Whether you are a regular whiz in the kitchen, or are scared to death of cooking your own meals now that the cafeteria’s closed for the summer, doesn’t matter. You have the power to cook (or eat raw) the foods that will make your body thrive.

That’s why we here at the Nutritional Institute are so devoted to spreading the word about the power of good nutrition — and why we’ve devoted this entire newsletter to just that.

What follows are the six most important factors to look for when choosing what foods to eat and which to avoid. We believe so strongly in these six nutritional pillars, that these are the standards upon which every STUDENT FORMULA™ product is based.

Keep these in mind next time you’re out grocery shopping, eating out or cooking dinner with friends, and you’ll be setting the stage for a healthy future.

1. High Protein

You need to eat protein with every meal. Why? Because protein is not stored in your body, so you need to replenish your supply regularly throughout the day. Protein helps your body to:

• Synthesizes enzymes and hormones
• Maintain fluid balance
• Boost your metabolism
• Keep your immune system functioning properly
• Build muscle
• Maintain a healthy weight

2. Good Fats

A balance of the different kinds of natural fats — monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and essential fatty acids — is essential to proper nutrition. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish, fish oils and STUDENT FORMULA’S Inside Out™, are extremely beneficial to health, for instance, as are the monounsaturated fats in olives and olive oil. Including healthy fats such as omega-3 in your diet may help prevent:

• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Inflammation
• Diabetes
• Digestive disorders
• Cancer
• Autoimmune diseases

One fat that has been linked to many health problems, and which you want to avoid, is trans fat. Trans fats are found in anything with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredients.

3. Low Sugar

Added sugars, whether they’re called corn syrup, fructose, cane sugar, brown sugar, or any other name, are “empty carbs.” These sugars, along with other highly refined products like white flour, offer zero nutritional value, but a lot of calories. Eat too much of these and the excess will be turned into body fat while wreaking havoc on your blood sugar levels. As much as possible, choose foods that are low in sugar.

4. High Fiber

Fiber offers huge benefits to your health, from helping to regulate the flow of fats and nutrients into your bloodstream and helping your digestive tract to function efficiently to aiding in the prevention of some kinds of cancer.

And, there’s good news. Bran muffins aren’t the only way to get more fiber into your diet: try fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains instead.

5. Sufficient Vitamins and Minerals

Sensible, healthy eating tends to promote the intake of necessary vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other nutrients that your body needs to perform its daily functions.

Since, in today’s world, we’re also bombarded with pollution, stress and environmental toxins coming from all angles, it’s especially important that you pay attention to eating healthy foods.

If you’re not eating healthy, your health is not up to par or you feel you’re not getting enough nutrients for whatever reason, don’t hesitate to add vitamins and other dietary supplements if you determine you need them. Just be sure that, if you choose a brand other than STUDENT FORMULA™, the brand meets with the six standards we’re discussing here, and which you’ll find in all of STUDENT FORMULA’S™ products.

6. No Trans Fats

We mentioned this one in standard #2, but it’s so important that we’re telling you again. Study after study has confirmed that trans fats have detrimental effects on human beings. There is NO safe level to consume, so check package labels diligently. Pass up anything with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils.

Fortunately, food makers are now required to list the amount of trans fats in their foods right on the nutrition facts label. So, always check how much tans fat any food you’re considering eating contains (it should be listed right under saturated and other fats on the label). If it’s more than 0, take a pass.

Products that commonly contain trans fats include fried foods, margarine and shortening, pastries, crackers and cookies.

Everyone knows we should drink water. This may seem obvious. But could you actually be chronically dehydrated? water through urination, rather than retaining it.. The one is plump, full, and juicy, containing all its natural water. The other is small, dry, and shriveled – its water gone. Although a grape in dehydrated condition is still a valuable and nutritious fruit, the human body when dehydrated does not function at its best and may be at risk for many ailments.many of its essential functions. Water is utilized as a solvent and also provides the means to transport nutrients, hormones and other vital supplies. It’s used to produce hydroelectric energy, especially in the brain. It’s essential for maintaining cell structure. Water is also necessary to enable proteins and enzymes to function more efficiently. Chronic dehydration can lead to a loss or decease in all these functions and may ultimately result in disease or can worsen an existing condition.lungs, liver, kidneys, and glands, and then come the muscles, bones, and skin. During periods of dehydration, histamine insures that these vital organs have enough water to function properly. If enough water is not supplied, it must be taken from within the body. Chronic dehydration can cause histamine to become excessively active. This may result in symptoms that may be mistaken for other disorders such as allergies, asthma, dyspepsia, colitis, constipation, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic pains in various parts of the body, such as migraine headaches. Here are some details of why increasing one’s water intake can help:angina – is a sign of water shortage in the heart-lung axis. It should be treated with increased water intake until the patient is free of pain and independent of medications. Medical supervision is prudent; however, increased water intake is angina’s cure.joint pain. The cartilage in your body, including your joints, is composed mainly of water. As cartilage surfaces glide over one another, some exposed cells become worn and peel away. New cartilage is normally produced to replace the damaged cells. But due to the lack of blood vessels in cartilage, water is needed to transport the nutrients required for maintenance and repair. Dehydration may increase the abrasive damage and delay its repair, resulting in joint pain.every year, is a complication of dehydration in the body. It is caused by the body’s drought management programs. A large amount of water is normally lost from the lungs as water vapor through expired air. Histamine, which also controls bronchial muscle contractions, may attempt to restrict water loss through expiration by constricting the bronchial muscles. Increased water intake will prevent asthma attacks. Asthmatics need also to take more salt to break the mucus plugs in the lungs that obstruct the free flow of air in and out of the air sacs.circulation. This can result in harder stools that are not only more difficult to pass, but may also irritate and weaken the walls of the colon, resulting in small pockets known as diverticuli. Since the water that the colon reabsorbs back into circulation is not filtered water, but wastewater that was originally due to be excreted, the liver and the kidneys must then filter it. This may place additional strain on these overworked organs.diabetes is brought on by severe dehydration of the human body. In order to have adequate water in circulation and to meet the brain’s priority water needs, the release of insulin is inhibited to prevent insulin from pushing water into all the body cells. In diabetes, only some cells get survival rations of water. Water and salt will reverse adult-onset diabetes in its early stages before it becomes an autoimmune disease with a destruction of insulin-producing cells. Not recognizing adult-onset diabetes as a complication of dehydration will, in time, cause massive damage to the blood vessels all over the body. It can cause eye damage and even blindness. It’s capable of causing loss of the toes, feet and legs from gangrene. And the diabetes industry is a multi-billion dollar industry of sickness treatment and prescription drugs. Why would that industry want to tell people that all they need to do is drink more water, avoid soft drinks and cut down on caffeine in order to greatly improve their health?hydration because it runs counter to their profitable paradigms of disease treatment. In other words, an executive working at a pharmaceutical company, making millions of dollars a year from pharmaceutical sales, is unlikely to accept, psychologically, the idea that diseases could be prevented or reversed by drinking something freely available to the public. The thought will not penetrate that person’s belief system.chronic dehydration. The amino acid tryptophan is required by the brain to produce the neurotransmitter serotonin, which in turn is needed to make melatonin. An adequate amount of water is required for tryptophan to be transported into the brain. Dehydration may limit the amount of tryptophan available to the brain – and to worsen things, high histamine levels (also triggered by dehydration) may actually stimulate tryptophan’s breakdown in the liver.Dyspepsia

