One of the things that I have noticed practicing is that many people do not have an accurate gauge of either how much calories they need daily nor how much they are actually getting from their meals. It is very difficult with the amount of nutritional knowledge available from both the education system and the media to also truly understand the nutritional value of foods in term of density of essential vitamins and minerals, fibre, high quality protein, fibre and slow-digest carbohydrates, and essential fatty acids. In the absence of this information, people tend to assume that there needs are being met by their food, regardless of what it is, and that calorically, it probably isn't all that bad. However, the ever increasing trend towards obesity and diet-related illness demonstrates that those assumptions are often horribly flawed

Therefore, it comes as little surprise that people are thirsty and receptive to nutritional information when readily available. The following in an excerpt from a Science direct article:

People Will Make Healthier Choices If Restaurants Provide Nutritional Data, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2009) — As more and more Americans eat meals outside the home, the country also faces an epidemic of obesity. An association between eating out and weight-related diseases has led to demands for nutritional labeling of restaurant foods. A new study examines the potential benefits of such labeling.

"Using only the sense of taste, smell, and sight to accurately estimate the levels of calories, saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium found in a typical restaurant food serving is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for most consumers," write authors Elizabeth Howlett (University of Arkansas), Scot Burton (Sam M. Walton College of Business), Kenneth Bates (University of San Diego), and Kyle Huggins (James Madison University).

The authors set out to examine how providing calorie and nutrient information on restaurant menus and menu boards influences consumers' food-related evaluations and choices. They looked at how participants' prior expectations came into play and whether providing calorie and nutrient information after the consumptive experience changed their subsequent food choices.

The researchers found that providing nutritional information can influence subsequent food consumption, especially when consumers' expectations are not fulfilled when they examine the information. "When a 'great taste' claim was used to describe a restaurant menu item, the provision of calorie information did not affect consumers' perceptions, presumably because foods that claim great taste are typically expected to be relatively high in calories," the authors explain. "On the other hand, when a 'low calorie' claim was presented but the menu item was higher in calories than expected, the provision of nutritional information increased the perceived likelihood of 1) gaining weight and 2) developing heart disease."

The study shows that nutritional information can help consumers moderate their eating over time. In one study, participants ate a sandwich that they later found was unexpectedly high in calories. After this discovery, the participants consumed fewer snacks throughout the rest of the day.

This research further highlights the need for a governmental directive to require this information to be readily available. Please don't hesitate to add your voice to the many in demanding that this be legislated so that Canadians can make healthier choices more easily. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq can be reached via http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/contact/ahc-asc/minist-eng.php

Children and teenagers get stigmatized for their emotional behaiviour.  Fits of depression, lethargy, aggression, and crying are ascribed to "raging hormones" and the natural emotional vulnerability of youth that hasn't hardened up against the increasing burden of regrets and heartbreaks that has, unfortunately, come to characterize  adulthood.

However, I believe it is one of the great misconceptions of Western medical philosophy, which is based neither wholly in philosophy nor wholly in medicine, that body and mind are so seperate that one should be "in control" of the other. The thoughts and feelings that every human being holds dear to his/her identity are produced by biological processes; those very same processes are also affected by emotional triggers. The Journal of Psychosomatic Research is dedicated to elucidating those connections, which we all know intuitively on some level, when we feel our hearts beat quickly at the sight of a disaster or a loved one, but that we forget are also the result of very physical reactions, and not just floating ethereally above our heads in mystical emotion clouds.

One example I wanted to draw some attention to is breath-holding spells in children. Maybe you remember having done this yourself; getting so annoyed at your parents that you threatened to hold your breath until you passed out? Parents would be tempted to write this off as being cursed with a difficult monster of a child, who would hopefully grow out of it soon. However, research from as early as 1943 has linked breath-holding spells to iron-deficiency anaemia. This is hypothesized to be because of several functions of iron in the body, including oxygen transport to the brain and central nervous system, the neuro-protective effects of erythropoietin, a hormone related to red blood cell production.

So if your children are acting out, don't be too quick to judge them as just trying to cause trouble. Many nutrient deficiencies express themselves almost as mental diseases: Pellegra, or vitamin B3 deficiency, causes dementia, and even just common old hypoglycaemia causes increased irritability, depression, anxiety, and other symptoms very much of the moody variety.

It is always important to bear in mind that our minds are a function of our bodies. If someone appears to be going a bit crazy, it is important to look first at their physical health, because the body is more than a robotic transport vessel that thauls your brain around; the mind is the sum and miracle of the body it inhabits.

