Marc Joseph Nutrition - Blog

In a market-basket survey published in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers found that arsenic levels in U.S. rice varied significantly by region.

Specifically, rice grown in the south central U.S. (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, & Missouri) was on average 41% higher in arsenic than rice grown in California (0.27 mcg/g verus 0.16 mcg/g).

The scientists hypothesized that the higher level of arsenic found in south central U.S. rice could be attributed to the arsenic-containing pesticides previously used on the cotton fields that are now used for growing rice. Industry is currently trying to develop strains of rice that take up less arsenic from the soil.

Assessing Risk

Presently the government sets no maximum contaminant level for arsenic in food. The EPA has set a 10 mcg per liter limit for inorganic arsenic in drinking water.

The average consumption of rice in the U.S. is 25 grams per day. However, some ethnic groups, as well as people pursuing a gluten-free diet (e.g., individuals with Celiac diesease or on the autistic spectrum), may eat much more, and thus may be at risk for higher arsenic exposure. Also, as the researchers note, young children tend to eat much larger portions of rice relative to their small size.

Previous studies suggest that the percentage of inorganic arsenic (the most toxic form) found in U.S. rice varies widely, from 10% to 70% of the total arsenic in the rice. A person eating an average rice portion size of 100 grams with an arsenic content of 0.3 mcg/g would ingest 30 mcg of arsenic. If 50% of that arsenic were inorganic, total dietary exposure from rice alone would be 15 mcg, exceeding the EPA limit for a liter of water.

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A review article published in the peer-reviewed journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine summarizes the impact of heavy metals mercury and cadmium on the vascular system.

The overall vascular effects of mercury include oxidative stress, inflammation, thrombosis, vascular smooth muscle dysfunction, endothelial dysfunction, dyslipidemia [high LDL cholesterol, low HDL, high triglycerides], immune dysfunction, and mitochondrial dysfunction. The clinical consequences of mercury toxicity include hypertension, CHD [coronary heart disease], MI [myocardial infarction], increased carotid IMT and obstruction, CVA, generalized atherosclerosis, and renal dysfunction with proteinuria …

… Cadmium concentrates in the kidney, particularly inducing proteinuria and renal dysfunction; it is associated with hypertension, but less so with CHD. Renal cadmium reduces CYP4A11 and PPARs, which may be related to hypertension, sodium retention, glucose intolerance, dyslipidemia, and zinc deficiency.

More on Mechanisms

There are several primary ways in which heavy metal exposure may increase the risk for vascular disease:

Increased Oxidative Stress - Mercury and cadmium have high affinity for molecules that contain sulfhydryl groups (-SH), including several sulfur-containing antioxidants, such as N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), alpha-lipoic acid, and glutathione. As a result, when the body is exposed to these heavy metals, antioxidant function is compromised and oxidative stress increases.

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At the recent “Diet and Optimum Health” conference sponsored by the Linus Pauling Institute (LPI) at Oregon State University, scientists presented research discussing some of the underlying mechanisms behind lipoic acid’s many beneficial effects.

“The evidence suggests that lipoic acid is actually a low-level stressor that turns on the basic cellular defenses of the body, including some of those that naturally decline with age,” said Tory Hagen, an LPI researcher and associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at OSU. “In particular, it tends to restore levels of glutathione, a protective antioxidant and detoxification compound, to those of a young animal. It also acts as a strong anti-inflammatory agent, which is relevant to many degenerative diseases.” …

… “Our studies have shown that mice supplemented with lipoic acid have a cognitive ability, behavior, and genetic expression of almost 100 detoxification and antioxidant genes that are comparable to that of young animals,” Hagen said. “They aren’t just living longer, they are living better — and that’s the goal we’re after.”

Sound promising? Sure.

But there are a few things you should know about lipoic acid before running out and buying it. In fact, without a proper dosing protocol, some people may want to avoid supplementing with it entirely.

What is Lipoic Acid

Lipoic acid is a compound that contains two sulfur, or thiol, groups. The oxidized form is referred to as lipoic acid (LA), while the reduced form is called dihydrolipoic acid (DHPLA).

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In a recent Canadian study, a research team led by Dr. Eric Frombonne, Director of Pediatric Psychiatry at The Montreal Children’s Hospital, found no difference in mercury in the blood and hair samples obtained from autistic children and their mothers relative to samples from non-autistic children and their mothers.