Dyspeptic pain, which can range from simple heartburn to gastro-esophageal reflux disorder (GERD), may be one of the early signs of dehydration. During the early digestive process when food enters the stomach, hydrochloric acid (HCl) is secreted to activate the enzymes to breakdown the proteins found in meat and dairy. The acidic contents of the stomach, called chyme, are then pumped into the small intestine by passing through a valve, called the pyloric sphincter. This acidic chyme must be neutralized before it damages the intestinal lining. The pancreas is responsible for secreting the bicarbonate ions, which neutralize the acid. A large amount of water is required to produce this bicarbonate solution. If sufficient water is not available, the digestive process may be delayed and food may remain in the stomach longer than necessary. Over a period of time, the stomach acid may rise and if allowed to enter the esophagus, will produce the sensation known as heartburn. Ideally, water should be drunk half an hour before meals, during meals and again a couple of hours afterwards.High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a state of adaptation of the body to a generalized drought – when there’s just not enough water to fill all the blood vessels that diffuse water into vital cells. As part of the mechanism of reverse osmosis, when water from the blood serum is filtered and injected into important cells through minute holes in their membranes, extra pressure is needed for the “injection process.” Just as we inject intravenous “water” in hospitals, so the body injects water into tens of trillions of cells all at the same time. Water, with balanced, unrefined salt intake, will often bring high blood pressure back to normal. Not recognizing hypertension as one of the major indicators of dehydration in the human body, and treating it with diuretics that further dehydrate the body, will in time cause blockage by cholesterol of the heart arteries and the arteries that go to the brain. It will cause heart attacks and small or massive strokes that paralyze. It will eventually cause kidney disease. It will cause brain damage and may give rise to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.Migraine headache is a sign of water need by the brain and the eyes. It will totally clear up if dehydration is prevented from becoming established in the body. The type of dehydration that brings on migraines might eventually cause inflammation of the back of the eye and possibly loss of eyesight.weight loss that’s worth mentioning here: Many people who are attempting to lose weight end up in a state of chronic dehydration because they don’t want to drink water for fear that it will add “water weight” to their bodies. Consequently, they actually impair their body’s ability to metabolize fat because they’re afraid to drink enough water on a regular basis. In reality, being fully hydrated is a prerequisite to weight loss. If you want to lose weight, you have to give your body enough water so that it’s no longer in a state of emergency. When the body is in a state of chronic dehydration, it will not let go of fat supplies easily: It wants to hold on to everything it can eat or drink. The only way to convince your body to let go of and start metabolizing body fat is to drink a lot of water – enough water so that your body feels safe in letting go of unneeded calories. Remember: Water has zero calories, is low-carb and has zero grams of fat, so drink up!

Are You Chronically Dehydrated?

Many people are and never realize it. Contrary to popular belief, a dry mouth – or feeling thirsty – is by no means the first sign of dehydration. Our bodies require at least eight glasses of water per day – more during exercise, illness, and hot weather. People often think that even if they don’t actually drink water, they’re getting enough by drinking coffee, tea, soft drinks, juice, or beer. The truth is that many of these drinks have a diuretic effect, encouraging the body to excrete

Your Body, a Grape or a Raisin?

Think about a grape versus a raisin

Bodies are 70% Water

The body is composed of about 70 percent water, and water is required for

Most of the body’s water is found within the cells, and the next largest amount is in the fluid surrounding the cells. If water is not replaced frequently, this surrounding fluid may continue to accumulate waste material and other contaminants. The pumps in your cell membranes may not work as efficiently because allowing dirty water into the cell can cause cellular damage or cell death. You wouldn’t bathe in the same bath water without first cleaning the tub and adding fresh water. Why would you allow your cells to be surrounded by an accumulation of waste material?

