Health Journal Online

Category: Nutrition

  • Are Nuts and Peanut Butter Linked to a Longer Life?

    Are Nuts and Peanut Butter Linked to a Longer Life?

    Why are nuts associated with decreased mortality, but not peanut butter?

    According to the largest study of risk factors for death in human history, a poor diet causes more deaths than anything. Cigarettes only kill about 8 million people a year, whereas humanity’s diet kills millions more, as you can see below and at 0:20 in my video Do the Health Benefits of Peanut Butter Include Longevity?.What are the worst aspects of our diet? Processed meat? Twinkies? Soda? No, the five deadliest things about our diet are: not enough fruit, not enough whole grains, not enough vegetables, too much salt, and not enough nuts and seeds, as shown here and at 0:42 in my video.

    Nuts should come as no surprise since interventional trials have shown that eating nuts improves artery function, and arterial diseases like heart disease are among our leading killers. But that’s not all nuts can do. They may also improve blood sugar control, lower cholesterol, suppress inflammation, reduce oxidative stress, and feed our friendly gut flora. Do all nuts do that, or just tree nuts?

    What about peanuts and peanut butter? About half of peanut consumption in the United States is from peanut butter, but the link between peanut butter consumption and mortality has not been evaluated thoroughly. To get that specific, we can call on the National Institutes of Health-AARP study, the largest prospective health and diet study in history that followed more than half a million people since the 1990s.

    Researchers found that nut consumption in general appeared to protect against all-cause mortality, meaning nut-eaters live—on average—longer lives. Specifically, they are less likely to die from cancer, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, respiratory disease, kidney disease, and infectious causes (so, maybe nuts help immunity as well). However, no such associations were found for peanut butter. So, when it comes to living longer, peanut butter doesn’t seem to count. Why?

    Well, we know peanut butter consumers tend to eat more meat, smoke cigarettes, and are less likely to exercise, but the researchers controlled for all those factors, as well as their alcohol consumption, fruit and veggie intake, education, and more. So, it’s not like the peanut butter eaters were just eating more white bread sandwiches or something. (The researchers didn’t control for sugar, though, so it’s possible they could have been eating more sugary jelly.)

    Another explanation: It could be the processing that goes into making peanut butter—the added trans fat, oil, salt, and sugar. But regular nuts are also often eaten with added oil, sugar, and salt.

    Could it just be the peanuts themselves? Technically, they aren’t nuts, so maybe they don’t have the same benefits. But no, a meta-analysis of all such studies found the same nut-like benefits for whole peanuts, but not peanut butter.

    Well, one thing missing from even no-salt, oil-free, sugar-free nut and seed butters is intact cellular structure. As I noted in How Not to Diet, no matter how well we chew whole or chopped nuts, some of the nutrients remain trapped in tiny particles that deliver a bounty of prebiotic goodness to our friendly gut flora. That makes me wonder if there would have been any difference between chunky and smooth peanut butter.

    Meanwhile, there is “compelling evidence” to recommend eating nuts (preferably raw nuts over salted or toasted, and whole or chopped nuts rather than nut butters) at least three times a week to maximize our chance of living a longer and healthier life.

    Doctor’s Note

    The healthiest nut may be walnuts. See Walnuts and Artery Function.

    Won’t nuts make you fat, though? See Nuts and Obesity: The Weight of Evidence.

    I mentioned my book, How Not to Diet, which you can read more about here. (All proceeds from my books are donated to charity.)



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  • Does Less Protein Increase FGF21 for Longevity?

    Does Less Protein Increase FGF21 for Longevity?

    Fasting and exercise can boost the longevity hormone FGF21, but what can we eat—or avoid eating—to get similar effects?

    Over a century ago, fasting was hailed not only as a means of combating “cerebral lassitude,” but also for the “prolongation of healthy longevity.” If that turns out to be true, FGF21 might be a missing link. FGF21 is characterized as a “systemic enhancer of longevity.” It can be boosted through prolonged fasting, but thankfully, there are other, less drastic measures, such as more carbs or less protein.

    Give people lots of starchy foods, and their FGF21 levels shoot up. The healthiest sources would likely be whole grains and beans, since butyrate appears to boost FGF21, too, and we get that from fiber. That’s one of the things our good gut bugs make from fiber-rich foods.

    Circulating FGF21 levels also increase dramatically after eating a lower-protein diet—more than a 150% increase within four weeks. By the way, “lower protein” simply means reducing intake from the typical excess consumed by most Americans down to the recommended amount.

    The recommended daily allowance of protein for most men is 56 grams of protein a day, though most American men are getting more than 100 grams. When researchers studied men who had been getting the typical excess of about 112 grams a day and reduced them down to 64, which is still more than the recommended 56 grams, so the protein “restricted” group was still getting more than enough protein—they found that FGF21 levels in the blood essentially doubled. That may help explain why they lost more body fat, despite getting significantly more calories. How can you eat 300 more calories a day and still lose two more pounds of straight body fat? By just bringing your protein levels down to normal levels. Who hasn’t fantasized about a diet that allows eating excess calories that are effortlessly burned off by ramping up fat-burning? So, maybe we should “play down protein to play up metabolism,” thanks to FGF21.

