New England Health Advisory

By Andrew Palmer

Did you know your gut is teeming with bacteria?

Nature designed it that way. A lot of those bacteria are doing good things for you, like digesting your food and preventing infection.

In my family we call them “good bugs” and they’re a big part of our family diet. And to keep them happy, we try to eat plenty of fiber, organic fruits and vegetables, as well as organic yogurt, kefir and additional probiotic supplements.

To learn how probiotics can help restore balance in your digestive system, please read this letter from our contributor Dr. Al Sears.

Yours for health and wellness,

Andrew Palmer
Publisher
New England Health Advisory

P.S. If you’re having trouble with digestion or you’re interested in boosting your immune system, you’ll want to read this letter. Click here to view it now!

By Inger Pols

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how to maintain good prostate health. Soon after, a reader asked my opinion about the effectiveness of screening for prostate cancer.  That’s a tricky one, for the following reasons.

Prostate cancer is the second most fatal form of cancer for men, second only to lung cancer.  About 27,000 men will die from prostate cancer this year.  However, more than 200,000 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer … and most won’t die from it.  Prostate cancer is relatively slow growing, and most men who have it die from other causes first.

(Autopsy studies of Chinese, German, Israeli, Jamaican, Swedish and Ugandan men who died of other causes have found prostate cancer in 30% of men in their 50s, and in 80% of men in their 70s.)

Furthermore, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test that screens for prostate cancer in the first place can lead to a variety of complications.  And when the presence of cancer leads to treatment—either radiation therapy or prostatectomy—that can result in numerous undesirable outcomes as well.  Surgical treatment can result in impotence and incontinence and radiation treatment can lead to chronic diarrhea or painful defecation.

For the majority of men, therefore, the best course is do nothing.

But for those men who have advanced cancers, particularly young men, detection and treatment can avert an early death.

And if you don’t know which group you’re in, how do you decide whether or not to test?

The American Cancer Society says you should decide after talking it over with your doctor, and for many people that will do.  But what if you feel your doctor doesn’t know you well enough or is too busy?

As in many cases, a little perspective can help.  The results of two big studies were reported last year, one American and one European.  To judge the effectiveness, they measured mortality seven and 10 years after the study had begun.  While no benefit to screening was found in the U.S. study, a small benefit was found in the European study. But in the European study, 48 men were told they had prostate cancer and treated needlessly for every one man that was saved within the decade after the PSA test.

Dr. Peter B. Bach of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center put it this way, “One way to think of the data is to suppose a man has a PSA test today. It leads to a biopsy that reveals he has prostate cancer, and he is treated for it. There is a one in 50 chance that, in 2019 or later, he will be spared death from a cancer that would otherwise have killed him. And there is a 49 in 50 chance that he will have been treated unnecessarily for a cancer that was never a threat to his life.”

“What we are trying to say to men is the harms (of prostate screening) are better proven than the benefits,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

In the end, culture and geography matter most.

Most American men are screened. In Europe, most men are not screened.  And going against cultural norms is difficult.  But you should be fully informed about the risks and benefits of such a screening and should be aware of the guidelines put forth by the American Cancer Society and the American Society of Clinical Oncology so that you can partner with your doctor to make an informed decision.

To your health!

Inger Pols
Editor of New England Health Advisory

—

By Inger Pols

In the final newsletter in the food swap series, I’m going to look at making healthier fish choices. Fish is a nutrient-rich food proven to improve heart health and prized as a primary nutrient source in many cultures. Fish provides protein without the saturated fat and is a good source of omega 3 fatty acids. Fish has become increasingly popular since word got out about the benefits of eating it at least two times a week.

While fish has many health benefits, some studies have questioned the healthiness of farm-raised fish, especially salmon. There’s also concern about dolphins and fish that are killed in the tuna fishing process; their bodies are thrown back into the sea as waste. The popularity of fish has raised concerns about over-fishing and the sustainability of commercial fishing long-term. The quality of fish has diminished, especially those caught closer to shore and those found in lakes and streams, where contaminants foul our water supply.

Choosing the best fish is not just about what kind of health benefits the species has, the way it was raised or caught is also important to the nutritional profile. And if you are concerned about the environment and sustainability, the destruction left in the wake of the fishing boats matters, too. Species, season, diet, life stage, age and location all affect the contaminant level and nutritional profile of fish. There is no standardization for effective comparisons, and very little regulation, measurement or labeling to inform consumers.

Though more Americans are beginning to learn about factory farming concerns with livestock thanks to authors like Michael Pollan and movies like Food, Inc., many of us still know little about the factory farm process for fish. So let’s start by looking at salmon farming and why it raises so many concerns.