References

Bridge EM, Livingston S, Tietze C. Breath-holding spells: their relationship to syncope, convulsions and other phenomena. J Pediatr 1943;23:539–61.

8. Holowach J, Thurston DL. Breath-holding spells and anemia. N Engl J Med 1963;268:21–3.

9. Bhatia MS, Singhal PK, Dhar NK, et al. Breath holding spells: an analysis of 50 cases. Indian Pediatr 1990;27:1073–9.

10. Colina KF, Abelson HT. Resolution of breath-holding spells with treatment of concomitant anemia. J Pediatr 1995;126:395–7.

11. Daoud AS, Batieha A, al-Sheyyab M, et al. Effectiveness of iron therapy on breath-holding spells. J Pediatr 1997;130:547–50.

12. Mocan H, Yildiran A, Orhan F, Erduran E. Breath holding spells in 91 children and response to treatment with iron. Arch Dis Child 1999;81:261–2.

Mercury is a well known neurotoxin, and has been linked to Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimers, ALS, and other less well classified syndromes such as mood disorders including depression, chronic anxiety, low immunity, accelerated aging, and others.

The major sources of methylmercury in the diet are large fish like tuna, shark, king mackerel, swordfish, and shellfish.Canned light tuna tends to have somewhat less mercury in it, but pregnant women are still advised to consume it less than 3 times per month. Other major sources of mercury are dental amalgams, and halogen light bulbs; in fact, inhaled mercury vapor is approximately 60% higher absorbability than ingested mercury, so it is very important to be cautious of broken fluorescent lights.

The reason for the exception caution for pregnant women is the affect mercury has on the developing nervous system. In this video from the University of Calgary, you can clear see the regression of the developing nerve ganglia when exposed to even small amount of mercury. Please follow the link below:

http://www.functionalmedicineuniversity.com/public/554.cfm

I hope you find the following video both as fascinating and terrifying as the subject it evidences.

There are things you can do to help detoxify accumulated mercury in the body though:

1) Ensure adequate zinc status. Zinc is needed to make metal-binging protein, one of the bodies main heavy metal chelating proteins. Zinc deficiency is usually detectable in the presence of white spots in the middle of the finger nails, and in low stomach acid production.

2) Take supplemental NAC or Glutathione, and/or R+ Alpha lipoic acid. Both a powerful antioxidants that can help negate the oxidative damage mercury does, and also help neutralize it so that it can be excreted.

3) Limit your exposure to mercury as much as possible. Also, whenever financially feasible, get your silver dental amalgams replaced by composite ones by a dentist with experience in replacing mercury fillings.

Take care, and stay on the ball.

The annual conference of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine made it's annual migration to Vancouver this year, and ran for 3 days from April 30th to May 2nd, entertaining 15 speakers in subjects ranging from optimal nutritional during pregnancy to the role of nutrition in psychiatric disorders.

One of the most interesting talks in my opinion, and the one that has the most implications for proper nutrition was Dr. Bruce Ames talk on micro-nutrient deficiencies and longevity.

Aging has yet to have a definitive labeled cause, and there is constant debate around the inevitability of the process: proponents of the senescence theories believe that it is impossible to extend health and life beyond a certain age regardless of what interventions are taken, because our genes have pre-programmed our cells to eventually stop dividing. Once cells stop dividing, there is no rejuvenation, and the organism will soon die. This is what realists call  inevitability, and just like taxes, it gets us all in the end.

However, the stochastic theory of aging blames our environment, and the effects environmental toxins like mercury and other heavy metals, pathogenic microbes like parasites, fungus and bacteria, viruses and oxidants have on our cells. Essentially, the stochastic theories point to the damage exposure to these substances causes builds up and is what causes the cells to eventually stop dividing. Some interesting evidence for this is apparent in the fact that experimental germ-free animals live twice as long as their counterparts, because they have no bacteria in them generating internal toxins.

Dr. Ames talk focused on the evidence that his team of researchers discovered at the Oakland Research Institute, when treating a man with a folic acid deficiency. He was found to have chromosome breaks in his red blood cells, which is evidence of DNA damage. Normally, red blood cells should have no DNA in them, since they don't divide, and are churned out by bone marrow. Dr. Ames tested his blood regularly for these breaks, and found out there were many more of them when the man wasn't taking folic acid supplements. He then went on to test several other nutrients on several hun, including zinc, vitamin K, calcium, magnesium, selenium, B12, B3, and found that deficiencies of any of these nutrients caused evidence of DNA damage to appear in peoples red blood cells.

Even if a nutritious diet isn't a guaranteed pass to immortality, this evidence does relate known vitamin deficiencies in disease, i.e., cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, to the larger picture of how the homeostatic mechanism of the whole body are functioning, and really hammers home how much each nutrient is absolutely critical for the proper health and function of our entire selves.

