Dairy products linked to a 50% higher risk of dying from breast cancer.

If my previous articles: FORKS OVER KNIVES and THE MILK DILEMA haven't managed to make you rethink your dairy produce intake then I hope this one will.

It is still illegal in the United States to claim that diet can cure cancer, even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it can (The Gerson Miracle), or that diet can prevent serious illnesses and plays an important role in curing a disease once diagnosed.

Too many medical doctors do not consider the importance of diet and rely exclusively on modern medicine.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for the wonders of modern medicine, but I do believe that doctors need to understand how much better modern medicine would be if combined with a proper disease appropriate diet.

New data has shown that just ONE portion of full-fat dairy per day - be it ice cream or yogurt or cheese cold hinder the survival of women with breast cancer.  Scientists say that women suffering from breast cancer who eat one portion daily could be 50% more likely to die.

Scientists in the US suspect that the reason for this is because milk and other dairy foods contain the hormone estrogen, which is known to encourage tumor growth.

We already know that diet plays an important role in improving the chances of surviving cancer and also preventing its recurrence.  But this is the first study to show such a strong link between dairy products and breast cancer.

1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives and around 50.000 new cases are diagnosed every year.  Scientists from the Kaiser Permanente research center in California studied the medical records of 1,500 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1997 and 2000.  The women had all completed questionnaires on how often they consumed dairy products, what size the portions were, and what specifically they ate.  The most common products consumed were ice cream, yogurts, cheese, full-fat lattes and hot chocolate.

The scientists found that the women who ate just ONE portion of just ONE of these products a day, were 50% more likely to die from the illness within 12 years.  They also pointed out that most milk consumed in Britain and the US comes from pregnant cows and is therefore rich in estrogen, which, as I said before, is know to trigger tumor growth and there are particularly high levels in full-fat dairy foods.

In fact, they also found that women who ate ONE portion of full-fat dairy every day were 64% more likely to die from any cause - not just breast cancer.

Dr. Bette Caan, research leader on the study said:

"High-fat dairy is generally not recommended as part of a healthy diet.  Switching to low-fat dairy is an easy thing to modify."

Although, here I have to say; and why not just eliminate dairy all together?  It really is not an essential part of our diets.  All other mammals are perfectly capable of living healthy lives without it after weaning.

Many women who have just been diagnosed with breast cancer ask their doctor whether they should change their diet, but the general consensus within the medical community is that there is just too little research on the subject for them to give any specific advice.

Susan Kutner, chair at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Regional Breast Cancer Task Force, said:

"Women have been clamoring for this type of information.  They're asking us 'tell me what I should eat.'  With this information, we can be more specific about recommending low-fat dairy products."

Sally Greenbrook, Senior Policy Officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said:

"This study specifically looks at women who have already been diagnosed with breast cancer and how low or high fat dairy products may affect them.  Any women who have had beast cancer and are concerned about their diet should discuss this with their doctors.

"For a number of health reasons it's advisable that all women should follow a healthy balanced diet.  It helps you to maintain a healthy weight which, together with good practices such as low alcohol intake and regular physical activity, can help to reduce your breast cancer risk and improve overall wellbeing.  There are many risk factors to breast cancer, not just diet."

Diet is so important and is given very little credit.  If you want to know more about fighting disease with diet then I can recommend FORKS OVER KNIVES, HUNGRY FOR CHANGE and THE GERSON MIRACLE.  These are all available in DVD and book form, whichever you prefer, but they are incredible documentaries that will, I hope, change your life and health for the better.

Remember, you have the power to change.


Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Have your steak and eat it too!

It's been a year since my first article THE TRUTH ABOUT SATURATED FATS, so in light of new data I decided it was time for an update.

Saturated fat is still considered to be the number one culprit of clogged arteries and elevated risk of heart attacks in its devoted consumers.  However, there is new evidence emerging that health risks from the consumption of saturated fats really depends on the TYPE of fat being eaten.

It is thought that one particular type of saturated fat called stearic acid, found in cheese, beef, pork, skinless chicken, olive oil, milk and chocolate may actually protect against heart disease.

Stearic acid is just one of a few saturated fatty acids found in foods.  The others include lauric, myristic and palmitic acids.  Repeated studies have shown that stearic acid has no adverse effect on blood cholesterol levels or other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, the same can not be said of the "others".

One study recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, stated that eating lean beef on a daily basis improved cholesterol levels, the stearic acid in the beef was responsible for the positive changes.

Participants in the tudy on a daily diet of lean beef for 5 weeks, experienced a 5% drop in total cholesterol and a 4% drop in LDL (bad) cholesterol - almost equal to those in the control group on a diet high in fish, vegetable protein and poultry.  Also both groups kept their weight steady.