Begin the Begun – Water!

Life on this planet began in water; even the developing fetus is surrounded by water. When the body is deprived of water, a water rationing system takes effect. Histamine, a neurotransmitter, becomes active and redistributes water throughout the body. The order of circulatory priority is the brain,

Angina

Heart pain –

Arthritis

Another possible complication of dehydration is

Asthma and Allergies

Asthma and allergies can be other indications that the body has increased its production of histamine. Asthma, which affects tens of millions of children in the Western world and kills several thousand of them

Not recognizing asthma as an indicator of dehydration in the body of a growing child not only will sentence many thousands of children to die every year, but also will permit irreversible genetic damage to establish in the remaining millions of asthmatic children.

Cholesterol

High cholesterol levels are an early indicator of drought management by the body. Cholesterol is a clay-like material that’s poured in the gaps of some cell membranes to safeguard them against losing their vital water content to the osmotically more powerful blood circulating in their vicinity. Cholesterol, apart from being used to manufacture nerve cell membranes and hormones, is also used as a “shield” against water depletion of other vital cells that would normally exchange water through their cell membranes.

Colitis

Colitis pain is a sign of water shortage in the large intestine. It’s associated with constipation because the large intestine constricts to try to squeeze the last drop of water from the excrements – thus the lack of water lubrication.

Not recognizing colitis pain as a sign of dehydration will cause persistent constipation. Later in life, it will cause fecal impacting. It also can cause diverticulitis, hemorrhoids, and polyps and appreciably increases the possibility of developing cancer of the colon and rectum.

Constipation

Dehydration causes constipation. When water is in short supply in the body, the colon will act to restrict unnecessary water loss through the stools. Colon muscles will contract to squeeze out and subsequently reabsorb water back into

Diabetes

Diabetes is also another disease that’s strongly influenced by water consumption. Adult-onset

The answer is that there’s no motivation whatsoever for any medical industry or group or drug company to educate people with the truth about water and human health. They’re not only unwilling to tell the truth, they’re also intellectually unwilling to accept the truth about the importance of adequate

Depression

Depression can be another symptom of

Migraines

Weight Gain and Loss

There’s another fascinating point about chronic dehydration and

It’s also interesting to note that many people who go on short term diets and who think they’re losing five or 10 pounds over a couple of days are really only losing water weight. They haven’t lost any body fat at all but they’ve managed to put themselves in a state of chronic dehydration that will inevitably lead to weight gain once they return to normal habits of eating and drinking.

In a comprehensive review of obesity research published in the August edition of the journal Nature Clinical Practice Endocrinology & Metabolism, Robert Lustig, MD, professor of clinical pediatrics at UCSF Children’s Hospital, says that food manufacturing practices have created a “toxic environment ” that dooms children to being overweight.

“It will take acknowledgement of the concepts of biological susceptibility and societal accountability and de-emphasis of the concept of personal responsibility to make a difference in the lives of children,” Lustig says.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the number of children who are overweight in the United States has doubled during the past three decades. Currently one child in five is overweight. The increase is true for children and adolescents of all age groups and races and for boys and girls.

Diseases that once were only seen in adults, like type 2 diabetes, now are occurring in increasing numbers in children, according to Lustig. Overweight children tend to become overweight adults, which also puts them at greater risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Children who are obese also are socially ostracized and teased, putting them at risk for depression and other psychiatric conditions, he adds.

“Our current Western food environment has become highly ‘insulinogenic,’” Lustig says, “as demonstrated by its increased energy density, high-fat content, high glycemic index, increased fructose composition, decreased fiber, and decreased dairy content.”

“In particular, fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin,” he adds.

Lustig says that it has long been known that the hormone insulin acts on the brain to encourage eating through two separate mechanisms. First, it blocks the signals that travel from the body’s fat stores to the brain by suppressing the effectiveness of the hormone leptin, resulting in increased food intake and decreased activity. Second, insulin promotes the signal that seeks the reward of eating carried by the chemical dopamine, which makes a person want to eat to get the pleasurable dopamine “rush.”

Calorie intake and expenditure normally are regulated by leptin, Lustig says. When leptin is functioning properly it “increases physical activity, decreases appetite, and increases feelings of well-being.” Conversely, when leptin is suppressed, feelings of well-being and activity decrease and appetite increases — a state called “leptin resistance.”

Changes in food processing during the past 30 years, particularly the addition of sugar to a wide variety of foods that once never included sugar and the removal of fiber, both of which promote insulin production, have created an environment in which our foods are essentially addictive, he adds.

Lustig also notes that children cannot be blamed or expected to take personal responsibility for their dietary behavior in an environment when the foods they are offered — especially cheaply prepared “fast foods” that are full of sugar and devoid of fiber — are toxic.

“The concept of personal responsibility is not tenable in children. No child chooses to be obese,” he says. “Furthermore, young children are not responsible for food choices at home or at school, and it can hardly be said that preschool children, in whom obesity is rampant, are in a position to accept personal responsibility.”

“If we don’t fix this, our children will continue to lose,” he emphasizes.

One of the nation’s top children’s hospitals, UCSF Children’s Hospital creates a healing environment where children and their families find compassionate care at the edge of scientific discovery, with more than 150 experts in 50 medical specialties serving patients throughout Northern California and beyond.

UCSF is a leading university that consistently defines health care worldwide by conducting advanced biomedical research, educating graduate students in the life sciences, and providing complex patient care.

