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Corn, Soy, Wheat and Nuts: Are Food Allergies Our Future?

Last week, after many blood tests and skin tests, I learned that I am allergic to not one or two, but many things, including soy, wheat, corn, white potatoes, peanuts, pecans, pistachios, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds (not to mention the non-food items). To say this list is daunting is an understatement. But having suffered a beaten down immune system and increasing bouts with asthma, bronchial and sinus infections, I was relieved that I could possibly change the status quo of my health. What is most perplexing is, why now? Why, at the age of 44, has my asthma, which came on as an adult and has always been primarily sports induced, suddenly worsened to the point that I lived off my inhaler for the first 3 months of this year? And why, now, are these food allergies suddenly taking a toll on my health?

The rise of food allergies

My guess is that the food system we have created is causing the rise in food allergies in myself and others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that food allergy affects 5 percent of children under the age of 5 and 4 percent of adults in the US. And yet a 2011 study in Pediatrics cited that 8% of children have allergies. While these may seem like small percentages, the number of children with food allergies increased 18% from 1997 to 2007. For peanut and tree nut allergies alone (the top cause for fatal food anaphylaxis), the number of these allergies in children tripled between 1997 and 2008. And in 2008, the CDC reported a 265% increase in the number of hospitalizations related to food allergies.

The CDC lists over 160 foods that can cause allergic reactions, but they have targeted 8 from this list (a.k.a. the Big 8) as causing 90 percent of these reactions: wheat, soybeans, fish, shellfish, eggs, cow's milk, peanuts and tree nuts. It should be noted that while a wheat allergy is not celiac's disease (which is an autoimmune disease, not an allergy), the two are similar in that you end up eating gluten free. The gluten-free foods and beverages market alone marked a compound annual growth rate of 30% during the period of 2006-2010, with $2.6 billion in sales, and it continues to grow.

The culprit(s)?

A food allergy, as outlined by the Allergy Kids Foundation, occurs when your body sees food proteins as foreign and launches an inflammatory response to drive out those foreign invaders. What's in our food that is causing such reactions? The answer is exactly what my body is rejecting: corn, soy, wheat and peanuts. The abundance of these foods, particularly the first three, in our food system is mindboggling. If a food doesn't have wheat in it, it has soy in it (or nuts and seeds); if not soy, then corn. In essence, these are the building blocks of processed foods, and together they create a web that builds on itself. The list of corn allergens alone is a force to be reckoned with. Think you're avoiding corn? Look closer. It's in vitamins, it's in chocolate, ice cream, it's in organic snacks. Malic acid, maltodextrin, vanilla, sucrose, glucosamin—all contain corn.

The future

My hunch is that in the near and long-term future, unless we make some serious changes to our food system, we are going to see food allergies continue to increase, if not skyrocket. Corn, soy and wheat are what allow food companies to keep food prices low. Although corn is still under the radar, I suspect it will be the next big allergen trend to hit, leaving food manufacturers and retailers to come up with solutions. The numbers are starting to indicate that maybe our mono crop focus is too much.

In my case, I'm lucky to work in a place where what we write about, read about and pursue in our daily lives is healthy living. It's not such a leap for me to remove these foods from my diet. What I really lose is convenience. I have to be more prepared, because in a pinch, I can't just eat anything. But what I can still eat are vegetables, fruits, rice, quinoa, oatmeal, yogurt, cheese, eggs, fish, meat and poultry. Organic, of course, and probably even GMO-free, given that I've cut out corn and soy. See a pattern? There may be something to this "eating healthy" and whole foods after all! - read original article

Reprinted - original article by Nancy Coulter- Parker New Hope 360 Blog

Really? The Claim: Drinking Water Can Help Lower Risk of Diabetes

THE FACTS
There are many reasons to stay properly hydrated, but only recently have scientists begun to consider diabetes prevention one of them. The amount of water you drink can play a role in how your body regulates blood sugar, researchers have found.
The reason: a hormone called vasopressin, which helps to regulate water retention..

When the body is dehydrated, vasopressin levels rise, prompting the kidneys to hold onto water. At the same time, the hormone pushes the liver to produce blood sugar, which over time may strain the ability to produce or respond to insulin.

One of the largest studies to look at the consequences was published last year in Diabetes Care, a publication of the American Diabetes Association. French scientists tracked more than 3,000 healthy men and women ages 30 to 65 for nearly a decade. All had normal blood sugar levels at the start of the research.

After nine years, about 800 had developed Type 2 diabetes or high blood sugar. But those who consumed the most water, 17 to 34 ounces a day, had a risk roughly 30 percent lower than that of those who drank the least. The researchers controlled for the subjects’ intake of other liquids that could have affected the results, mainly sugary and alcoholic drinks, as well as exercise, weight and other factors affecting health. The researchers did not look at eating habits, something future studies may take into account.

THE BOTTOM LINE

There is some evidence that proper hydration can help protect against high blood sugar, though more research is needed.

Article by Anahad O’Connor – New York Times

 

Will A Gluten-Free Diet Improve Your Health?