Dr. Michael Roussell, one of the study's authors from Pennsylvania State University, said that unlike processed meats such as sausages and ham, unadulterated red meat "brings a unique, heart-healthy blend of fats to the table".

Many myths and misconceptions have led the general public to wrongly believe that all saturated fats are bad when in fact, sensible amounts of foods rich in stearic acid such as red meat, can be eaten without fearing for their heart's health.

"There are different forms of saturated fat, and stearic acid isn't linked to heart disease." says Glenys Jones, a Nutritionist at the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Research Department in Cambridge.

"Other forms of saturated fat, such as the fat in butter, have a much stronger association and, of course, too much of any fat will result in obesity, which is a risk for heart disease itself."

Strangely enough, this "new" take on saturated fatty acids really isn't new at all and reaches as far back as 1957, when it was shown that cocoa butter did not raise blood cholesterol levels as much as the fat from the butter did.  Aslo, almost 25 years ago, a major study at the University of Texas demonstrated that not all saturated fats have the same negative effects.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported that saturated fats such as butter and coconut oil, which contain only trace amounts of stearic acid, had far more damaging effects on blood fats than red meat or chocolate.

The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) published a major report in 2011 that challenged the conventional beliefs about the effects of saturated fat in red meat.  In this document Dr. Carrie Ruxton, an independent dietician, confirmed there is "no conclusive link" between cardiovascular disease and red meat that contains some fatty acids, such as stearic acid, that protect the heart.

"There is less saturated fat in a grilled pork steak than in grilled chicken with the skin left on," she said.
"Studies have shown favorable effects of lean red meat consumption on blood pressure and cholesterol levels."

The amount of stearic acid varies depending on the different foods - the good news is that chocolate and red meat have the highes amounts.

Now, all this positive information is not a licence to gorge on anything and everything high in stearic acid.  The key, as with everything, is moderation.

"There is definite evidence that stearic acid has a neutral effect on cholesterol and cardiovascular risk," says Dr. Emma Williams, a BNF nutrition scientist, "However, in many foods stearic acid is lumped together with other saturated fatty acids which are less beneficial and can contribute to a rise in risks.  The truth is, no one has ever said people should cut out animal fats completely.  Just eat them sparingly."

The key, as I said, is moderation, but there is also another thing to keep in mind, and that is VARIATION.  The more varied a diet the better it is for your health.


Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Legal Drug Pushers

Food manufacturers are pushing drugs legally.  Salt, sugar and fat are just as dangerous to our health as other "hard drugs".  And, the western world has been hooked on these three for so long that no-one really knows when it started.

However, the side effects of these drugs are not the ones you would normally associate with "hard drugs".  Sugar - especially in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup, puts a great strain on the liver, raised levels of fat in the bloodstream and  a whole range of problems, which are all associated with cardiovascular disease.

Excessive intake of salt has been linked to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease and over-consumption of fat to obesity, diabetes and other related epidemics.

The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for fat for women is 70g and for men 90-95g, for children aged 4-18 years of age it is 25-35% of total calories.  RDA for sugar for women is 25g or 6 teaspoons, men 37.5g or 9 teaspoons and children should keep sugar intake to 6g or less per day.  RDA for salt in adults is 2,300mg (2.3g) equivalent to about 1 teaspoon.  In children aged 2-3 years 1,000 mg (1g), ages 4-8 = 1,200 mg and ages 9-18 = 1,500 mg.

So what is being put in our food and why?

Food manufacturers put extra salt, sugar and fat in foods to make them taste better.  They even have a term for it: "BLISS POINT".  This is how manufacturers describe levels of sugar, fat and salt in processed foods that are so appealing they guarantee we will be coming back for more.

Michael Moss, an award winning investigative writer, has spent more than three years investigating the science of junk food for his new book: Salt, Sugar and Fat: How the food giants hooked us.

His investigations have uncovered an unsavory amount of tricks employed by food manufacturers to tempt us into buying foods that are often extremely unhealthy.  Tricks such as changing the physical shape of salt to altering the chemical make-up of sugar and even giving crisps a louder crunch.

Moss spoke to many executives and scientists at multinationals such as Pepsi, Kraft, Kelloggs, Unilever and Mars and discovered that at the heart of all the corporate strategies are three legal drugs: salt, fat and sugar.  Moss also found that there is no limit as to how far the industry will go to harness the seductive powers of these 3 drugs.

Companies use the results from MRI-scanning to study the sensory power of food - for example, how sugar lights up our brains the same way it does after someone has taken cocaine.

Their objective is to achieve the perfect link between food and pleasure in consumers' brains to make us come back for more, so the industry has become obsessed with finding that "BLISS POINT".