PRESERVATIVES added to cured meats, bacon and ground beef have been linked to dementia diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Scientists say sodium nitrite, which is added to meat and fish to destroy toxins, reacts with proteins in the meat, damaging human DNA cells similar to aging.

US researchers, whose work was edited by the director of the WA Centre of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease Prof Ralph Martins and published today in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, say the problem is compounded by an increase in human exposure to nitrogen-containing fertilisers from soil run-off and water contamination.

More than 20,000 people in WA suffer from dementia – this number increases 10-fold nationally.
Prof Martins says Alzheimer’s is reaching epidemic proportions in this country.

“Until this point there has been a lot of focus on defective genes but now it is becoming clear that really represents a small proportion of the total community who are at risk of getting Alzheimer’s,” he said.

“This study is important because it points to the environmental factors that can play a role in Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.

Study author and professor of pathology and lab medicine at Rhode Island Hospital in the US, Suzanne de la Monte, found that a massive rise in fertiliser and processed food sales coincided with an increased prevalence of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s’ and type 2 diabetes in the US.

“We have become a ‘nitrosamine generation,” she said.

“The relatively short time interval for such dramatic increases in death rates associated with these diseases (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and type 2 diabetes) is more consistent with exposure-related causes rather than genetic changes.”

Fertiliser in WA contains nitrogen.

But the Department of Agriculture was unable to provide information on whether consumption has increased here.

WA researchers are studying the link between Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes, Prof Martins said.

Nitrites and nitrates are found in many food products including fried bacon, cured meats, cheese products and beer.

“In essence, we have moved to a diet that is rich in amines and nitrates, which lead to increased nitrosamine production. Nitrites and nitrates belong to a class of chemical compounds that have been found to be harmful to humans and animals,” Ms De la Monte says.

Prof Martins says this environmental link needs to be studied further in Australia.

At the moment high-fat diet and low-exercise lifestyles are key factors thought to play a role in the onset of dementia, he says.

Heavy metals such as copper and zinc are also being blamed.

“Fish in the diet and omega 3 fatty acids in particular are protective of the brain but in terms of environmental toxins very little work has been done,” Prof Martins said.

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail Monday, Jul. 06, 2009

Most people don’t worry about what’s in food packaging, but the cans, boxes and bottles used as containers for everything from pop to microwave popcorn are an underappreciated route of exposure to synthetic compounds able to disrupt normal hormone functions, according to a new study.

The number of chemicals capable of interfering with hormones and permitted in packaging in the United States and the European Union is at least 50, the study said. The best known are bisphenol A (BPA), which mimics estrogen and is used to make polycarbonate, and phthalates, which are added to plastic to make it more flexible and is able to block the production of testosterone. Because food regulators around the world generally follow each other’s leads, the list of chemicals would be largely similar in Canada.

Some researchers are worried that these chemicals are able to leach out of packaging, with possible health effects, much in the same way that the ancient Romans were inadvertently exposed to lead through their use of the dangerous heavy metal in water pipes.

“Food packaging is a large but underestimated source of chemical food contamination,” contends Jane Muncke, a Swiss environmental toxicologist who conducted the study.

The view that residues are dangerous is disputed by companies making packaging and by regulators, who say exposures are far too low to be of any consequence.

But the study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Science of the Total Environment, is one of the first to try to survey the extent of the trace chemical residues migrating out of packaging into the foods and drinks by reviewing more than 140 scientific reports on the subject.

In many of these reports, researchers detected contaminants leaking from packaging. These include: perfluorinated compounds, used to line containers to make them grease and water resistant but are under investigation as cancer-causing agents; triclosan, an anti-bacterial compound that has leached into flour and rice from containers, and the biocide ortho-phenylphenol, which has been detected in beer.

Although packaging chemicals amount to inadvertent additives to food, there is no requirement that consumers be told about them on ingredient labels.

Health Canada, in response to questions from The Globe and Mail, said that because these compounds aren’t deliberately placed in food, they don’t come under disclosure rules.

“Health Canada does not require the labelling of trace additives used in food packaging materials because these chemicals are not intentionally added to foods and do not fall under the definition of food additives, which require mandatory labelling,” the agency said.

Although there is a vast variety of packaging materials, ranging from cardboard to metal cans to glass, the study says plastic most often comes into contact with the food or beverage, even if the containers aren’t at first glance made of the petroleum product.

Most tin cans, for instance, have a liner made of an epoxy resin that contains BPA. Glass containers typically have lids with plastic inside them, and plastic is a liner of the Tetra Paks used for many juices.

Plastics are complex mixtures that can contain numerous additives, catalysts and other materials, increasing the odds that they contain something that is biologically active. “Even manufacturers of plastics do not know the full extent of chemicals that are present in their products,” Dr. Muncke said. “Virtually all food contact materials are plastic, or coated/lined with plastic-type materials.”

The hormonally active compounds cited in the paper that are permitted in packaging are not household names and include many compounds known mainly to chemists, such as benzophenone (an ultraviolet light blocker in plastic packaging), nonylphenol ethoxylate (a wetting agent ), and methylparaben, (an anti-fungal agent).

The concern over hormonally active compounds leaching into foods from packaging is relatively new. Up until now, food safety regulators have focused almost all of their attention on traditional food contaminants, such as lead, mercury, dangerous microbes and pesticides. But that may be changing.

Last year, Health Canada proposed banning BPA from plastic baby bottles and has asked infant formula makers to minimize the amount of the chemical leaching from their tin cans, the first time that a regulator has taken aim at a hormonally active compound widely used in food packaging.