Salmon Farming: It’s No Swim Upstream

When we think of salmon, we usually see the image of a salmon swimming upstream to spawn, fighting against all odds to lay eggs before it dies. But instead of jumping upstream or powering through the ocean waters, farm salmon circle lazily in small pens much like floating pig farms. Waste and excess feed cover the sea floor beneath the farms, creating bacteria that consume oxygen that is required to sustain life for creatures that dwell on the ocean floor. Copper sulfate is used on the nets to prevent algae build up but leaves toxic sediment on the sea floor. Fish can also escape through the nets, creating environmental concerns; scientists estimate more than a million farmed Atlantic salmon have escaped into the Pacific and it is unclear what effect this will have on the Pacific salmon population over time.

As with land-based livestock, farm-raised salmon are vaccinated against diseases that spread easily in the close quarters of the pens. They are fed more antibiotics by body weight than any other livestock to prevent infection (creating strains of disease-resistant bacteria in both farmed and wild fish). And they are doused in pesticides to get rid of sea lice.

Sea lice exist in the wild as well, but are rampant in the close quarters of a fish farm. Scientists are concerned that wild species that swim by farms will be exposed to sea lice, which can damage or kill the vulnerable young salmon. Net hauls have dropped significantly and fisherman who once supported the farms as a means of ensuring ocean salmon sustainability are becoming concerned.

Farmers say it’s unlikely that they are responsible for a decline in wild salmon because the pesticide emamectin benzoate is only added to feed when sea lice are present. In Canada, the rules state that farmers must stop use of the pesticide 25 days before harvest to keep the fish safe to eat. But it’s unclear how much exposure is really OK and how much remains in the fatty tissue after dosage has stopped.

Farm salmon are fed smaller chopped up fish and pellets of feed laden with pesticides, raising concerns about sustainability for those fish. It takes an average of 2.4 pounds of wild fish to sustain a one-pound farm raised salmon and scientists are concerned that the farming practice is only making sustainability of ocean fishing worse.

To make salmon skins pink, since they don’t eat the typical salmon diet of pink krill, thus absorbing cartenoid, or use their muscles as much as typical salmon would, farm salmon are fed synthetic pigments including canthaxanthin to turn their otherwise dull gray flesh a vivid pink. In Canada, the flesh color options, manufactured by pharmaceutical company Hoffman-LaRoche, are delivered to the farmers so they can pick the exact shade of pink they like.

Canthaxanthin, when taken in a sunless tanning pill, was linked to retinal damage in Europe. It’s banned in England, and the European commission has issued a warning about it, urging the industry to find an alternative. But it remains legal elsewhere, and in the U.S., scientists aren’t focused on it as they put most of their attention into what they deem to be a bigger problem: PCBs and toxic dioxins in the fish.

PCBs, Importation and Mercury

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are highly toxic compounds that were banned in the 1970s. They pose serious health risks to children, especially babies and fetuses, who can experience developmental and neurological problems from repeated or prolonged exposure to even small amounts of PCBs. They affect adults as well, especially those with impaired immune systems or insufficient healthy gut flora.

Even though they were banned decades ago, these industrial compounds are very slow to break down and remain present in our environment, especially in sediment at the bottom of streams, lakes, rivers and coastal areas. They can be absorbed by fish and remain in their fatty tissues, building up in humans if contaminated fish is consumed frequently.

While these contaminants are a concern among wild fish, especially any lake or stream fish or those caught close to shore, two major studies have shown that farmed salmon accumulate more of these substances, which are known carcinogens, than wild salmon. The feed appears to be the concern, as it includes higher amounts of ground up sardines, anchovies and other small fish than a wild salmon would consume.

Manmade contaminants make their way into the ocean and are absorbed by fish. Then those fish are consumed in large amounts by the farm salmon, and the contaminants accumulate in the fatty tissue. It is estimated that farm-raised salmon have seven times as many PCBs in their systems as wild salmon. Farm raised salmon have a higher fat content than wild because they don’t move around much as their active wild counterparts, so they have more fatty tissue to absorb contaminants. Unfortunately, the higher fat content is not healthy omega 3 fatty acids; it’s less healthy, pro-inflammatory omega 6 fat.

It’s estimated that 68% of fish consumed in America is imported from another country, where it is often farmed and not always labeled. While the U.S. has no standards for organic seafood, (though Whole Foods says it has instituted its own farm fish standards to ensure healthy safe fish options), the European Union has had them for years. So organic European fish can be a safe choice. But many fish brought in from other countries contains additional chemicals and additives that we would likely not approve of.

The FDA inspects only about 5% of all imported farm fish, so many countries disregard the rules and take a chance, knowing it’s unlikelythat they will get caught. Recently, the FDA blocked the sale of three kinds of fish from China because they contained “unapproved” drugs. However, it’s equally concerning that there are many “approved” drugs that could have been used freely and allowed to become part of our food supply.

