use Low-Sodium V8 juice. It has only 140 mg sodium and 17 mg lycopene per 8 oz. serving. Of course, it would be best to drink it with a meal containing fat or mix a little added healthy fat (e.g., olive oil) in with it to promote best absorption of the lycopene and other beneficial phytochemicals.

In short, regular consumption of tomatoes and/or broccoli (don’t always have to be together) can be a good part of a cancer prevention/treatment diet.

You can read more about things you can do to help maintain a healthy prostate here.

In a recent study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers found that children with high IQs were significantly more likely to become vegetarians as adults.

The study looked at over 8,000 adults born in 1970 and who had their IQs measured at age 10 as part of another study. 366 of the study participants identified themselves as vegetarians by age 30. Vegetarians had, on average, an IQ 5 points higher than non-vegetarians (and that was after adjusting for gender, social class, and education).

123 of the self-identified vegetarians also ate chicken or fish, which meant they weren’t actually vegetarians. But even after excluding these individuals, the study’s results remained unchanged.

A vegetarian diet is certainly not the only healthy dietary approach for helping to ensure optimal cognitive function. For people whose ancestors ate a diet higher in meat and dairy, a diet that includes some animal products may work better with their own biochemistry.

However, a vegetarian diet, if constructed to ensure the inclusion of key nutrients that may be lacking (e.g., protein, vitamin B12, calcium, zinc, iron, omega-3 fats, etc.), is certainly a viable approach.

There is a significant amount of research that suggests a vegetarian diet may help to:

• Improve cholesterol levels
• Decrease blood pressure
• Reduce the risk of developing:
  • hypertension
  • cardiovascular disease
  • type 2 diabetes
  • certain cancers (e.g., colon, prostate, breast)
  • dementia
• And more …

No guarantees that a vegetarian diet will help to make you smarter, but it may help to make you a little healthier.

Leading scientists affiliated with the Council for Responsible Nutrition, Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto), and Creighton University published a review article in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition calling for a five-fold increase in the recommended tolerable upper intake level (UL) of vitamin D.

(UL = the maximum level of daily nutrient intake that is likely to pose no risk of adverse effects)

The current vitamin D UL is 2000 IU (50 micrograms/day). The article’s authors review the existing research and make the case that the UL should be raised to 10,000 IU (250 mcg/day).

The UL established by the FNB [Food & Nutrition Board] for vitamin D (50 mcg, or 2000 IU) is not based on current evidence and is viewed by many as being too restrictive, thus curtailing research, commercial development, and optimization of nutritional policy. Human clinical trial data published subsequent to the establishment of the FNB vitamin D UL published in 1997 support a significantly higher UL.

The authors note that the initial UL was set based primarily on research associated with the function of vitamin D in bone formation, but that more recent research has shown vitamin D to play important roles in other areas (e.g., immunity), and that potentially higher necessary levels may be necessary for optimal function. The authors cite several clinical trials using as much as 1250 mcg/day of vitamin D with no observed negative side effects.

The primary source of vitamin D is sunshine, with the average diet providing less than 10 mcg (or 400 IU/day) — and that’s only in people regularly consuming significant amounts of vitamin D fortified foods, such as some dairy products.

As discussed frequently in this blog, vitamin D deficiency is widespread, with some estimates suggesting as much as 60 percent of people in Northern latitudes aren’t getting enough. Deficiency rates are also high among certain groups at all latitudes, such as among the elderly and people who work inside all day.

See this recent post for more vitamin D discussion and embedded links to several other posts relevant to the topic:

Higher Vitamin D Levels May Help Protect Against Multiple Sclerosis

Hopefully the Food and Nutrition Board, which is responsible for setting recommended intake and ULs, will seriously consider this call for an increase in vitamin D levels.