    Even just a modest protein restriction regimen down to recommended levels might have significant clinical benefits. Now, this was after a month and a half. A similar study found that even less protein restriction, taking men down to just 73 grams a day, resulted in a sixfold increase in FGF21 within a single week, accompanied by a significant increase in insulin sensitivity, as you can see below and at 2:46 in my video How to Boost FGF21 with Diet for Longevity.Researchers concluded that dietary protein dilution promotes our metabolic health.

    Evidence suggesting that lower protein intake has positive associations with better health, survival, and insulin sensitivity has continued to grow, but we weren’t sure exactly how. Maybe FGF21 provides an explanation. Interestingly, the studies were feeding people 9 percent of calories from protein, which is about what the Okinawans were getting when they were one of the healthiest, longest-living populations in the world.

    I’ve talked previously about methionine restriction to fight cancer and as a life-extension strategy. Methionine is an amino acid found predominantly in animal proteins, so one could achieve methionine restriction by cutting back on animal foods. That may actually be an FGF21 effect. Methionine restriction boosts levels, so much so that it’s been called “the most important mediator of metabolic reprogramming in methionine restriction.” Some proteins may be more important to restrict than others. The highest methionine levels are in meat. Legumes (beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils) have about three times less methionine than meat, as you can see below and at 3:55 in my video.FGF21 has been proposed as a potential mediator of the protection from cancer, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and obesity, afforded by strictly plant-based diets. Maybe that’s one of the reasons whole food, plant-based diets have been shown to have such extraordinary results. Take Dr. Esselstyn’s work, for example, showing that coronary disease—the number one killer of men and women—can be largely halted or reversed, and the risk of heart attack almost eliminated, with the help of a whole food, low-fat vegan diet. This benefit can’t be attributed solely to cholesterol reduction, as we have powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs now that can force cholesterol levels as low as those of healthy eaters but appear to have less effect. So, the marked benefits Esselstyn reported seem to reflect a variety of protective mechanisms associated with whole food, plant-based diets, and FGF21 may be one of those mechanisms. So, it’s not just the fat and cholesterol—the quantity and quality of protein may also be playing a role. But there’s never been a study to see whether vegans do indeed have higher levels of FGF21…until now.

    In addition to studying New Zealand obese mice, researchers investigated the circulating FGF21 levels among those eating plant-based diets, and then put it to the test by removing meat from other people’s diets to see if FGF21 levels would go up. They found that FGF21 levels were markedly higher in vegan people compared to omnivores, and the levels went up when the omnivores were switched to vegetarian diets after just four days. And not just by a small amount—FGF21 levels increased by 232% after just four meat-free days.

    The bottom line is that “the various fasting approaches are likely to have limited efficacy, particularly on aging and conditions other than obesity, unless combined with high-nourishment diets such as the moderate calorie intake and mostly plant-based Mediterranean or Okinawa low-protein diets,” by which they mean the recommended amount of protein.

    Doctor’s Note

    I introduced FGF21 in the first video. If you missed it, check out Life Extension with FGF21.

    The methionine videos I mentioned are Methionine Restriction as a Life-Extension Strategy and Starving Cancer with Methionine Restriction.



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  • How to Boost Your Longevity Hormone

    How to Boost Your Longevity Hormone

    What can we do to boost the longevity hormone FGF21?

    In the year 2000, a new human hormone was discovered. It was the 21st documented fibroblast growth factor, so they called it FGF21. Since its discovery, FGF21 has become recognized as a key agent for the promotion of metabolic and arterial health, leanness, and longevity. Inject it into fat monkeys, and they lose body weight without reducing their food intake. And they don’t just lose a little weight—they have a 27% drop in body fat while eating the same amount. In mice, it increases their lifespan by 30 to 40%, which is comparable to lifelong caloric restriction, and, again, they achieve this without decreasing their food intake. The researchers conclude that FGF21 could possibly be used as a hormone therapy to extend mammals’ lifespans, which has gotten Big Pharma salivating, raising the question: “Can aging be ‘drugged’?”

    That’s not all FGF21 can do, either. “The idea that one drug can treat obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia [like high cholesterol], and hypertension all at once might have seemed impossible a few years ago but is now a tantalizing and exciting prospect.” The reason you can’t just give people straight FGF21 is that it gets rapidly broken down in the body, so you’d need injections every hour or two, around the clock. So, drug companies are trying to patent a variety of longer-acting FGF21 look-alikes. And, indeed, give people a little PF-05231023, and they can lose about 10 pounds in 25 days, as well as get dramatic drops in triglycerides and cholesterol, as you can see below and at 1:48 in my video Life Extension with FGF21.Then, the side effects of these new-fangled drugs started cropping up. Okay, so what are the options? How about packaging the FGF21 gene into a virus and then injecting it so it can stitch extra FGF21 genes into our DNA? Or you can just lace up your running shoes. Exercise boosts FGF21 levels, which may in fact be one of the reasons exercise is so good for us.