Mercury is another concern in both wild and farm-raised fish. While we eat fish for good heart health, mercury can actually increase the risk of heart attacks. Recent studies have shown that like PCBs and toxins such as bisphenol-A (BPA), a known endocrine disruptor that comes from plastic pollution in our waters, mercury levels are higher in farm-raised fish than in the wild.

Mercury from industrial pollution enters the water and is converted to methylmercury, a toxin that is consumed by smaller fish. Again, the larger fish consume the smaller fish and take in that toxin. This occurs in the wild as well, however, as we have just seen, the practice of grinding up large amounts of small fish to feed the farm-raised salmon means they eat much more of the small fish than they would in the wild, increasing their ingestion of toxins.

Clearly there are some issues with fish farming. But to be fair, there are issues with wild fishing as well. The same contaminants are present in lakes, streams and rivers, making many fish from those sources no longer safe to eat. Several states have issued advisories on their lake fish. Fish caught close to the coast face the same concerns. While deep-water fish are the least affected by these issues, these fish are often caught through practices like trolling with large nets that result in the accidental death of other species.

So what can we do? Here are some tips for healthier fish consumption.

Making Healthier Fish Choices

Use safe cooking methods to minimize the consumption of skin and fat, where PCBs accumulate. Trim the fish and remove skin and the fat along the backsides and belly and remove the internal organs, lobster tomalley and mustard of crabs, before you cook them. Try grilling and broiling fish, letting the fat drip away while it’s cooking and minimize use of fish drippings. Avoid frying fish as that seals in the contaminants. And if you are smoking fish, fillet and remove the skin prior to the smoking process.

If you, or your children, love tuna fish, minimize the exposure to mercury by choosing light tuna, not albacore, and eat it less often. Because their brains and nervous systems are still developing, children are particularly susceptible to mercury contamination. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, chunk/solid white is a larger tuna that accumulates more mercury, while skipjack, which is in most canned light/chunk light tuna, has about one-third the mercury level as albacore.

But it’s still important to read the label, as some canned light tuna contains yellowfin tuna, which is similar to albacore in mercury levels. Sometimes labeled (but not always) gourmet or “tonno” these should be eaten only in limited amounts by both children and adults. Small kids should limit tuna to a couple meals a month, while older kids can usually have it safely once a week. (If you have a compromised immune system or are pregnant, you may want to avoid tuna completely.)

Generally speaking, deep-water, cold-water fish are the least contaminated. If you are buying salmon, always look for Alaska wild sockeye or red salmon. But decide what matters to you: omega 3 consumption, avoiding PCBs and mercury or sustainable fishing and make choices based on your priorities. Ask questions about fish sources and vote with your wallet. Support the call for improved farm-fishing standards and practices. And most important, don’t be a creature of habit when it comes to fish consumption: Choose a variety of fish for your diet to spread the toxin exposure risk. Fish are a wonderful source of healthy fats and protein and eating fish twice a week—despite the toxin exposure risk—for most people is still a good long-term health choice.

Clearing up the Muddy Waters

While choosing the right fish can be confusing, at least one organization has attempted to simplify the process. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium has put together a guide that evaluates fish based on three major criteria: omega 3 levels, the presence of mercury and other toxins and the sustainability or ocean-friendly status of their harvest/capture. It also factors in whether fish are overfished and caught faster than they can reproduce.

The aquarium worked with the Harvard School of Public Health and the Environmental Defense Fund to create a list of fish that are Eco-best choices, Eco-good choices and Eco-avoids. They also created a super green list of wild and farmed fish that are good for people and the oceans. The aquarium has created a series of pocket guides by region that you can print and carry with you when you go shopping.

The list changes monthly based on new information. The current best of the best list for May 2010 includes: Albacore Tuna (troll or pole caught from the U.S. or British Columbia), Freshwater Coho Salmon (farmed in tanks from the U.S.), mussels (farmed), oysters (farmed), Pacific sardines (wild caught), rainbow trout (farmed) and salmon (wild caught from Alaska). You can learn more here.

No system is perfect, and the aquarium’s top choice of tuna that is troll or pole caught may be a good example, since finding that option in a typical store will be quite challenging, if not impossible. In addition, while they recommend albacore tuna, the Environmental Defense Fund recommends you avoid it for tuna fish sandwiches. Despite not being perfect, the list is an attempt to help you make good choices for your body and our planet. Combined with your own common sense and priorities, you will discover the best fish choices for you and your family.

To your health!

Inger Pols
Editor of New England Health Advisory

By Inger Pols

On Friday, I looked at how to make healthier meat choices and today I’m going to look at how we can do the same with dairy. Humans are the only species that consumes milk past infancy. And we don’t just consume it: We inhale it! We drink milk and we eat butter, cream, cheese and ice cream more now than ever before. In 2001, Americans consumed 30 pounds of cheese per person. That is eight times more than we consumed in 1909 and more than double consumption in 1975!