According to the USDA  2001-2002 study "What we eat in America", in the United States, over 56% of the population is deficient in magnesium, 93% are deficient in vitamin E, 31% are deficient in vitamin C, and 12% are deficient in zinc. That means that over 1 in 10 people in the US, and likely Canada as well, are chronically getting less of at least one essential nutrient that they need to prevent disease and premature aging.

If you are worried that you may not be eating a diet that provides you with a solid nutritional foundation for good health, make sure you are taking a good quality multi-vitamin, and speak to a professional about how to maximize the nutritional quality of your daily meals.

A wealth of research has been done about the preventative effects of high fruit and vegetable intake on cancer risk, but it still seems that the research community has a way to go towards producing research that doesn't provide conflicting results because of flawed methodology.

A perfect example of this is the European Prospective Investigation in Cancer and Nutrition. This was an 8 year study that tracked the fruit and vegetable intake of over 400'000 people, and came to the conclusion that fruit and vegetable intake accounted for a mere 3% reduction in cancer risk for all forms of the disease. What was the problem with this study? The fruit and veg intake they were assessing was 200 grams a day. That is the equivalent of one large apple.

Dr. Joel Furhman further elaborates further:

The median daily intake in this study was 335 grams of fruits and vegetables combined per day – only about three servings.  According to the CDC, only one-third of U.S. adults eat two or more servings of fruit per day, and only one-quarter of adults eat three or more servings of vegetables per day.3  These minimal amounts cannot be expected to provide disease protection.  I recommend a far more substantial intake of fruits and vegetables with 90 percent of calories coming from nutrient rich plant material, lots of it raw and green.  I recommend about two pounds of vegetables per day (approximately 900 grams) and at least 4 fresh fruits per day (which adds another 600 grams).  Most importantly, attention should be paid to the highly cancer-protective plant foods, greens, onion, berries, beans and seeds. The more fruits and vegetables the subjects ate, the more cancer protection they got.

Many of the news stories on this subject neglected to mention the fact that the researchers found a dose-response relationship between fruit and vegetable intake and cancer risk – this means that as the number of servings increased, rates of cancer decreased.  Those eating five servings per day reduced their risk by 9% compared with those eating 2.5 or less, and those eating more than eight
servings per day reduced their risk by 11%.4 The benefits of lifestyle changes are proportional to the changes made.  As we add more vegetable servings, we increase our phytochemical intake and leave less room in our diet for harmful foods, enhancing cancer protection even further.

Different fruits and vegetables offer different levels of protection.
In this study, all fruits and vegetables were lumped together in one category – this could have diluted the results.  Leafy greens and potatoes have nutrient profiles that are quite different, but in this study, they are both treated the same.   The participants did not eat an extra 200 grams of raw greens – French fries and ketchup counted as a vegetable. Cruciferous vegetables, such as kale, cabbage, collards, and broccoli, contain potent chemopreventive compounds called isothiocyanates (ITCs).  ITCs have a variety of anti-cancer actions including inhibition of angiogenesis (blood vessel formation; important for tumor growth),
detoxification or removal of carcinogens, inhibition of cancer cell growth, promotion of cancer cell death, and prevention of DNA damage by carcinogens.  Epidemiological studies suggest that cruciferous vegetables, onions, and mushrooms are far more protective against cancer than vegetables overall – inverse relationships between cruciferous vegetable intake and breast, ,
lung, and colorectal cancers have been found.5   For example, in one prospective study, one or more servings per week of cabbage reduced the risk of pancreatic cancer by 38%.6  And that was just one serving a week, demonstrating dramatic protection is available and real when a diet is
ideally designed. The regular consumption of mushrooms has been demonstrated to decrease risk of breast cancer by over 60 percent.7  Onions, berries, seeds and beans also have dramatic beneficial effects.8  In other words, high nutrient plant foods work synergistically and a well designed diet can offer dramatic protection against not just cancer, but heart disease, strokes and
dementia.

It could very well be said that there is an on-going academic debate about the actual health value of whole foods in the same way that there is supposedly an on-going academic debate about global warming: namely, there is only the illusion of debate – the science has tallied and measured and the 'ayes' have it.

At the very least, eat a little fruit and veg. each day, and get the little reward of reducing your cancer risk by 3%.  The lottery doesn't even begin to offer such returns.

For the full article by Dr. Furhman plus all of the reference links: please visit. http://www.vegsource.com/joel-fuhrman-md/fruits-and-vegetables-provide-only-modest-protection-from-cancer.html