    Which works better, though, aerobic exercise (eight weeks of running training) or resistance exercise (eight weeks of weights)? The answer is both, but the resistance exercise edged out the running, a 42% increase in FGF21 versus a 25% increase in the aerobic exercise group. Okay, but what can we do with food? Yes, you could try engineering and injecting it, but wouldn’t it be easier to just stimulate our own natural, endogenous production through diet? One way is through no diet at all. It’s been dubbed the starvation hormone because fasting induces FGF21, but not after just a day or two.

    Physiologically, FGF21 expression rises markedly in response to fasting or starvation. But, unlike mice, which show an increase after just six hours of fasting, humans don’t get a notable surge in FGF21 until after a week. Fasting can quadruple FGF21, but it takes 10 days of fasting, which is the very poster child of an unsustainable eating pattern. You can see the increase below and at 3:19 in my video.So, how do you get the benefits without the starvation? Might a ketogenic diet be able to mimic the fast? Nope. Keto diets don’t work. In fact, keep it up for a few months, and you can actually get a significant decline in levels. High-fat diets may even interfere with the boost you get from exercise, which was seen in a study of high-intensity interval training.

    What kind of diet does work, then? We’ll find out next.

    Doctor’s Note

    Stay tuned for part two: How to Boost FGF21 with Diet for Longevity.

    Flashback Friday: How Much Should You Exercise? Check out the video to find out.

    For more on longevity, see Friday Favorites:  How to Increase Your Life Expectancy 12 to 14 Years.



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  • How Prebiotic Foods Keep Your Microbiome Healthy

    How Prebiotic Foods Keep Your Microbiome Healthy

    We co-evolved a symbiosis with our good gut bacteria, but we aren’t holding up our end of the bargain.

    If you look at the classics—the most frequently cited articles in the scientific nutrition literature—the original glycemic index paper ranks tenth, cited more than a thousand times. Learning about fruits, vegetables, and cancer prevention comes in seventh. But hitting the top four, cited more than 2,000 times: “Dietary Modulation of the Human Colonic Microbiota: Introducing the Concept of Prebiotics.”

    As I discuss in my video How to Keep Your Microbiome Healthy with Prebiotic Foods, prebiotics are the food components that nourish and feed the good bacteria in our gut, like fiber and resistant starch. Eating high-fiber plant foods is generally “a good foundation for a prebiotic-rich diet.”

    Once upon a time, fiber was thought of as just the undigested part of food, known only for bulking up stools and keeping bowels regular. Then researchers discovered an array of receptors in the body that fiber-breakdown products fit into like a lock and key. We feed our good bacteria with fiber, and they feed us right back, munching the fiber and creating short-chain fatty acids. These fatty acids get absorbed into our bloodstream and fit into these receptors that are expressed on immune cells, generally having a direct anti-inflammatory effect.

    So, the reason behind lower systemic inflammation in plant-based eaters may not just be due to the abundance of anti-inflammatory molecules in plant foods or the avoidance of proinflammatory molecules in animal foods, but from the production of anti-inflammatory molecules from scratch by our good gut bugs when we feed them fiber. Just to give you an idea of how protective fiber-rich foods can be, those randomized to get advice on eating fiber-rich plant foods during radiation therapy for cancer didn’t just experience reduced toxicity during the treatments—the benefit persisted even a full year later.

    Indeed, the benefits of fiber are supported by more than a century of research. Prospective studies show “striking reductions” in death from all causes put together, including “total cancer deaths, total cardiovascular disease deaths and incidence, stroke incidence, and incidence of colorectal, breast, and oesophageal cancer.” And, in terms of protecting against heart attacks and stroke, type 2 diabetes, and cancer, dose-response relationships suggest that the more fiber, the better. So, at a minimum, fiber intake should be no less than 25 to 29 grams per day; higher intake may provide additional benefits. Yet, the average American only consumes about 16 grams of fiber each day.

    We have coevolved with gut bacteria over millennia, becoming reliant on our good gut bugs in a kind of symbiosis for fiber digestion and the production of short-chain fatty acids and even certain vitamins. Yet we’re not holding up our end of the bargain. We’re supposed to be providing up to 100 or so grams of fiber a day, and we are barely passing along a measly 16 grams. The simplest solution to remedy this lack of dietary fiber is to encourage eating plant-based diets rich in fiber.

    Doctor’s Note

    A hundred grams of fiber a day?! Check out Paleopoo: What We Can Learn from Fossilized Feces.

    And, for more on prebiotics, see Prebiotics: Tending Our Inner Garden.



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  • How We Eat vs. How We Think We Eat

    How We Eat vs. How We Think We Eat

    The so-called optimism bias may get in the way of a healthy lifestyle.