While much of the cheese eaten in the early 1900s was made locally on a farm, today we are eating processed shredded cheeses out of plastic bags and we’re eating on the run: About 55% to 65% of the cheese we eat comes from commercially manufactured and prepared foods like packaged snack foods and fast food sandwiches.

Being Dutch, I consider cheese to be one of my four primary foods; I don’t think I could live without it. And because of my background and my blood type, I can handle dairy products without any digestive concerns. But over the past few years, I have reduced my dairy intake significantly and made several changes to the dairy products I do consume. Most of us are simply consuming too much dairy; making some changes can go a long way toward improving our health.

Not Your Parents’ Milk

Whenever I talk about reducing dairy consumption, I always run into someone who grew up on a farm who argues that their parents lived long healthy lives drinking milk every day. And I don’t doubt that, because when I ask about it further, they always say their diet included one glass of milk with a meal and some butter and cheese, all made locally on their farm—which means they consumed raw unpasteurized milk and milk products made freshly and untreated. In fact in 1909, 56% of all milk consumed was ingested on the farm where it was produced. By 2001, that number had dropped to 0.3%.

While pasteurization is hailed as a great invention because it kills bacteria and prevents milk from souring, the heat process also kills off many beneficial nutrients. Named after Louis Pasteur, pasteurization was developed as a means of preserving beer and wine. Pasteur never applied it to milk; that came later, in the late 1800s, when dirty urban dairies were trying to find a way to produce cleaner milk. They discovered that pasteurization allowed them to still use the dirty milk, which was easier and cheaper than finding ways to make the milk cleaner.

The idea quickly spread as profits grew. In order to market the new form of milk, producers had to convince consumers that unpasteurized milk was harmful. A smear campaign to link raw milk to diseases was undertaken and today, most people believe that raw milk is dangerous to consume. But the truth is that pasteurized milk poses far more health risks than raw milk.

Raw milk contains healthy bacteria that actually inhibit the growth of harmful organisms; once removed, the pasteurized milk is actually more prone to contamination. In addition, the pasteurization process destroys many vital nutrients in the milk. Studies show up to a 66% loss of vitamins A, E and D and a 50% loss of vitamin C. Vitmains B6 and B12 are totally destroyed by the pasteurization process, as are many beneficial hormones, antibodies and enzymes. One enzyme destroyed in the process is lipase, which impairs fat metabolism and the ability to absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as A and D.

Pasteurization also makes calcium and other minerals less available. One way they test to see if the milk is appropriately pasteurized is to look for the destruction of phosphatase. If it’s absent, the milk is considered fully pasteurized. But phosphatase is essential for the absorption of calcium. So pasteurization makes calcium insoluble. It also destroys iodine, the lack of which can cause constipation.

Pasteurization also turns the sugar of milk, lactose, into beta-lactose, which is more rapidly absorbed in the system and has been shown to make children hungrier sooner. But the dairy industry has formed a strong lobby to prevent the distribution and sale of raw milk in order to protect their profits.  They’d rather have you believe it is harmful because if you found out the truth, you probably wouldn’t want to drink pasteurized milk.

Hormones, Pesticides and Antibiotics

In addition to not being pasteurized, raw milk is produced on farms that also avoid some of the real dangers of milk and milk products today: hormones, pesticides and antibiotics.

In the newsletter on healthier meat choices, I discussed how hormones are used to help the animals to grow bigger. In addition to that injection process, some farms use an additional hormone called rBGH, which is a synthetic growth hormone. Back in the 1930s, a typical cow produced 12 pounds (or about a gallon and a half) of milk a day. By 1988, the average was 39 pounds a day. This was done primarily through selective breeding and using rBGH. Today a cow can now generate 50 pounds of milk a day.

Cows injected with rBGH are 79% more likely to contract mastitis (an infection of the udder). Those cows also suffer from reproductive difficulties, digestive problems, an increased need for antibiotics and other abnormalities. Consumer’s Union reports that milk from rBGH treated cows is more likely to be of lower quality and contain more pus and bacteria than milk from untreated cows.

But even if you find milk from farms that don’t use rBGH, other harmful hormones present in the cow remain. In addition to the ear pellet they receive as a calf containing synthetic hormones to help them grow, cows’ milk contains high amounts of estrogen because 75% to 90% of milk comes from pregnant cows. Milk from a late-stage pregnant cow can have up to 33 times as much estrone sulfate (a form of estrogen) and 10 times more progesterone. Much research ties excess estrogen to reproductive cancers such as prostate, testes, ovarian and breast cancer. Male breast enlargement has also been tied to high dairy and hormone-laden meat consumption.

Test analysis has revealed traces of 80 different types of antibiotics in milk. Animal products like milk can also contain up to 14 times more pesticides than plants If you worry about pesticides in produce, you should be even more concerned about pesticides in meat and milk.