Sarah Cooper was a new mom in her mid-20s, busily juggling her family and a career as an electrical engineer, when everything came to a halt.

She lost all her energy. She developed acne. And she began experiencing gastrointestinal problems: bloating, diarrhea, cramping, constipation. Her doctors, thinking something must be missing from her diet, put her on various vitamins, none of which helped.

"It was all I could do to go to work," she says.

After years of failed treatments, Cooper's luck changed. She saw a doctor who suspected she might have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that can appear at any age and is caused by an intolerance to gluten.

A protein found in wheat, barley, and rye (and countless food products -- like bread and pasta -- that contain those grains), gluten gradually damages the intestines of people with celiac disease, preventing the absorption of vitamins and minerals and setting off a slew of related health problems, which can include fatigue and bad skin.

A new study appears to lend credence to the belief that restricting certain foods could ease kids' symptoms. But question are raised about the validity of the research and the ability to follow a draconian diet.

Cooper tested negative for celiac disease, but the doctor advised her to try a gluten-free diet anyway.
"Within a week of eliminating [gluten], I started to feel markedly better," says Cooper, now 36, from Melbourne, Australia. "It wasn't a gradual feeling better; it was almost a crossing-the-street kind of thing."

That was 10 years ago. The general practitioner who treated Cooper was ahead of his time, as most doctors are only now starting to realize that some people who don't have celiac disease may benefit from diets free of (or low in) gluten.

In fact, experts now believe that celiac disease represents just one extreme of a broad spectrum of gluten intolerance that includes millions of people like Cooper with less severe -- but nevertheless problematic -- reactions to the protein.

While celiac disease affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population, experts estimate that as many as 10 percent have a related and poorly understood condition known as non-celiac gluten intolerance (NCGI), or gluten sensitivity.

 

Gluten-free and well-fed: the sneaky stuff

"This is something that we're just beginning to get our heads around," says Daniel Leffler, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston. "There is a tight definition of celiac disease, but gluten intolerance has been a moving target." Read whole article.

Written By Carina Storrs, Health.com / copyright Health Magazine 2010

 

A Closer Look: Diet's role in treating ADHD debated

 

A new study appears to lend credence to the belief that restricting certain foods could ease kids' symptoms. But question are raised about the validity of the research and the ability to follow a draconian diet.

Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, are normally treated with behavioral therapy and stimulant medications. A new study suggests that a highly restricted diet can be just as effective at reducing symptoms in a majority of children with ADHD.

Diet is not a routine consideration in diagnosing and treating ADHD in the U.S. or in Europe, where the study was done. Many doctors are open to the idea that certain foods might trigger ADHD symptoms in some kids, though they believe it's a relatively minor factor in most cases.

"There's no question that foods have effects on people's mood, sleep and energy," says Dr. David Schab, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York. However, he adds, the current state of knowledge about what foods are problematic and which kids are susceptible is still too limited to be of much use for doctors or their patients.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 9.5% of school-age children in the U.S. have ADHD. That adds up to more than 5 million kids who could potentially benefit from a symptom-reducing diet.

Here's a closer look at how dietary changes may — or may not — help kids with ADHD.

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder exhibit a range of symptoms. Many have trouble staying focused on a single task and become bored or distracted quite easily. Others are unable to sit still, stay quiet or be patient. Some kids have a combination of these symptoms, plus others, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

In the study, published last month in the Lancet, 100 children with ADHD symptoms who were 4 to 8 years old were divided into two groups. Half were allowed to eat only a small number of foods for five weeks; their diets were customized from a short list of ingredients that included water, rice, turkey, lamb, lettuce, carrots, pears and other hypoallergenic foods. The rest of the kids were counseled (along with their parents) about healthful eating but allowed to eat whatever they wanted.

At the end of the study, 64% of the kids on the limited diet showed significant improvement on a variety of standard rating scales. Though the initial scores for all of the kids in this group put their ADHD symptoms in the moderate-to-severe range, after the diet intervention their symptoms were classified as either mild or nonclinical.

"It's shocking to most people," says psychologist Lidy Pelsser of the ADHD Research Center in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. "The parents were shocked. The children said they felt so different, as if some mad thing in their head wasn't there anymore."

Previous studies have found similar effects, but, like this one, they all had fundamental problems that made it easy for doctors to dismiss them.

For example, it's impossible to implement such a radical diet without kids and their parents realizing they're in the treatment group. That can affect the results because parents who know their child is receiving treatment may look harder for improvements. Their heightened expectations, in turn, may affect their kids' behavior. Children with the disorder often improve with regular, focused attention.

"These are not easy things to tease out," says Dr. Jaswinder Ghuman, a child psychiatrist at the University of Arizona ni Tucson who treats ADHD.

Some experts question whether all the children in the Lancet study actually had ADHD. Making a diagnosis in 4- and 5-year-olds is tricky, since the ability to sustain focused attention doesn't usually show up until age 6 or 7, says Robert Myers, a psychologist at UC Irvine who has worked with ADHD patients for 30 years.