    Yes, media messages about nutrition are often confusing and inconsistent, but many Americans know what is considered a healthy diet. I mean, does anyone really think drinking brown carbonated sugar water is good for them? The issue is that they don’t appear to be translating their knowledge into action.

    Why do people have such difficulty changing their dietary behaviors? While ignorance and confusion may play a part, being motivated to change is likely much more important. Certainly, we are living in a world that pushes us to eat whatever we want, regardless of the long-term consequences. “One of the major problems in getting people to change their behaviour is the need to get them to recognise the need to change.”

    For example, if you ask people how much meat they eat—or how much greasy food, eggs, sweets, alcohol, or butter—they claim to be eating less than the average person. So, if people think they’re at less risk than others, they may dismiss advice to eat more healthfully, thinking that they already eat healthier. Is it possible that they actually are? No, people rated their own eating behavior as healthier on average, even when their actual eating habits were terrible. Because of this, perhaps campaigns promoting health need to make people aware of how badly they are eating. But when that is done, a strange thing happens. When people are challenged with the reality of what the average person actually eats, they change their answer to make themselves appear as though they’re still healthier than average.

    When people’s positive comparisons on risky behaviors are threatened, they tend to not only reduce their estimates of how frequently they engage in those behaviors—”oh, I don’t eat that much meat”—but they also minimize the significance of the behaviors. “Meat’s not that bad for you anyway.” It’s the same “personal fable” that smokers tell themselves. Studies show that smokers have a strong tendency to underestimate smoking-related risks, developing a series of illusions and false beliefs to support their choice to keep smoking.

    Why do so many people continue to light up in spite of smoking’s harm to their health? For many of the same reasons, people continue to eat unhealthy food. First, they convince themselves that they are less at risk than others who engage in the same behavior. Adding to this optimism bias, smokers also underestimate how much smoking elevates lung cancer risk, thinking two-pack-a-day smokers only have five times the risk of getting lung cancer when their actual risk is 20-fold higher, as you can see below and at 3:10 in my video Why Don’t People Eat Healthier?.Also, many smokers believe lung cancer is mainly determined by genetics.

    Many hazards related to the food we eat share this same “optimistic bias,” like heart attacks and heart disease (our number one killer), obesity, diabetes, and all the rest. People can often find quite ingenious reasons for believing that their own risk is less than others’ risk. So, maybe public health advocates need to be just as ingenious in understanding where this unrealistic optimism originated from and find ways to help people gain a more accurate picture of their own vulnerability. All sorts of work is being done trying to reduce or eliminate this bias, “but we must consider the possibility that reductions in optimistic bias might lead to reductions in self-esteem and psychological well-being,” if people start to realize just how much risk they truly face and how much they have themselves to blame.

    This reminds me of the tightrope wire health professionals have to walk, telling people how much power we all have over getting cancer. There is an oft-cited paper that calculated that we may be able to prevent approximately 90% of human cancers. Although its reference to “present trends” referred to the 1960s—when this paper was published—it still applies today, more than half a century later. “Genetic factors are not the major causes of chronic diseases.” Using identical twins to see how much disease risk was truly genetic, researchers found that out of 28 chronic diseases, cancers had the lowest genetic component—only about 10% attributable to bad genes. What runs in families is bad habits.

    But when you tell everyone the good news about how much power we have in preventing cancer, what about the people who already have it? When people are diagnosed with cancer, they often ask, “Why me? Did I do something wrong? Is this my fault?” So, you can imagine how the message of “well, yeah, kinda” could be destructive for patients or survivors. In other words, a message that is intended to empower people and promote prevention could just make cancer victims feel guilty.

    But the truth is still the truth, no matter how difficult it may be. So, what doctors have to do is try to guide patients to “switch from guilt feelings to a ‘responsibility’ approach.” They have personal control; they can make different choices from now on. Doctors need to give them a sense of agency in their lives. Better, though, to try to take those steps before you get cancer.

    Doctor’s Note

    For more on personal responsibility, see Why You Should Care About Nutrition and Taking Personal Responsibility for Your Health.



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  • The Link Between Breast Cancer and a Virus in Meat and Dairy

    The Link Between Breast Cancer and a Virus in Meat and Dairy

    Exposure to the bovine leukemia virus from meat and dairy (or a blood transfusion from those who eat meat or dairy) is a risk factor for cancer.

    In 2015, researchers in California found bovine leukemia virus (BLV) stitched into the DNA of human breast cancer tumors from mastectomies. The virus was found at much higher rates than in normal breast tissue obtained from breast reduction surgeries. Based on this difference, they calculated that as many as 37% of breast cancer cases may be attributable to exposure to BLV, likely through consuming milk or meat from infected animals.