But Health Canada says BPA exposures from packaging are too low to be a concern for older children or adults. In the United States, there is a congressional request to the Food and Drug Administration to review research on the safety of BPA in food contact uses.

The packaging industry says the traces of packaging materials that get into food are nothing to worry about and many currently used products enhance safety. The North American Metal Packaging Alliance, a Washington-based trade group for can makers, said last month that “there is no readily available” alternative to BPA, which allows high temperature sterilization of canned food, preventing microbial contamination.

Dr. Muncke works for a company that makes equipment for packaging, Emhart Glass SA. The study carried a statement saying the company doesn’t restrict her freedom to conduct or publish research.

The study said illnesses associated with hormones that have been increasing in frequency include breast and prostate cancers, obesity, insulin resistance and autoimmune diseases. It said the possibility that the incidence of these diseases is linked to chemical contaminants in foods needs to be studied.

For a country in which roughly 200 million people are overweight or obese, scientists today have discouraging news: Even those who maintain a healthy weight probably should be eating less.

Evidence has been mounting for years that the practice of caloric restriction — essentially, going on a permanent diet — greatly reduces the risk of age-related diseases and even postpones death. It has been shown to significantly extend the lives of yeast, worms, flies, spiders, fish, mice and rats.

Now, in a much-anticipated study funded by the National Institutes of Health, many of the same benefits have been demonstrated in primates, the best evidence yet that caloric restriction would help people.

The findings, published in the journal Science, tracked rhesus monkeys that were on a reduced-calorie regimen for as long as 20 years. The animals’ risk of dying from cancer, heart disease and diabetes fell by more than two-thirds.

The study comes as some validation to the cadre of several hundred true-believing Americans who profess to practice caloric restriction in their daily lives. It was also welcomed by scientists who study the biological mechanisms of aging and longevity.

“It adds to the evidence piling up that caloric restriction, independent of thinness, is a healthy way to stay alive and healthy longer,” said Susan Roberts of the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Less diseases in old age has to be something most everyone wants.”

Is caloric restriction the solution?

“Mild caloric restriction is beneficial to everybody,” said Dr. Luigi Fontana, a medical professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

In his examinations of people who have been practicing caloric restriction for an average of 6 1/2 years, Fontana found their heart function was equivalent to those of people 16 years younger.

Though the regimen sounds grueling, it is hardly a starvation diet, experts said.

It typically begins with an in-depth assessment to determine how many calories an individual needs to consume to maintain a healthy weight. Then that number is shaved by 10% to 30%.

People on caloric restriction can eat three meals a day. A typical menu includes cereal with fruit and nuts for breakfast, a big salad for lunch, and dinner featuring lean meat and reasonable portion sizes. There’s also room for a couple of snacks and even a small dessert from time to time.

Caloric restriction has consistently produced health benefits for animals.

In the new study, scientists tracked 76 adult rhesus monkeys from the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center starting in 1989. Half the animals were fed a typical diet of lab chow, and the rest got a version with a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals to make up for the 30% reduction in chow quantity.

Over the course of the study, the monkeys that ate the regular diet were three times more likely to die of an age-related disease than their counterparts on caloric restriction. Fourteen deaths in the control group were attributable to age-related diseases, compared with five such deaths among the animals that ate 30% fewer calories, according to the study.

The rates of cardiovascular disease and pre-cancerous cell growths were twice as high in the control group compared with the reduced-calorie group.

The researchers also noted that although five of the control monkeys became diabetic and 11 were classified as pre-diabetic, all the calorie-restricted animals remained diabetes-free.

Brain scans revealed significantly less atrophy of gray matter in the monkeys that ate less.

They even looked less wrinkled and flabby.

In all, the monkeys on caloric restriction “appear to be biologically younger than the normally fed animals,” the researchers wrote in their report.

Scientists aren’t sure why eating less slows the aging process, but theories abound.

There’s evidence from mice that caloric restriction induces the body to activate fewer genes related to inflammation, which many scientists suspect plays a key role in aging.

Another theory holds that starved organisms hunker down in maintenance mode, shutting down activities such as reproduction that put wear and tear on the body.

Or perhaps caloric restriction reduces body temperature, thus limiting production of dangerous free radicals that gradually break down the body by damaging tissues and DNA.

“It’s all speculation,” said Dr. Sergei Romashkan of the National Institute on Aging, who is overseeing a clinical trial on caloric restriction in people.

Authors of the monkey study won’t be able to calculate how much caloric restriction extended the animals’ average life span — or whether it boosted their maximum life span — until all the animals have died.

That could take 10 to 15 years, said senior author Richard Weindruch, a medical professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Also left unanswered are questions about the psychological state of monkeys who spend most of their adult lives on a forced diet, Roberts said.

Are they happy? Are they hungry? Can they think as fast?

When UCLA evolutionary biologist Jay Phelan put mice on caloric restriction, he got the distinct impression that they didn’t appreciate it.

“They bit people and were more agitated,” he said. In contrast, the mice who ate a normal diet “would just sit around and let you pick them up.”

It also isn’t clear whether caloric restriction would extend human lives by very much, Phelan said. He has combined results from animal studies with data on men on the Japanese island of Okinawa who ate 17% fewer calories than men in Tokyo. He calculated that reducing intake by 35% would extend the human life span by just two years.

“The trade-off just isn’t worth it,” said Phelan, who said he personally would have a hard time giving up doughnuts.

Weindruch said he was under no illusion that the monkey findings would prompt many people to adopt caloric restriction. He has started a company to create drugs that would provide the same health benefits without the need for extreme dieting.