One way the new study differed from the preceding ones is that it didn't select only kids who had an alleryg-related condition, such as asthma or eczema, but rather enrolled anyone with an ADHD diagnosis. That suggests food triggers may be important in a broader population of patients than previously thought. Until now, the consensus has been that food sensitivities play a role in only a small subset of ADHD cases.

Whether the Lancet study will change many doctors' minds remains to be seen. In a commentary that accompanied the Lancet study, Ghuman wrote that, while the diet's benefits were impressive, following it for more than five weeks could have detrimental health consequences.

Pelsser is the first to admit that no one can follow such a severe diet for very long. The children in her study have been gradually adding foods back to their diet. "We've followed all these children for about a year, and each child reacts to different foods," she says. For one child, triggers included beets, tomatoes, wheat and bananas; for another, it was fish, pork, eggs and oranges.

The idea of treating ADHD through diet modification goes back to at least the 1970s, when researchers began experimenting with a regimen called the Feingold diet that eliminated food additives and foods containing natural salicylates, such as apples, strawberries, almonds and tomatoes. Though the diet achieved only modest results, it is still used in some circles, Myers says.

Other researchers have charged that food additives — such as artificial colors, flavors and preservatives — are likely triggers for hyperactive behavior. A 2007 Lancet study of 297 children who did not have ADHD found that drinks laced with artificial colors and the preservative sodium benzoate increased activity to levels that were between one-half and two-thirds as high as seen in kids with ADHD who are not on medication. "Relatively modest amounts of food additives caused hyperactive symptoms in kids," says Schab, the Columbia psychiatrist.

To be sure, the prospect of treating ADHD with diet instead of drugs would appeal to many parents, Ghuman says. But parents who want to give it a try should be sure to consult their child's physician first, she warned: "It's not that simple to do appropriately."

 

 

Written by Jill U. Adams, Special to the Los Angeles Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vitamin D Linked to Colon Cancer Protection: Meta-Analysis

 

High blood levels of vitamin D are associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer, according to a new meta-analysis of observational studies from an international team of researchers.

Analysis of data from nine studies revealed that, for every 10 nanograms per milliliter increase in levels of vitamin D (25-hydroxyvitamin D) the associated risk of colorectal cancer decreased by 15 percent.

On the other hand, no association was observed between vitamin D levels and the risk of breast or prostate cancer, say results published in the International Journal of Cancer.

Shining light on the sunshine vitamin
Vitamin D refers to two biologically inactive precursors - D3, also known as cholecalciferol, and D2, also known as ergocalciferol. Both D3 and D2 precursors are transformed in the liver and kidneys into 25- hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), the non-active 'storage' form, and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D), the biologically active form that is tightly controlled by the body.

D and the big C
The link between vitamin D intake and protection from cancer dates from the 1940s when Frank Apperly demonstrated a link between latitude and deaths from cancer, and suggested that sunlight gave "a relative cancer immunity".
Since then there have been numerous studies suggesting associations between vitamin D and lower risks of certain cancers.

There is growing evidence that 1,25(OH)2D has anticancer effects, but the discovery that non-kidney cells can also hydroxylate 25(OH)D had profound implications, implying that higher 25(OH)D levels could protect against cancer in the local sites.

The new meta-analysis, led by Philippe Autier from the International Prevention Research Institute (IPRI) in Lyon, France, adds to the subject, while also showing the relationship between vitamin D and cancer is ambiguous, depending on the type of cancer.

Indeed, a recent meta-analysis published in the European Journal of Cancer (doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2010.03.037) concluded that the association between vitamin D and breast cancer is still ambiguous.

New analysis
Dr Autier and his co-workers analyzed data from 35 epidemiological studies of 25(OH)D levels and colorectal, breast and prostate cancer.

The analysis showed that for every 10 nanograms per milliliter increase in 25(OH)D levels the associated risk of colorectal cancer decreased by 15 percent, while the risk of breast cancer was associated with an 11 percent decrease. However, when the researchers restricted their analysis to prospective studies only, the breast cancer risk was decreased by only 3 percent, whereas data from case-control studies indicated a risk reduction of 17 percent.

"A non-significant decreased risk of breast cancer risk was associated with higher serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, but results from prospective studies only did not support an association between vitamin D status and breast cancer," said the researchers.

No association between vitamin D levels and prostate cancer were observed at all.

"If additional observational studies of vitamin D and cancer are proposed, they should adopt different designs, such as assessment of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D colorectal at different points in time, or longer follow-up of subjects," wrote the researcher.

"To assess whether vitamin D status is a risk factor or a risk marker for colorectal cancer, it is likely that new randomized trials will need to be organized to test whether increasing the 25-hydroxyvitamin D level changes the risk of colorectal cancer, and to determine how much of an increase is required to change the risk of cancer sufficiently to be useful as a public health measure," they concluded.

Written by Stephen Daniells

Source: International Journal of Cancer
15 March 2011, Volume 128, Issue 6, pages 1414–1424
"Meta-analysis of observational studies of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and colorectal, breast and prostate cancer and colorectal adenoma"
Authors: S. Gandini, M. Boniol, J. Haukka, G. Byrnes, B. Cox, M.J. Sneyd, P. Mullie, P. Autier