    In response, the milk and meat industries seemed more concerned about consumer confidence than consumer cancer. But scientifically, the research priority turned to the question: Could the California results be replicated? The answer, it turns out, was yes. They were replicated among women in Iran. Replicated in Brazil. In Australia, the link was even stronger. In Texas, they found the same thing. Women diagnosed with breast cancer were found to be so much more likely to have bovine leukemia virus DNA in their breast tissue compared with women without cancer, that the attributable risk was calculated at 51.82%, indicating that this meat and dairy virus may be responsible for at least half of the breast cancer cases among the women in Texas they studied.

    All in all, six of the eight studies performed to date found the virus in human breast tissues, which “suggests strongly that BLV does infect humans, and breasts can be targets of infection.” Four of the five studies that compared infection rates in cancerous versus normal breast tissue found that the odds of detecting the virus in tumors were, on average, four times higher. How does that compare to other breast cancer risk factors? If you go on hormone replacement for five years, you can bump up your breast cancer risk by 30%. If you take birth control pills for more than a dozen years, your risk may go up by 40%. If you’re obese when you’re older, your risk can go up by 60%. Having a first-degree relative with breast cancer may double your risk. But having your breast infected with bovine leukemia virus may quadruple your risk, as you can see below and at 2:16 in my video Breast Cancer and the Bovine Leukemia Virus in Meat and Dairy.The only risk factors more potent than BLV infection were having the BRCA gene mutation, like Angelina Jolie has, or a high dose of ionizing radiation, like being in the wrong place at decidedly the wrong time, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

    Beyond confirmation, one study suggested that older patients had a greater likelihood of testing positive for bovine leukemia virus. That makes sense if BLV is from exposure to dairy and meat. The older we get, the more meals we’ve had—and the more opportunities to become infected over time. Researchers also discovered that the virus comes first, before the cancer diagnosis; they found it was present in some breast tissues 3 to 10 years before cancer was found. “This argues against the idea of viral invasion of already malignant cells,” quashing the theory that maybe the virus is somehow just attracted to the cancer after the fact. Could this explain the consistent findings that breast cancer tissue is more likely to harbor infection? Again, the data showed no — the virus appeared to come first. While the review doesn’t provide absolute proof that BLV is a cause of breast cancer, based on the best available balance of evidence, BLV infection does indeed appear to be a risk factor for breast cancer.

    The latest revelation is that BLV has now been found in human blood, too. This has a number of potential ramifications. Blood banks, for example, don’t screen for it. So, it’s possible you can get it from consuming meat or dairy, as well as from getting blood from someone who consumed meat or dairy. This could also mean that BLV could cause leukemia in people. It does in chimpanzees. Two infant chimps were fed milk from cows naturally infected with BLV, and both died of leukemia. We didn’t even know chimps could get leukemia. This certainly suggests the possibility of transmission or induction of leukemia through the ingestion of milk from BLV-infected cows, or blood-borne spread could carry the virus to other organs. In cattle, the virus causes blood cancers, but this may be just because dairy cattle are slaughtered and turned into hamburger when they are still so young, so maybe they don’t have time for tumors to grow in other organs.

    How concerned should we be about bovine leukemia virus? “It is not clear whether this is a good news story or a bad news story.” If future studies show that BLV does cause breast cancer in people, there will be significant repercussions for the dairy and cattle industries. But that means there is something we can do about it. Perhaps action should be taken now to eradicate the infection from cattle, rather than waiting for a final verdict. Twenty-one nations have already eradicated BLV from their dairy cattle. In contrast, the BLV prevalence in the United States just keeps increasing. If industries are not going to step up and try to eliminate the disease, then the least they could do is eliminate some of the practices that spread the disease between animals.

    BLV is spread via blood through contaminated needles, saw or gouge dehorners, ear taggers, hoof knives, tattoo pliers, nose tongs, and other tools of the agribusiness trade. Though “in view of the emerging information about BLV in human breast cancer, it is prudent to encourage the elimination of BLV in cattle, particularly in the dairy industry.” The hope is that, either way, it may help reduce the scourge of breast cancer.

    Doctor’s Note

    If you missed the previous video, see Bovine Leukemia Virus as a Cause of Breast Cancer.

    Avoiding infectious risks like BLV is another advantage of making meat without animals. See my video, The Human Health Effects of Cultivated Meat: Food Safety.



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  • Could Bovine Leukemia Virus be a Cause of Breast Cancer?

    Could Bovine Leukemia Virus be a Cause of Breast Cancer?

    As many as 37% of breast cancer cases may be attributable to exposure to the bovine leukemia virus.

    The incidence of breast cancer continues to increase worldwide. In the United States, this amounted to a 40% increase in the incidence by the turn of the century. Presently, the main approach to preventing mortality is early detection and treatment. That’s important, but why not focus more on primary prevention—protecting people from risk factors so they don’t develop breast cancer at all?

    “Overall, it is estimated that 20% of all human cancers have an infectious origin.” Viruses can trigger cancer by turning on cancer genes or turning off cancer-suppressing genes, but they can also contribute to tumor formation just by causing chronic inflammation. Currently, cancer-causing viruses are considered “the major plausible hypothesis for a direct cause of human breast cancer.” How did we get here?