Physiologists agreed that instead of promoting caloric restriction, a more pressing goal is to help the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or obese shed their extra pounds.

“That would be tremendous for the health of the nation,” said David Baer, a research physiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Md.

Women in menopause are more prone to the BPA-associated health effects of inflammation and oxidative stress than either men or women who are still menstruating, finds this study of Korean adults. This is the first time BPA has been linked to these conditions in people and suggests older women may be more susceptible to the chemical’s estrogen-like manner that drives these particular types of cell damage. Oxidative stress can be involved with aging, cancer and other disease states.

What did they do?

The authors evaluated inflammation and oxidative stress markers in the blood of adult Koreans and then compared them to BPA measured in their urine. They examined the measurements in three groups: men, premenopausal women and postmenopausal women.

The urine and blood samples were collected from the participants at the same time. Two markers of oxidative stress – malondialdehyde and 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine – and two markers of inflammation – white blood cells and C-reactive protein – were measured.

Questionnaires were administered to gather medical, lifestyle, exposure and demographic information.

Scientists know that inflammation and oxidative stress increase with age. The authors statistically controlled for age so they could see BPA effects independent of age. They also controlled for body mass and possible factors identified elsewhere that could influence oxidative stress.

The study included 259 men, 92 premenopausal women and 134 post-menopausal women.

What did they find?

BPA was found in the urine of 76 percent of the Korean adults in this study. Concentrations were similar among groups for all levels except those with the highest measured amounts, where men had three times the levels of premenopausal women (26.5 versus 7.72 micrograms/gram) and about 50% more than postmenopausal women (17.90 microg/g).

Urine levels of bisphenol A were higher in older adults.

Associations between BPA levels and both oxidative stress and inflammation only occurred in postmenopausal women. Oxidative stress levels were higher in older women who also had higher levels of BPA. Further, levels of the inflammation-marker C- reactive protein was increased in the women with higher levels of BPA.

Bisphenol A exposure in men and premenopausal women did not correlate to any of the markers of inflammation or oxidative stress.

What does it mean?

The effects of BPA varied between men and women and also by age – and thus by menopausal stutus and estrogen levels during this time. The chemical “was clearly associated with oxidative stress and inflammatory markers in postmenopausal women, but not in premenopausal women and adult men.”

This is the first study that attempts to determine if BPA contributes to inflammation and oxidative stress in people.

BPA’s effects may be stronger in postmenopausal women because of a paucity of estrogen, with levels far below those of menstruating women and lower than men’s levels. Lower levels of the natural hormones may allow BPA to affect estrogen signaling channels that would then trigger the cell responses associated with oxidative stress, leading to inflammation.

The increased oxidative stress and inflammation seen in the older, Korean women with higher levels of BPA suggests that BPA might increase both conditions. However, because BPA, inflammation and oxidative stress were measured at the same time, it is not certain that BPA caused the observed increases.

One marker of oxidative stress, 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine, represents oxidation of DNA. This type of DNA damage has been linked to cancer in other studies and could help explain why animals are more prone to breast- and prostate- cancers when exposed to BPA.

The adults in this study were less exposed to BPA than prior reports of adults in the US and Japan. The levels of BPA found in the Koreans studied here are lower than levels seen in US adults and Japanese women. Also, fewer Koreans had measurable BPA in their urine than those persons studied in the United States and Japan.

If bisphenol A is responsible for the higher levels of inflammation and oxidative stress seen in the Koreans, it is possible that adults in the United States and Japan are at greater risk of these two conditions due to their higher exposures.

The authors did not take into account whether or not the study participants took anti-inflammatory medicine or ate foods rich in antioxidants. Aspirin, acetaminophen and other mild pain relievers relieve pain by changing – decreasing – inflammation. Many older adults use these medicines frequently, and this use could alter the inflammation results of the study. Likewise, antioxidants – which are believed to counteract oxidative stress – are in a wide variety of foods, yet it was not reported if the study participants ate the foods.

July 14, 2009

Annual water quality reports mailed to Chicagoans this month didn’t say a word about sex hormones, painkillers or anti-cholesterol drugs, even though city officials found traces of pharmaceuticals and other unregulated substances in treated Lake Michigan water during the past year.Mayor Richard Daley is technically correct in stating that the “pure, fresh drinking water” pumped to 7 million people in Chicago and the suburbs “meets or exceeds all regulatory standards.”the U.S. Geological Survey. “And we don’t have a clue about what these mixtures can do.”EPA says it still doesn’t have enough evidence to limit pharmaceuticals and many other unregulated chemicals in drinking water — in part because cities haven’t been required to test routinely for the compounds.

Like other cities, Chicago must notify the public if its drinking water contains certain regulated contaminants, including lead, pesticides and harmful bacteria.

But pharmaceutical chemicals, which have been detected in drinking water across the country, are not on that list. So

Drinking water standards haven’t been updated for years, in part because little is known about how pharmaceutical concoctions might affect public health. But researchers and regulators are concerned about the potential effects of long-term exposure to these substances, which are designed to have an impact at low doses.

“We’re just scratching the surface with what’s been detected to date,” said Dana Kolpin, a researcher at

Chicago officials didn’t start conducting their own tests until last year, after a Tribune investigation found small amounts of pharmaceuticals and other unregulated chemicals in samples of the city’s tap water.

The city collected samples of treated Lake Michigan water four times in 2008. According to results posted on the city’s Web site, the tests found small amounts of the sex hormones testosterone and progesterone; gemfibrozil, a prescription cholesterol-fighting drug; ibuprofen, an over-the-counter painkiller, and DEET, the active ingredient in bug spray.