Anyone who has been pregnant, or been around a pregnant woman, understands the effect high hormone levels can have on the body. They have likely also seen that what the mother eats is transferred to the child through the milk and has an immediate and noticeable effect on the child if there is an allergy or sensitivity issue. Consuming the milk of a perennially pregnant cow makes consuming estrogen unavoidable. As one physician/scientist from the Harvard School of Pubic Health put it, “The milk we drink today is quite unlike the milk our ancestors were drinking without apparent harm.”

A new process has been developed called ultra-pasteurization, which involves longer treatment times at higher temperatures, resulting in milk that is totally sterile. It’s not being advertised, but you can look for the word in small print on almost every national brand and even some organic brands (Horizon, the largest organic producer, now ultra-pasteurizes.)

Given all the challenges with modern milk production, it’s no surprise that many Americans are allergic or sensitive to it and that it can cause headaches, sinus and chest congestion, stomach pain, cramping, diarrhea, gas and sore, scratchy throats. Milk has also been linked to asthma, atherosclerosis, upper respiratory and ear infections, obesity and cancer. (Many doctors now think children with recurring ear infections may have dairy sensitivities.)

Many people have difficulties digesting milk even if they are not lactose intolerant. According to Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University, “The majority of humans naturally stop producing significant amounts of lactase—the enzyme needed to properly metabolize lactose, the sugar in milk—sometime between the ages of two and five. In fact, for most mammals, the normal condition is to stop producing the enzymes needed to properly digest and metabolize milk after they have been weaned. Our bodies just weren’t made to digest milk on a regular basis. Instead, most scientists agree that it’s better for us to get calcium, potassium, protein, and fats from other food sources, like whole plant foods—vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and seaweed.”

The Many Varieties of Milk

For my family and myself, traditional milk, even organic, is simply not a good health choice. Raw milk not only avoids the hormone, antibiotic and pesticide challenges of modern milk production, it also offers the nutrients and enzymes that the pasteurization process destroys. Raw milk is a complete source of protein full of beneficial bacteria and vitamins, minerals and enzymes. If you are going to consume cow’s milk, I suggest you do so sparingly and that you explore raw milk options.

In some states, you can buy raw milk in stores such as Whole Foods. In most states, however, you’ll have to buy directly from the farm. And that may not be a viable option for some. Another option to consider is goat’s milk. Much of the world consumes goat not cow’s milk, because it’s more widely available and also because many people can digest goat’s milk readily even if they cannot tolerate cow’s milk.

Goat’s milk is a great source of calcium and protein, phosphorus, riboflavin (vitamin B2), potassium and the amino acid tryptophan. It’s also been shown to enhance the metabolism of copper and iron. For those with milk allergy symptoms such as asthma, eczema, ear infections and rheumatoid arthritis, switching to goat milk may help alleviate symptoms.

The major problem with goat milk is the expense. For many people who consume moderate or large amounts of milk, it will not be financially viable. I personally consume very little milk. I put a small amount in my chai tea in the morning and I use a little when I make a risotto or a sauce that I want to have some depth or richness. I find that a small amount of goat’s milk does the trick and makes for a delicious and rich sauce. Because I use so little and a half gallon can last me more than two weeks, (and yes, it lasts that long without spoiling), I justify the expense. (I definitely noticed a reduction in bloating after switching from cow’s to goat’s milk.)

For those who can’t access or afford raw milk or goat milk, or who want a non-animal option, I recommend rice or almond milk. Almond milk can be made inexpensively at home so it’s a great option if you want a fresh milk alternative that doesn’t cost a lot.

I do not recommend soy milk because it contains a natural chemical that mimics estrogen, though it does contain nutrients and protein. As we discussed in the prostate article, these estrogens take up the hormone receptor sites intended for estrogen and leave the excess estrogen to wander around the body.

Studies show excess estrogen can alter sexual development and can lead to reproductive concerns and cancers. One study showed that two glasses of soy milk a day contained enough pseudo estrogen to alter the timing of a woman’s reproductive cycle. As a result, I suggest everyone avoid soy milk.

Choose Better Cheese

While I have focused predominantly on milk since it is the source for all dairy, cheese is a far bigger component of most people’s diets than milk. In general, we eat way too much cheese and cutting back on processed foods with cheese or hidden cheese in fast foods is a great step toward better health. When you do choose cheese, the same principles that we discussed above apply: Look for raw milk cheese (most markets carry some, especially raw milk bleu cheeses and they are delicious) and goat’s milk cheese, which are also prevalent and tasty. Experiment with these kinds of cheese and if you are a cheese lover like me, you’ll find some delicious new options in raw milk and goat’s milk cheeses.