    It all started about 40 years ago when a professor of virology at UC Berkeley learned how the mammary tumor virus was discovered in mice. Scientists switched baby mouse pups from mothers with a high incidence of mammary cancer with the babies from mouse strains with a low incidence and found that the cancer incidence in pups matched their foster mothers’—not their biological ones’—showing it wasn’t genetic. “It occurred to me that humans are foster nursed on the cow,” the professor said.

    Bovine leukemia virus (BLV) had just been identified as a cancer-causing cow virus. At the time, only about 10% of U.S. dairy cows were infected, but now it’s closer to half. Initially, 66% of herds were affected. Then, it was more like 80%, based on their milk testing positive for the virus, and 100% of the herds in the larger industrial farms. And now, more than 94% of U.S. herds are affected, continuing the historical trend of BLV persistently proliferating within U.S. dairy herds.

    We’ve long known that people in countries that consume the most milk have the highest breast cancer incidence. But, as you can see below and at 2:32 in my video, Bovine Leukemia Virus as a Cause of Breast Cancer, the link between dairy consumption and breast cancer incidence isn’t only on the country level.Individual women who are lactose intolerant and consume less dairy also seem to have decreased risk of breast cancer. Milk contains many things that could be contributing to the cancer risk, such as saturated fat and the presence of cancer-promoting growth hormones like IGF-1.

    Yes, we know bovine leukemia virus is present in beef and dairy products. About half of the milk and meat samples turn up positive for the virus. In fact, you can sample the virus straight out of the air on dairy farms, on surfaces, and in the milk itself. Most milk is pasteurized, but many dairy products, like raw, aged cheeses, are not. And who hasn’t eaten a pink-in-the-middle hamburger at some point in their life?

    Yes, we have evidence that people are exposed to the virus. Yes, we have evidence that people are actively infected with the virus. But it wasn’t until 2015 that we learned infection rates were highest in cancerous breast tissue, as you can see below and at 3:30 in my video.So much so that as many as 37% of breast cancer cases may be attributable to exposure to the bovine leukemia virus.

    That was enough for me to make a whole series of videos on the role the virus plays in breast cancer and how the meat and dairy industries responded to the news. What’s the latest update? That’s what I’ll cover next.

    Doctor’s Note

    You may remember that I’ve previously discussed The Role of Bovine Leukemia in Breast Cancer and the Industry Response to Bovine Leukemia Virus in Breast Cancer.

    Stay tuned for the next video: Breast Cancer and the Bovine Leukemia Virus in Meat and Dairy.



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  • A Cancer-Causing Contaminant in Meds and Meat

    A Cancer-Causing Contaminant in Meds and Meat

    Billion-dollar drugs have been pulled from the market for less carcinogenic contamination than is found in a single serving of grilled chicken.

    In 2018, one of the bestselling blood pressure drugs, valsartan—sold as Diovan—was found to be contaminated by the “probably carcinogenic” nitrosamine known as N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). It’s believed that about 20 million people worldwide were prescribed the drug tainted with this contaminant, which has a cancer risk shown to exceed that of many known potent carcinogens, such as asbestos, PCBs, and benzo[a]pyrene.

    As I discuss in my video Cancer-Causing NDMA in Medications (Zantac, Metformin) and Meat, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimated that taking the drug for a few years could cause cancer in as many as 1 in 8,000 people, whereas the European equivalent of the FDA estimated the cancer risk could be as high as 1 in 5,000. It is unlikely, researchers wrote in this 2019 paper, that drugs like valsartan are “a unique case.” And indeed, a few months later, the FDA announced it had found NDMA in ranitidine. Ranitidine, the acid reflux drug sold as Zantac, is one of the most prescribed drugs on the planet, in addition to being sold over the counter.

    Then in 2020, some formulations of metformin, a popular diabetes drug sold as Glucophage, were found to be contaminated. The finding of NDMA in common medicines led the FDA to call for the immediate withdrawal of all Zantac from store shelves, yanking the drug from the market because its testing showed NDMA levels could, in some circumstances, exceed the acceptable daily intake limit of 96 nanograms per day. It was so bad that the FDA found levels of this carcinogenic contaminant in Zantac are similar to the exposure levels you would experience if you ate grilled or smoked meats!

    Wait, what?

    NDMA has not only been found in contaminated drugs. It is a known byproduct of tire plants, pesticide manufacturing, and leather tanning, and it is found in food and beverages, including processed meat and beer. Now that we know NDMA can transfer through the placenta, this may explain the relationship between maternal cured meat consumption during pregnancy and the risk of childhood brain tumors. For example, eating hot dogs while pregnant may increase childhood brain tumor risk by 33%, and sausages by 44%. Bacon consumption may increase childhood brain tumor odds by 60 or 70%. But it’s not just processed meat. Researchers have found it in poultry products as well. A single serving of chicken contains more than 100 nanograms of NDMA, as you can see below and at 3:02 in my video.