Frombonne and his team concluded:

• Autism is not a form of mercury poisoning.
• “Chelation therapies, whereby heavy metals are removed from the body using specific compounds , are not useful in the treatment of autism. Chelation has never been proved efficacious as a biomedical intervention to treat autism.”

We can all go home now. Nothing at all to see here. Move along.

What They Didn’t Tell You

As it turns out, though, it’s a little more complicated than that.

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In a five-year study published in the top journal Neurology, researchers found that individuals who developed mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s disease had observable changes in brain structure long before the onset of cognitive decline.

Compared to the group that didn’t develop memory problems, the 23 people who developed MCI or Alzheimer’s disease had less gray matter in key memory processing areas of their brains even at the beginning of the study when they were cognitively normal.

“We found that changes in brain structure are present in clinically normal people an average of four years before MCI diagnosis,” said study author Charles D. Smith, MD, with the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington and member of the American Academy of Neurology. “We knew that people with MCI or Alzheimer’s disease had less brain volume, but before now we didn’t know if these brain structure changes existed, and to what degree, before memory loss begins.”

The findings are definitely interesting, but not too surprising. As shown in the video below, it is known that exposing nerve cells to toxins may lead to damage consistent with that observed in Alzheimer’s disease:

How Mercury causes Neurodegeneration (brain degeneration)

Toxin exposure is, of course, not the only potential cause of cognitive decline. Nutritional deficiencies, stress, genetics, and other factors may also be involved.

Waiting Not a Good Option

As someone who experienced and recovered from MCI at a relatively young age, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of not ignoring minor cognitive changes (e.g., ability to think, focus, remember). MCI and Alzheimer’s disease are NOT a normal part of aging.

Each person has an internal reference point to their own cognitive abilities and usually is capable of recognizing changes in function long before friends, family, and co-workers may be aware there is an issue. It’s important to be self-aware and try to compare your current capabilities with where they’ve been and where you’d like them to be.

As this study suggests, if you suspect a decline in cognitive function, the time to act is now, as such change may be preceded by years of structural changes.

There are many preventive and therapeutic steps that may help prevent, slow, and possibly even help to reverse the development of conditions like MCI and AD. You can read an overview of my approach to helping people here. Diet, supplementation, lifestyle changes, and in some cases, low/frequent-dose chelation, may each play a role.

Cognitive decline is not inevitable. Don’t believe anyone who says it is.

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Discover How Nutrition Can Make a Difference in Your Life …

Marc Joseph Nutrition

The current issue of Discover Magazine includes a cover story (”Autism: It’s Not Just in the Head“) that is to-date likely the best, easy-to-understand overview of the latest biomedical understandings and treatments for autism:

A disparate group—immunologists, naturopaths, neuroscientists, and toxicologists—is turning up clues that are yielding novel strategies to help autistic patients. New studies are examining contributing factors ranging from vaccine reactions to atypical growth in the placenta, abnormal tissue in the gut, inflamed tissue in the brain, food allergies, and disturbed brain wave synchrony. Some clinicians are using genetic test results to recommend unconventional nutritional therapies, and others employ drugs to fight viruses and quell inflammation.

Above all, there is a new emphasis on the interaction between vulnerable genes and environmental triggers, along with a growing sense that low-dose, multiple toxic and infectious exposures may be a major contributing factor to autism and its related disorders. A vivid analogy is that genes load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger. “Like cancer, autism is a very complex disease,” says Craig Newschaffer, chairman of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Drexel University School of Public Health, “and it’s exciting to start asking questions about the interaction between genes and environment. There’s really a very rich array of potential exposure variables.”

“What we’ve got here is a far more comprehensive set of characteristics for autism,” says [Harvard pediatric neurologist Martha] Herbert, “one that can include behavior, cognition, sensorimotor, gut, immune, brain, and endocrine [hormone] abnormalities. These are ongoing problems, and they’re not confined just to the brain. I can’t think of it as a coincidence anymore that so many autistic kids have a history of food and airborne allergies, or 20 or 30 ear infections, or eczema, or chronic diarrhea.” …

Herbert likens autism to a hologram: “Everything that fascinates me is in it. It’s got epidemiology, toxicology, philosophy of science, biochemistry, genetics, systems theory, the collapse of the medical system, and the failure of managed care. Each child that walks through my door is a challenge to everything I ever knew, and each child forces me to think outside the box and between categories.” …

… All this marks a Copernican-scale shift in our approach to the disorder. I myself [the article’s author, Jill Neimark] was irresistibly drawn to the subject when viewing an online video of a heavily affected 11-year-old who, after a series of chelation treatments to remove mercury, announced to his mother, “Mom, I’m back from the living dead.” The statement was heartbreaking in its simple eloquence. Mercury chelation, in this particular child’s case, was a near panacea.