Occasionally, I do eat traditional cheese, but I buy it from Europe because the European Union has banned all hormones. When you buy a cheese from the mountainous Alps region of France or Switzerland, you are typically getting cheese made the traditional old-fashioned way from cows or goats who have roamed free in the sunshine, eating grass and living without pesticides, chemicals or drugs.

How Much is Too Much?

So now that we have looked at milk and cheese options, how much, if any, dairy should you consume? Less is definitely more when it comes to dairy: For me, a little bit of raw milk or goat cheese makes my day and I try to eliminate eating cheese that is an afterthought rather than a primary focus in my meal. I believe in bioindividuality, which means I think that every body is different and your tolerance will depend on your own lifestyle factors and diet, as well as that of your ancestors. Some people can handle dairy without incident while others should cut it out completely. This may be due in part to the enzymes present in our blood.

Dr. Peter D’Adamo argues in his blood type diet book, Eat Right for Your Type that blood type Bs (as I am) can handle dairy. Because ABs have some B in them, they can handle a little dairy as well. But type A should significantly reduce if not eliminate dairy and blood type O should completely avoid all dairy. This may or may not ring true for you, but if you are at all curious, I suggest eliminating dairy completely for two weeks, especially if you have any symptoms like headaches, IBS, sinuses, asthma or bloating/gas, and see how you feel during that time. (That includes all milk, cheese, yogurt, butter and ice cream.) Then introduce it slowly and see how you feel as you begin to eat it again: you’ll know right away if you can handle dairy and what types affect you more than others.

To your health!

Inger Pols
Editor of New England Health Advisory

By Andrew Palmer

Do you need a multivitamin if you eat well?

Conventional thinking used to be that most adults could get good nutrition from their diets and that vitamin supplements were not necessary. However, in the last few years, a growing number of studies have shown most diets fall well below the minimum recommended dietary allowance for many nutrients.

In other words, eating healthy food alone is not enough.

An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that, “All adults should take vitamin supplements to help prevent chronic disease. The daily use of a multivitamin can be a potentially powerful way to improve one’s health.”

At New England Health Advisory, we suggest eating a whole food and plant-based diet. Avoid foods with empty calories and take a multivitamin as insurance against nutritional gaps in your diet.

I try to eat a serving of fresh fruit at lunch each day. I also sneak another serving in after dinner as dessert. I use fruits as snacks at work. I bring grapes, apples, bananas, berries or cut-up melons when they are in season. But there are days when I just have an extra cup of coffee at snack time. The fruit just sits on my desk.

So it’s hardly surprising that nine out of 10 Americans fail to eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables … 96% don’t get the recommended dietary allowance of the essential vitamins. These people would benefit from supplements.

But did you know that most multivitamins on the market today, maybe even the one you take, don’t make up for the shortfall of vitamins and minerals in your diet? They advertise that they do, but they don’t.

Because of this, our contributor Dr. Sears formulated his own proprietary anti-aging multivitamin. Just three tablets a day give you the exact daily dosage of the 39 important vitamins, minerals and bioactive compounds he recommends for optimal health.

Primal Force Daily Power delivers each one of the 39 nutrients and minerals hand-picked by Dr. Sears—at levels that make a real difference to your health.

Here are just a few examples:

*Alpha Lipoic Acid to combat free radicals: With the ability to fight free radicals in both the fatty and water areas of cells, it can help lower your risk of atherosclerosis, lung and neurological problems. This new anti-aging vitamin gives you the 50mg you need daily.

*Vitamin B1 for improved circulation: Also known as thiamine, vitamin B1 aids in both blood formation and brain function. This new anti-aging multivitamin gives you 40 mg of vitamin B1 daily—nearly 27 times more than you get by taking a leading supermarket vitamin brand.

*Boron to ease joint pain: An important trace mineral, boron can reduce joint pain and inflammation by slowing the production of inflammatory enzymes. But because farming and ranching practices have depleted boron from the soil, you don’t get enough of it in your diet. Daily Power gives you 2mg of boron daily.

Click to try Primal Force Daily Power today.

Yours for health and wellness,

Andrew Palmer
Publisher
New England Health Advisory

P.S. A multivitamin is a proven way to bridge the gap between what we should eat and what we actually eat. Make sure you are getting all the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy. Try Primal Force Daily Power today—it is RISK FREE and FULLY Guaranteed. If, at any time, you do not agree that Daily Power is absolutely the best multi-vitamin you’ve ever taken or you are not 100% satisfied for any other reason … or for no reason at all …

Just return the unused portion—or even the empty bottle—within 60 days for a complete refund on your entire purchase, even if you’ve taken every tablet we sent you. You risk absolutely nothing. So try it today!

By Inger Pols

Today I’m going to continue the food swap series and look at making better meat choices. Unless you’re a vegetarian whose health is thriving, you most likely need to pay more attention to your animal protein selections. While it is possible to get everything you need to be healthy purely from plants, it’s difficult to do so. (I’ll talk more about how to create a healthy plant-based diet in a future newsletter.)