     

    Remember how the FDA said the acceptable daily intake limit is 96 nanograms? Just half a chicken breast contains 110 nanograms.

    Now, raw poultry doesn’t have any NDMA; it comes from the cooking process. In fact, the dry-heat cooking of meat, like broiling or grilling, even creates airborne NDMA, releasing this very potent carcinogenic compound into the air. So, even if you’re getting a salad at a charcoal grill restaurant, just being indoors where meat is being grilled could be a significant cancer risk.

    Nitrosamines are also found in cigarette smoke, and pressure was put on the tobacco industry to try to remove them, arguing “there is simply no logical reason why a removable carcinogen should be allowed to remain in a consumer product….” That’s the same reason Zantac was yanked from store shelves.

    Okay, so let’s get this straight. Zantac—which is one of the best-selling drugs in history, bringing in billions of dollars—was pulled from the market because it contained a probable carcinogen that exceeded the acceptable daily limit, but there may be more of the contaminant in a single serving of chicken?! So, my question is: Why aren’t they pulling poultry off the shelves, too?

    Doctor’s Note

    NDMA is a nitrosamine, a class of carcinogens also found in processed meat. See, for example, How Much Cancer Does Lunch Meat Cause?.

    How can you make meat less cancer-causing? See Carcinogens in Meat.

    Is Organic Meat Less Carcinogenic? Check out the video to find out.

    Note: The article shown at minute 1:04 of the video I reference has since been retracted due to analytical artifact.



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  • Peeling Back the Onion Claims

    Peeling Back the Onion Claims

    What did randomized, controlled human trials find about the ways we may—or may not—benefit from eating onions?

    Onions are potentially a good source of antioxidants, which, interestingly, are concentrated in the outer layers just beneath the papery peel. White onions, for example, contain more than ten times the antioxidants in the outer layer compared to the inner core. Unfortunately, most people discard the most nutrient-rich outermost layers, “thus losing a valuable part of the antioxidant-rich material.” In general, yellow onions have more antioxidants than white onions. Red onions beat them both, based on three different antioxidant testing methods, as seen at 0:39 in my video Are Onions Beneficial for Testosterone, Osteoporosis, Allergies, and Cancer?

    Though red onions are indeed slightly better, yellow and white onions are no slouches, containing considerable levels of antioxidant activity. We know they’re nutritious, but are there any particular clinical benefits to eating onions? There are all sorts of headlines in the medical literature touting miraculous benefits, but what are these claims based on?

    For example, there’s a review purporting to have evidence that testosterone levels in males are enhanced by onion, but the researchers were referring to studies like one on the effects of onion juice after testicular torsion in rats. Who cares what happens after a rat’s testicle is rotated 720 degrees counterclockwise? (Except, of course, the rat.) You don’t know what happens in people until you put human testes to the test. Only then was it discovered that onion extract doesn’t appear to affect men’s testosterone.

    What about bone health? Evidently, older white women who ate onions at least once a day had an overall bone density that was 5% greater than women who ate onions no more than once a month. Now, 5% might not sound like a lot, but that improvement in bone density could potentially mean decreasing their hip fracture risk by more than 20% if, indeed, it is cause and effect.

    Daily administration of onion for four weeks did cause a big bump in bone density. This could lead to a safe, effective, and low-cost approach to osteoporosis in—you guessed it—rats. Another rodent study!

    Great strides have been made in treating osteoporosis with drugs, but they have the potential for serious adverse side effects, so scientists have turned their attention to natural remedies. In one study, researchers randomized people to drink onion juice or placebo onion juice for 8 weeks. Improvement was noted for a marker of bone health; however, they didn’t actually follow participants long enough to compare osteoporosis rates.

    Do shallots exhibit anti-allergy activity or offer any therapeutic effects for relieving allergic runny noses? Sixteen patients were randomized equally into an antihistamine group or a group that got antihistamines and capsules containing dried shallot powder. It looked like the shallot group did better after four weeks, but there was no statistically significant difference in total symptoms between the two groups. So, another #onionfail.

    What about testing the effects of eating fresh yellow onion to try to decrease the toxic effects of a chemotherapy drug called doxorubicin in breast cancer patients? Unfortunately, no significant benefit was found in decreasing damage to the liver or heart. But eating fresh yellow onion was found to help reduce high blood sugar levels and insulin resistance in breast cancer patients during doxorubicin-based chemotherapy. The drug isn’t just toxic to the liver and heart—it may also contribute to insulin resistance.

    So, researchers performed a randomized, triple-blind, controlled clinical trial, randomizing patients to eat a whole onion a day or a third of an onion a day for eight weeks. What happened? The higher-dose onion group experienced a significant decrease in blood sugars and insulin resistance compared to the lower-dose group. Levels rose in the lower-dose group but fell in the higher-dose group, as you can see below and at 4:28 in my video.