In the case of sugar, the Bliss Point is the precise amount of sweetness that makes food and drink most enjoyable.  There is a vast amount of work involved with pinpointing the Bliss Point; it means scientifically testing thousands of customers' preferences, intricate mathematical formulae, and analyzing surveys of populations for cultural and demographic differences.  For example; in China, people in the south of the country have a sweeter tooth than those in the north.  Bliss Points can also vary by age no just geographically; studies show that the Bliss Point for children can be an amazing 36% sugar content in food - three times that of most adults.

This means that the manufacturers who manage to hit on the most Bliss Points generate by far the biggest profits.  However, their profits come at a cost for the general public - those Bliss Points come with the side effects of many of their customers becoming dangerously obese and close to addiction.  The junk food industry even labels its most faithful customers as "HEAVY USERS", says Moss.

Moss, who works for the New York Times, managed to persuade three of the biggest food manufacturers to let him sample their products with significantly reduced levels of salt, sugar and fat, while researching his book.  He soon discovered how powerful these 3 ingredients can be.

Kellogg produced a salt-less version of a savory cracker that Moss loves:

"Without any salt, the crackers lost their magic.  They felt like straw, chewed like cardboard, and had zero taste," he says.

The same happened with soups, meats and breads that other manufacturers made for him including Campbell: "Take more than a little salt, or sugar or fat out of processed food, these experiments showed, and there is nothing left.  Or even worse, what is left are the inexorable consequences of food processing; repulsive tastes that are bitter, metallic and astringent."

However, it is still cheaper for food manufacturers to make sugar, salt and fat more alluring by interfering with their chemical make-up than attempting to make their products more appetizing.

Moss reports that Nestlé's scientists are actually modifying the distribution and shape of fat globules in foods to affect the way they feel in the mouth.

Research on brain reaction to food reveals that the pleasure of fatty foods is as much about the FEEL as the TASTE.  We feel fat through the trigeminal nerve, located above and behind the mouth.  It sends tactile information about fat to the brain, and the better the experience, the bigger the craving.

It isn't just the food manufacturers adding too much to processed foods.  At Cargill, the U.S. based world's leading salt supplier, scientists are pulverizing salt into a fine powder so that when consumed, it hits the taste buds faster and harder, improving the "flavor burst", says Moss.  It is developments such as these that have made crisps (potato chips) more irresistible than 20 years ago.

And it sin't just salt.  Sugar is also being altered in many different ways.  Not only have food scientists created enhancers to boost the sweetness of sugar by up to 200 times, one component, fructose, has also been crystalized into an additive that boosts the allure of foods with a naturally low content.

The Food and Drink Federation in Britain is keen to be seen in a friendly light and argues that its members are being responsible by lowering salt levels to help customers make healthy choices.

The Federation's Director of Food Safety, Science and Health, Barbara Gallani says:

"UK food and drink manufacturers' efforts to tackle obesity and diet-related diseases are long-standing."  

 She states that members of the Federation have voluntarily cut salt levels by 10% in the past 5 years and improved product labeling.

There is no current evidence that food is actually addictive, and Ms Gallani bases the Federation's defense on that,

"Recent scientific reviews show there is no evidence to suggest food addiction exists in people, either to specific foods or to nutrients like sugar or fat."

I am still trying to reconcile myself with her classing SUGAR as a NUTRIENT!

However, on the other side of the pond, Moss says no one is more aware of the problems caused by salt, sugar and fat than the processed food companies.

In 1999, the 11 heads of the largest U.S. food companies met in secret to discuss how to tackle the emerging obesity epidemic by managing recipes and strategies.  However, no positive action followed, these companies are totally dependent on these 3 ingredients and no one is willing to be the only one to probably lose profits against the others by producing healthier products for their customers.

In the UK, manufacturers have reduced salt in their products over the past 10 years.  However, obesity levels continue to rise, probably because companies have found a way to relieve the pressure put on them about making their products healthier.

Moss explains in his book that when food makers have to reduce on of the three key ingredients, they often increase the levels of the other two to make up for the lost appeal.  Therefore, products labeled "low salt" may have higher levels of fat and sugar.

"It is one of the industry's most devious moves," says Moss, that is why we must all be very wary of products whose labels proclaim: "Now low in..."

Proof of this is in the fact that most executives at the big food companies tend not to eat their own products, according to Moss,

"I found that many of the executives I talked to go out of their way to avoid their own products," he says, "especially if they have run into health problems." 

They prefer to eat fresh foods and take regular exercise to stay fit and healthy.

I believe that if the industry is going to put its customers first then the way to go is to gradually reduce salt, fat and sugar over time.  There is evidence that our taste buds do adapt over time.  Obviously a drastic cut too quickly would be rejected but a gradual one would go unnoticed.  However, if you really want to be healthy, my advice is to follow the example of the executives and eat fresh foods and take regular exercise - processed foods are not doing any of us any favors.


Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Good sleep is essential for health.

We all know that diet and exercise are essential for good health, but a good night's sleep is also high on the list - right up there at the top with exercise and diet.

A new study lead by sleep expert Professor Dirk-Jan Dijk from the University of Surrey and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, states that:

"Insufficient sleep is increasingly recognized as contributing to a wide range of health problems.

"Multiple studies have shown self-reported short sleep duration - defined in most studies as less than six hours - is associated with negative health outcomes such as all-cause mortality, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and impaired vigilance and cognition."

During this small study, the researchers studied gene activity in 26 sleep deprived volunteers.  They discovered that insufficient sleep had an impact on more than 700 genes.  Some of those genes became sluggish in their activity while others became overactive.  The genes affected included those associated with the "body clock" cycle, metabolism, and immune and stress responses.

During the study, the volunteers were subjected to a period of sleep restriction - 1 week of less than six hours sleep per night.  At the end of this restriction period, they had to stay awake for around forty hours while RNA samples were collected every 3 hours.

RNA is the messenger chemical that delivers coded instructions from genes to cells.  RNA can be used as a tool to measure gene activity.

The volunteers were then allowed to sleep for up to ten hours per night for a week and again, at the end of the week, RNA samples were taken every 3 hours during a long period of wakefulness.  The results from the two different weeks of RNA samples were then compared.

The scientists noted that "Sleep obtained in the sleep-restriction condition was not sufficient to maintain alertness or performance."

Doesn't seem like much of a result after all the volunteers went through!

However, 1 in 3 Britons is managing on 5-6 hours sleep per night.  Almost half of Britons say stress or worry keeps them awake at night, according to a report published 1st March 2013 by The Sleep Council.

More than 5000 people were surveyed about their sleeping habits in The Great British Bedtime Report. The findings were that the average Briton achieves about 6 hours 35 minutes sleep per night.  Research suggests that for good health, seven and a half hours per night is necessary.

Scientists from Surrey University have stated that just seven days of poor sleep can disrupt hundreds of genes linked to stress, immunity and inflammation.

Dr. Chris Idzikowski, Director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, said that worsening sleep habits were a "significant" cause for concern.

"Disrupted sleep not only impacts on quality of life but there's an increased risk of higher blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.  Many studies in recent years have concluded there is a higher death rate linked with less than five and a half hours sleep a night and more than nine and a half.

"It's still not clear why, but deterioration in people's thinking ability alone can occur after just one night of poor sleep."

He said that growing rates of obesity may be partly to blame with associated problems stopping those affected from sleeping properly and quite often their partners too.

According to a 2004 study, people who sleep less than six hours a night were almost 30% more likely to become obese than those who slept 7-9 hours.

There seems to be a link between sleep and the peptides that regulate appetite.  Ghrelin stimulates hunger and leptin signals satiety to the brain, which then suppresses appetite.  Less sleep is associated with decreases in leptin and increases in Ghrelin.  This means that lack of sleep appears to stimulate hunger and also a craving for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods.

The current economic crisis doesn't help.  Our stress levels have shot up, with people who have lost their jobs not sleeping and others lie awake at night worrying about losing their jobs.  47% of those surveyed in The Sleep Council's report said that stress or worry was keeping them awake at night.  This figure was much higher for women at 54% and singles at 57%.  Men came in at 40%.

The study found that 22% of Britons weren't getting a good night's sleep most nights and that men seem to sleep better than women with 30% sleeping well compared with 22% of women.

Lack of sleep can also affect our interpretation of events, which leads to impaired judgement as we may not assess situations accurately and act on them wisely.

Sleep deprived people seem to be especially prone to poor judgement when it comes to evaluating what lack of sleep is doing to them.  Sleep specialists say that if you think you're doing ok on less sleep you're probably wrong.  Studies show that over time, people who are getting 6 hours of sleep as opposed to 7-8 hours, begin to feel that they've adapted to that lack of sleep, but tests on mental alertness and performance show that they are going downhill, this shows that there is a point in sleep deprivation when we lose touch with how impaired we really are.  So if your job depends on you being able to judge your level of functioning - this can be a real problem.

It has also been found that the type of light emitted from televisions, smartphones and tablets stop the brain from understanding it's time to go to sleep.  So it is advisable to keep these things out of the bedroom.   If you find yourself in bed and unable to sleep then experts advise you to get out of bed and sit in a chair and read a book or carry out some quiet activity and when you begin to feel sleepy go back to bed and use a relaxation technique to get to sleep.

Remember, sleep is very important on all levels.  How well are you sleeping?


Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com