Almost every civilization has included some animal protein in its diet, even if it was only insects and bugs. While most of us do need to consume some animal protein to maintain optimal health, it’s likely that you are eating too much meat in general as well as too much unhealthy meat.

If you haven’t read the books The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, or seen the movie Food, Inc., I strongly encourage you to check them out. I could easily (and probably will) write a newsletter on factory farming and the challenges it poses to our food supply. But I’ll save most of that for another day. However, I do want to tell you a little bit about hormones, pesticides and antibiotics in meat and why eating them can be bad for your health.

Hold the Hormones

For decades, the meat and dairy industries have been using hormones to help young livestock gain weight faster. More weight means more meat means more profit. A pellet is typically implanted in the animal’s ear that releases hormones, commonly synthetic estrogens and testosterone, throughout its life.

The hormones remain in the animal’s fatty tissue and are present in the meat we eat, albeit in smaller doses than the human body typically produces. But even small amounts of hormones have been shown to have big effects on some body processes. It’s long been known that excess exposure to estrogen increases breast cancer risk and now we know it increases prostate cancer risk too. Hormone-treated meat has been suspected of contributing to early puberty and male breast development.

The European Union has banned all hormones in meat. But there aren’t any studies underway in the U.S. to evaluate hormone safety in meat and milk, so this practice will likely continue. Perhaps if we were not so heavily exposed to estrogenic compounds in our daily environment, this might not be so problematic. But as we discussed in the prostate article, estrogenic compounds are hard to avoid and eating hormone-laden meat just adds to the burden on your body.

Rising Antibiotic Resistance

We know the benefits of taking antibiotics when we have a bacterial illness, but most livestock in the U.S. are fed antibiotics even when they aren’t sick! Antibiotics are primarily used to make animals gain weight. But now researchers are becoming concerned with this practice, as they fear it is giving rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which could pose a serious health risk.

In fact, a number of studies have shown growing resistance to antibiotics, including one in the New England Journal of Medicine that revealed that 84% of the salmonella bacteria found in supermarket ground beef was resistant to some antibiotics. Another study showed that pork that came from animals that had been fed the antibiotic ciprofloxacin led to people catching resistant strains of salmonella. The FDA estimates that 11,000 people caught intestinal illnesses in 1999 from eating antibiotic-resistant bacteria in chicken.

Pesticides: Not Just a Concern with Produce

We hear a lot about pesticides with respect to produce, and they are a concern. But pesticides in our meat supply may pose an even greater danger. You can ingest far more pesticides on a meat-heavy diet than you would from consuming fruits and vegetables. Today’s livestock are not fed a traditional diet, but rather a feed that is loaded with pesticides. (The feed also often contains meat from diseased animals that die before slaughter.)

Pesticides accumulate in the flesh of animals and have been shown to cause cancer, nerve damage, birth defects, and to inhibit the proper absorption of food nutrients. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 90% of fungicides, 60% of herbicides and 30% of insecticides are known carcinogens.

The EPA does set limits on how much pesticide can be used (according to what they deem as safe) and how much is allowed to remain on food. However, the only way to know for sure is to have the food tested, which does not occur today. So it’s really a guess as to how much is left behind and whether that amount of pesticides is “safe” or not. The EPA also states that in certain cases, such as economic loss to farmers, unauthorized pesticides (those known to be unsafe) are knowingly allowed to be used.

Making Better Meat Choices

Thankfully, in most supermarkets today you can find meat labeled as hormone free, antibiotic free and pesticide free, and that’s what I buy. (This does not alleviate all the problems associated with today’s farming practices, but it’s a step in the right direction.)

Because the food supply of the livestock is a big part of the problem, whenever possible, I look for grass-fed meat or chicken raised on something other than vegetarian feed. It can be hard to find, and it can be expensive, but I think it’s worth it. My kids also think it tastes much better; they can tell the difference!

Many people eat too much meat in one meal, so cutting back on portion size is another way to make eating meat more economical and healthy. Meat portions should never be larger than the palm of your hand. (Yes, that does mean those with bigger hands get a slight advantage!) But no one has a hand large enough to accommodate a 16 oz. porterhouse steak: A little meat protein goes a long way.

Another good food swap is to substitute bison for beef. Bison are fed grass instead of grain and are typically not given hormones, antibiotics or pesticides. Bison meat also has very little intramuscular fat, so it is low in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol versus beef, pork or chicken. Venison is also a good choice.

Lastly, a comment on luncheon meats. In addition to the concerns already mentioned about hormones, pesticides and antibiotics in the meats, most packaged meats (bacon, salami, ham, pepperoni, hot dogs, etc.) contain nitrates as a preservative. Sodium nitrate is converted into nitrosamines, which are chemicals that can cause cancer.