    So, make onions your friend. What’s the worst that can happen—a little onion breath and body odor?

    Doctor’s Note

    What else can we do for breast cancer? See related posts below.



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  • How to Boost Your Life Expectancy by 12 to 14 Years

    How to Boost Your Life Expectancy by 12 to 14 Years

    What can physicians do to promote healthy, life-extending lifestyle changes?

    A pivotal paper published in Europe more than a decade ago entitled “Healthy Living Is the Best Revenge” found that practicing just four simple, healthy lifestyle factors compared to none could potentially have a strong impact on preventing chronic diseases. We’re talking nearly 80% less chronic disease risk, slashing diabetes risk by 93%, dropping heart attack risk by 81%, and cutting stroke risk in half and cancer risk by 36%. Think about what that means. The potential for preventing disease and death is enormous. In the United States alone every year, there are a half million first heart attacks, a half million first strokes, a million new cases of diabetes, and a million new cancer diagnoses. The message is clear: Practicing a few healthy behaviors can have a huge impact.

    What are those four fabled factors?

    • never smoking
    • not being obese
    • averaging about a half hour of exercise a day
    • following healthful dietary principles, including a lot of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and less meat

    Follow those four simple rules and boom! Enjoy nearly 80% reduced risk of major chronic diseases.

    What does that mean for mortality risk? As I discuss in my video How to Increase Your Life Expectancy 12 to 14 Years, a similar combination of four healthy behaviors predicted “a 4-fold difference in total mortality in men and women, with an estimated impact equivalent to 14 y[ears] in chronological age,” meaning the individuals were dying at such a reduced rate that it was as if they were 14 years younger. “Finally, a Regimen to Extend Human Life Expectancy,” proclaimed a commentary in reference to a study that had made a similar analysis of the impact of healthy lifestyle behaviors on life expectancies. But this time, it looked directly at the U.S. population, which is particularly important, since Americans have a shorter life expectancy compared to people living in nearly all other higher-income countries. The researchers concluded that a healthy lifestyle could substantially reduce premature mortality and increase life expectancy in U.S. adults. Okay, but by how much? They estimated that adhering to a low-risk lifestyle could extend life expectancy at age 50 by 14 years in women and 12.2 years in men. So, if you’re 50 right now, instead of only living to 79 if you’re a woman and 75½ if you’re a man in the United States, taking even just basic care of yourself could propel you to an average life expectancy of 93 if you’re a woman and 87½ if you’re a man.

    The bottom line is it’s never too late to turn back the clock. A midlife switch just to the basics—at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables, walking 20 minutes a day, not smoking, and maintaining a healthy weight—leads to a substantial reduction in mortality even in the following few years. We’re talking a 40% lower risk of dying in the subsequent four years. Indeed, “making the necessary changes to adhere to a healthy lifestyle is extremely worthwhile, and…middle-age is not too late to act.”

    As an aside, when I realized the 12 to 14 years of added life expectancy were based on data from health professionals, I got excited about all the potential ripple effects. If health professionals start getting healthier, they can become role models for more healthful living and potentially save more lives than just their own. But that may have been wishful thinking. Practicing what you preach can sometimes backfire. Evidently, “displays of excellence can paradoxically turn off the very people they are trying to inspire.”

    It’s reasonable to assume that not being a hypocrite and trying to walk the walk would lead to positive consequences, inspiring confidence in others. Don’t you want a dance instructor who can dance, a music teacher who can play, and a health professional who’s healthy? But “this simple intuition fails to take into account the concerns about devaluation than an expert’s superior behavior elicits in others”—that is, that may make people feel inadequate. For example, you know how vegetarians often become targets of ridicule and hostility? That’s because they may come off as morally superior and make other people feel like they’re being looked down upon.

    There was an elegant demonstration of this phenomenon in a study where “principled deviants who take the high road threaten others’ moral self-worth.” Participants were asked to complete “a racist task,” and those “moral rebels” who refused to do so were cheered on by observers but disparaged by their fellow participants who had done the task. Why? Because the rebels’ stance was “an implied indictment of their spinelessness.” Isn’t that interesting?

    So, when doctors portray themselves as “the picture of health,” patients might think they’re being holier-than-thou, which can unintentionally alienate those who need the doctors’ help the most. It’s easy to imagine how someone with a weight issue might feel threatened and judged by a physician triathlete. But what are we supposed to do? We want healthy practitioners. Physicians who smoke are less likely to tell their patients to quit smoking, physicians who are overweight are less likely to advise about weight loss, and physicians who don’t work out are less likely to talk about exercise. What doctors can do to make patients more comfortable is emphasize that their role is to help people meet their own personal health goals, whatever they may be. Studies show that when doctors take this approach, it increases the appeal of “fitness-focused” physicians to overweight patients. So, doctors can then display model behavior without inadvertently alienating those who would most benefit from their counsel.

    Doctor’s Note

    For more on lifestyle medicine, see related posts below. 



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