The tests also found caffeine, nicotine and cotinine, a nicotine byproduct, all of which researchers consider to be indicators of pharmaceuticals from human waste.

Drugs end up in drinking water after people take medications and some of the residue passes through their bodies down the toilet. Conventional sewage and water treatment filters out some of the substances, or at least reduces the concentrations, but multiple studies have found that small amounts still get through.

Although treated sewage from the Chicago area drains away from Lake Michigan, more than 300 other cities put treated waste and untreated sewage overflows into the lake and its tributaries, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Chicago’s tests found tiny amounts of the antidepressant Prozac and sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic, in untreated water collected from Lake Michigan intake cribs. But those prescription drugs weren’t found in treated water. Nor were most of the 71 other unregulated compounds the city screened for.

The Daley administration first promised to test for pharmaceuticals monthly, then changed course after the first tests turned up inconsistent results. Now officials plan to collect samples three times a year and send the water off to be tested by three different labs.

“We haven’t seen any patterns yet, so it’s tough to reach any conclusions,” said John Spatz, the city’s water commissioner. “But since it’s an emerging issue, we’re going to keep following it.”

As promised, the test results are available online. Yet it requires considerable sleuthing to find them on the Department of Water Management’s home page, and the drugs found in the water are not easily discernible amid six pages of numbers.

In the Tribune’s tests, conducted in March 2008, water drawn from a drinking fountain at City Hall contained trace amounts of cotinine; carbamazepine, an anti-seizure drug; and acetaminophen, an over-the-counter painkiller. The newspaper’s tests also found two unregulated industrial chemicals used to make Teflon and Scotchgard, neither of which the city tested for.

Even though such substances are turning up virtually every time researchers look for them, the

The Obama administration’s top water regulator, Peter Silva, promised at his confirmation hearings to step up the government’s research efforts. Without direction from federal officials, cities across the nation have slowly begun to test their water for pharmaceuticals, prompted by studies in Europe and later by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Milwaukee, which also draws its drinking water from Lake Michigan, added dozens of pharmaceuticals three years ago to its annual testing for unregulated contaminants and posts easy-to-understand results online. Nothing turned up last year, according to the city’s site.

Water officials say not enough is known to justify spending millions of taxpayer dollars to upgrade treatment plants so they could strip the chemicals from the water. The most effective method, reverse osmosis, is expensive and creates a large amount of waste.

Levels of enzymatic activity of your food. Foods that are cooked at temperatures above 118 degrees F will start to lose enzymes. I recommend that my clients eat at least 50 percent of their foods raw, and as high as 90 percent, and for short periods of time, such as one day a week or one week every two months, eat 100 percent raw, especially while doing a detoxification program. When eating cooked foods I highly recommend taking a plant-based enzyme supplement that is individualized for your enzyme deficiencies. See the questionnaire later in this newsletter for more on this.

Enzymes are energized protein molecules necessary for life. They catalyze and regulate all biochemical reactions that occur within every cell in the human body. Our bodies naturally produce both digestive and metabolic enzymes as they are needed. Surplus enzymes can be stored by some organs for later use or used as fuel for the brain. We can add to this reserve of enzymes and spare our own metabolic and digestive enzymes from becoming depleted by adding into our body through diet and supplementation additional food enzymes.

The three categories of enzymes are:

• Metabolic enzymes, which are produced by all living cells and either speed up or slow down all chemical reactions within cells for detoxification and energy production. Metabolic enzymes enable us to see, hear, feel, move and think.
• Life literally cannot exist without enzymes.
• Digestive Enzymes are secreted along the digestive tract to break down foods into nutrients and waste. Digestive enzymes are produced primarily by the pancreas, but also by the liver, gallbladder, small intestine, stomach and colon. Human digestive enzymes include: ptyalin, pepsin, trypsin, lipase, protease, and amylase.
• Food Enzymes are introduced into the body through the raw and fermented foods that we eat and the consumption of enzyme supplements. Raw foods naturally contain the enzymes necessary to digest that particular food. For example a raw avocado has enough of the fat digesting enzyme called lipase to digest the fat in the avocado, but no additional enzymes that your body can place into reserve or use for processes other than digestion. This is true for all raw foods other than pineapple, papaya and unheated raw honey which all have more enzymes in them than are needed to break down those particular foods.

Since most of the foods people eat are either cooked and/or processed in some way and raw foods (other than the three exceptions listed above) contain only enough enzymes to digest the food itself our bodies must produce the majority of digestive enzymes we require unless we supplement with enzymes to digest our foods and build our metabolic enzyme reserves.

For more information, please visit James Jordan’s Web site, www.createvibranthealth.com.

Most people have compromised digestive tracts and assimilate much less of the nutrients in their foods than they realize. My experience in viewing live blood for the past eight years has also confirmed that most people are in a perpetual state of auto- Intoxication due to bowel toxicity, intestinal permeability (”leaky gut”) and overall poor digestion and elimination.

The number one factor contributing to poor digestion and elimination, leaky gut and nutrient deficiencies is an insufficient quantity of beneficial bacteria (Probiotics) in both the small and large intestine.

What Causes Probiotic Deficiencies?

Poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle, environmental toxins and medications contribute to depletion of beneficial bacteria in the intestines, the following being the most important factors:

• Chlorinated Water
• Colonics – which wash out some of the beneficial bacteria
• Chemical additives, pesticides and antibiotic residues found in the environment and food
• Child birth factors including: caesarean section and/or delivery in a sterile hospital, use of disinfectant at birth, formula fed infants
• Drug use including: alcohol, antibiotics, steroids, birth control, cortisone
• Eating disorders
• Antibiotic herbs such as goldenseal or large amounts of garlic
• Spermicides
• Pollution: air, water and food
• Radiation
• Stress
• Excess consumption of refined sugar and carbohydrates
• Heavy metal toxicity

As you can see from the above list most of us will have to actively enhance our probiotic levels just to cope with daily life. Health problems related to probiotic deficiencies fall into five categories:

1. Stomach/intestinal tract, which include: bloating/gas, digestive upset, elimination problems, malabsorption (weight loss).

2. Fungal Overgrowth of the Reproductive System including: vaginitis, yeast overgrowth and jock itch.

3. Mouth/throat including: gingivitis, thrush and cold sores.

4. Infant health problems including: weight gain and growth difficulties, yeast overgrowth, chronic digestive and immune system problems.

5. Other chronic health problems including: weakened immune system, liver problems, premature aging, hyperactivity and mood swings.

The steps you can take to replenish healthy levels of beneficial bacteria

Remember that all our actions have a cumulative effect so keep in mind the following and you will be well served:

• Avoid drinking chlorinated water – which destroys beneficial bacteria.
• Women who want to avoid pregnancy should find other options to birth control pills, which severely deplete levels of healthy bacteria.
• Don’t use antibiotics unless there is no alternative.
• Reduce or avoid refined sugar and other refined carbohydrates which feed bad bacteria, fungus and parasites which then compete with good bacteria for the valuable real estate of your intestinal lining.
• Eat plenty of cultured foods like: live cultured yogurt, kefir and cultured vegetables.

Why take a probiotic supplement and what qualities should you look for in a probiotic supplement?

The major reasons to take a probiotic supplement are:

1. The overwhelming need to increase probiotics in our intestines due to the depletion from the causes listed earlier: diet, toxicity, medications, stress.

2. Cultured foods often have low levels of beneficial bacteria due to the fact that most are not grown with the purpose of enhancing digestion and health, rather more with the purpose of enhancing taste and shelf life. One capsule of Trenev Trio from Natren has the equivalent levels of healthy bacteria as 60-80 servings of yogurt.

3. More importantly than potency is the strain of bacteria. There are over 300 strains of Acidophilus yet only 3 or 4 have been scientifically tested to have therapeutic value. With cultured foods you don’t know which strain you are getting. Many have no therapeutic value at all.

4. Therapeutic value of Probiotic strains found in humans include:

a. Acidophilus: Resident bacteria most specific for the small intestines benefits include:

I. Aids in digestion of nutrientsii. Certain super strains like DDS-1 and NAS help destroy invading bacteria and yeast by producing natural antibiotic substances.

iii. Both strains produce H2O2 (Hydrogen peroxide), which inhibits yeast overgrowth.

b. Bifidobacteria: Resident bacteria most specific for the large intestine, benefits include:

I. Helps prevent colonization of invading bacteria, yeasts and fungi by competing for nutrients and attachment sites, as well as production of lactic and acetic acids.ii. Studies from Germany show that certain strains of bifidobacteria are the most effective in reducing stress on the liver.

c. Bulgaricus: Transient microorganism found in traditional Bulgarian yogurt, benefits include:

I. Helps to decompose fecal matter and prevent putrefaction and hold down certain pathogen levels in the large intestine.ii. Has a powerful effect on stimulating the body’s immune system.

iii. LB-51 strain has the most scientific research indicating support for human health.

Over the years I have investigated many probiotic supplements and have found that the following criteria are the most important in selecting a product that will deliver excellent results for your intestinal health:

1. Strain of Bacteria: make sure to select a product that uses only proven super strains of bacteria such as DDS-1, NAS, Malyoth, LB-51 and infant bacteria strain NLS. These strains have been clinically proven to protect the intestines. Weaker strains have substantially less benefits to your health.

2. Culturing Medium: stomach acids can destroy beneficial bacteria if they are not protected by a viable culturing medium. Dairy-based products are often better protected and survive stomach acids longer. Also certain oil-matrixed multi-organism products are equally protected from stomach acids.

3. Potency guarantee at consumption: most products have potency guaranteed at the time of manufacture. Unless the product guarantees potency through the products expiration date you will likely be short-changed in your beneficial bacteria levels.

4. CFU: colony-forming units are the actual levels of bacteria in a product. Many products use centrifuges to make their products which damage and destroy many Of the bacteria. Find a brand that does not use centrifuge and has guaranteed CFUs (at the time of consumption) in the Billions.

5. Exposure to light and Moisture: these exposures rapidly destroy potency. Find products sold in dark glass bottles.

Around 1990 I had the good fortune to come across a nutritionist and health coach named Gary Carlson who helped me improve my health. A part of his program included taking large amounts of probiotics to replenish the beneficial flora in my intestinal tract. He insisted on Natren probiotics for his clients. I used the Natren products for a couple of years and my health improved substantially. Natren products are the only probiotic supplement that I am aware of that meets all of the above criteria.

After my health improved and I moved out of the Chicago area whenever I felt a need for intestinal support I would use either Natren probiotics or a soil-based bacteria product. Since I started my own private practice I have been recommending Natren probiotics to my clients and have found excellent results with all varieties of digestion and elimination problems.

There are a variety of probiotic products that have different function in the body. The Natren product that is best to start with is Trenev Trio which has all three strains: Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus bulgaricus in one oil- Matrixed capsule. Other probiotic products can be added or used in place of Trenev Trio depending on particular health conditions.