While nitrosamines can cause virtually any kind of cancer, the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that people eating more processed meat were 50% more likely to develop lower colon cancer. Nitrosamines have also been linked to a 68% higher risk of pancreatic cancer, and increasing consumption of processed meats by 30 grams resulted in a 15% to 38% increase in risk for developing stomach cancer.

Consumption of nitrates has been shown to cause an increase in brain tumors in children and to result in DNA mutations. The food industry calls nitrates a color fixer, as they turn meats bright red and can make old, gray, unattractive meat look healthy and delicious.

But the good news is that most major grocery store chains have some nitrate-free meat in their organic sections and you can find them at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Again, they can cost a little more, but I’d rather see my meat as it really is and skip the cancer risk, especially for my kids, as their developing bodies can handle fewer toxins.

While these changes won’t fix the problems in our food supply, they will help you make healthier meat choices. Becoming an educated consumer and voting with your wallet is a step toward getting better meat options in our stores that are free of hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and nitrates.

To your health!

Inger Pols
Editor of New England Health Advisory

Did you hear the one about the mutant potato that almost took over Europe?

The United Kingdom had this big idea to create a new kind of potato. It would be resistant to all insects. It would grow so well, it would feed all of Europe.

The plans were to genetically modify the DNA of the potato so it would release a lectin. A lectin is a natural insecticide found in foods like beans, seeds, and grains.

Turns out, the potato caused serious organ damage when it was fed to animals. They found pre-cancerous growths in their digestive tracts. It destroyed their immune systems.

They soon became sick and weak. And they had smaller brains, livers, and testicles.

Then there was a huge cover-up. It took an act of Parliament to bring it out into the open. Since then, Europeans have banned genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from any product used for human consumption.1

If this potato had been created in the U.S., you could be eating it in the French fries you get at McDonald’s.

Unlike the UK, the U.S. government has taken the stance that GMOs are safe.

Mega-giant seed corporations like Monsanto want to prevent any bad news about GMOs getting out to the public. They require anyone who buys genetically modified seeds to sign what they call a “technology stewardship agreement.” What does that mean? It prohibits the buyer from doing any research on the seed.2

In other words, no one who has access to these “Franken-foods” is allowed to find out if they’re safe.

But evidence of the dangers is leaking out from Europe, Russia, and many other countries around the world.

Here are just some of their findings:3,4,5,6,7,8,9

•    Allergies increased. When GMO soy was introduced, allergies jumped by 50%. Allergen proteins were 7 times higher. Some were unique only to GMO soy.
•    It wreaked havoc on digestion and the absorption of nutrients. Digestive enzymes plummeted, and GMOs caused lesions in the digestive tract.
•    Proteins that control stress response and energy creation in cells changed. This resulted in faster aging of cells.
•    It caused reproductive problems. Sperm cells had trouble developing, and embryos showed altered genes. Offspring were smaller, and many more died.

Now, here’s the second part of the problem in the U.S. Food manufacturers don’t have to tell you when products have GMOs.

About 75% of American farms grow GMOs. Almost 90% of the soy… more than 60% of the corn… 75% of the canola, and 50% of the Hawaiian papaya crops.

So, what can you do?

First, I recommend you avoid all non-organic soy, corn, and canola products:

Next, eliminate commercial beef and poultry from your diet. They are raised on GMO corn, soy, and grains.

And, if you eat out, eat at restaurants that cook from scratch. Avoid suspect GMO foods like corn chips, tortillas, soy sauce, and sweet corn. If they use oil to cook, ask them to use a non-GMO oil such as olive, sunflower, or safflower.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1 Ewen SW, Pusztai A. “Effects of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus
nivalis lectin on rat small intestine.” Lancet. 1999;354(9187):1353-1354.
2 Waltz, E. “Under Wraps” NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY. 2009 Oct; 27(10).
3 Smith, J. “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.” Yes! Books, Fairfield, IA USA 2007 .
4 Interview: Jeffery Smith. www.seedsofdeception.com/documentfiles/138/pdf. Accessed 04 2010.
5 Malatesta M. et al. “Ultrastructural analysis of pancreatic acinar cells from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.” J Anat. 2002;201(5):409-415.
6 Tudisco, R. et al. “Genetically modified soya bean in rabbit feeding: detection of DNA fragments and evaluation of metabolic effects by enzymatic analysis.” Animal Science. 2006;82:193-199.
7 Vecchio, L. et al. “Ultrastructural analysis of testes from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.” European Journal of Histochemistry. 2004;48(4):449-454.
8 “Genetically modified soy affects posterity: results of Russian scientists’ studies.” REGNUM. 2005; www.regnum.ru/english/526651.html
9 Ermakova I. “Genetically modified soy leads to the decrease of weight and high mortality of rat pups of the first generation. Preliminary studies.” Ecosinform 1. 2996;4-9.