Why should you care?

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Methylation, the donation of methyl (CH3) molecules, is a primary mechanism by which genes in a cell’s DNA are turned off. Lack of methyl groups or removal of methyl groups (demethylation) causes genes to remain or become activated.

In a process called epigenetics, cells also use methylation to specialize later in development without relying upon the instructions contained in the cell’s DNA. This type of specialization is especially vulnerable to environmental factors, such as nutritional deficiencies and exposure to toxins.

In a recent study published in the journal Neuron, researchers suggest that this type of epigenetic methylation may be key in forming memories.

In their experiments, the researchers conditioned fearful memories in rats by giving the animals mild shocks when they were in a specific training chamber. The researchers could then test whether the rats remembered the conditioning by observing whether they froze when placed in the chamber.

Using drugs that inhibit methylation, the researchers showed that methylation was necessary for rats to form such memories. Particularly importantly, the researchers found that the level of methylation directly controlled the activity of genes known to either suppress or promote memory formation. The memory suppressor gene they studied is called protein phosphatase 1, and the memory-promoting gene is called reelin.

“To our knowledge, this study is the first to present evidence that DNA methylation, once thought to be a static process after cellular differentiation, is not only dynamically regulated in the adult nervous system but also plays an integral role in memory formation,” concluded Miller and Sweatt. They wrote that their findings indicate that DNA methylation has been co-opted by the central nervous system as a “crucial step” in regulating gene activity involved in memory formation.

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Did you know that many toxic wastes are “recycled” into fertilizer and spread on land used to grow food? I didn’t before reading an interesting book, Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret, written by Duff Wilson, formerly a reporter for The Seattle Times and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his newspaper series that preceded the book.

The book tells the story through the experience of Patty Martin, the mayor of Quincy, a small farming town located in central Washington state. After several farmers experience unexpected crop failures, a horse breeder’s animals mysteriously die eating locally-grown feed, and people in the town begin developing unexplained chronic illnesses, Martin and a small group of other residents trace the effects to the local Cenex fertilizer distributor. Cenex had disposed of toxic waste (heavy metals, pesticides, and other unidentified materials) stored in a large rinsing pond on its property by mixing it with fertilizer sold to local farmers.

However, as Martin and the others soon learn, the practice of recycling toxic waste into fertilizer, was (and still is) not limited to Quincy. It’s a nationwide, and even worldwide, practice. In fact, recycling of toxic waste into fertilizer …

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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.

It’s long been suspected that viral infections, such as those caused by Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus, play a primary role in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Recently, in a small, preliminary clinical trial, researchers at Stanford University found that chronic fatigue patients treated with prescription anti-viral medications for a relatively long period of time (6 months) experienced significant improvement (21 out of 25 treated patients). Now, the same researchers are going to perform a larger, randomized study in an attempt to replicate the study’s results.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome currently affects more than 1 million people in the U.S. alone, and results in debilitating, long-term fatigue. Other common symptoms include insomnia, digestive problems, swollen lymph nodes, memory loss, inability to concentrate, and depression.

The condition often, but not always, begins after the onset of flu-like symptoms, which suggests that infections may play a role. Interestingly, the researchers in the study above found that chronic fatigue sufferers who did not experience flu-like symptoms prior to the onset of the condition, did NOT improve significantly after the anti-viral treatment. Perhaps there are different subgroups of affected individuals.

There is also clinical evidence that suggests viral infections are involved in many cases of autism. This factor would make sense, as impaired immune function is present in that condition as well. Many parents and clinicians have seen improvement in autistic children when given prescription and over-the-counter (OTC)* anti-virals, especially in combination with other treatments, such as methyl-B12, proteolytic enzymes, and heavy metal detoxification.

* Olive leaf extract is a potent and often helpful OTC anti-viral substance.

It’s unclear exactly what is causing the immune impairment in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and autistic cases, but heavy metal toxicity is a primary culprit. There is often significant symptom overlap in heavy metal toxicity and chronic fatigue cases.

You can learn more about treatment approaches for both Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and autism here and here.