Cancer in your food

It's nothing new if I say that our diet is made up of a high amount of processed foods.  I quite often hear people say, "It seems that nowadays everything gives you cancer!"  It may seem that way, especially if you consider that "everything" refers to the processed foods in our diet.  If your diet is heavily based on processed foods then your chance of getting cancer is much higher than if your diet is based on whole foods and generally a plant based diet with a little animal protein.

Just over 10 years ago, scientists discovered that a cancer-causing and potentially neurotoxic chemical called acrylamide is created when foods that are carbohydrate-rich are cooked at high temperatures and the cooking method doesn't matter, whether they are baked, fried, roasted, toasted or grilled the result is the same.

A chemical reaction is formed between sugars and an amino acid called asparagine during high temperature cooking.  Acrylamide can form in many foods cooked or processed at temperatures above 100ºC (212ºF), but the most vulnerable are the carbohydrate-rich foods and on the whole the chemical is formed when food is cooked enough to produce a fairly dry and browned surface.  Therefore, it can be found in the following foods:

• Potatoes: chips, crisps and other roasted or fried potato foods
• Bread crusts, toast, crisp bread, roasted breakfast cereals and a variety of processed snacks
• Coffee: roasted coffee beans and ground coffee powder.  Chicory based coffee substitutes aren't free of it either and have a surprisingly 2-3 times more acrylamide than real coffee.

According to a study carried out in 1988 by the Agency for Research on Cancer considers acrylamide a "probable human carcinogen"

“The data show that acrylamide is capable of inducing genotoxic, carcinogenic,

developmental, and reproductive effects in tested organisms. Thus, acrylamide may pose more than a neurotoxic health hazard to exposed humans.

Acrylamide is a small organic molecule with very high water solubility. These properties probably facilitate its rapid absorption and distribution throughout the body. After absorption, acrylamide is rapidly metabolized, primarily by glutathione conjugation, and the majority of applied material is excreted within 24 hours... Acrylamide can bind to DNA... which has implications for its genotoxic and carcinogenic potential.”

A study published in 2007 associated a higher intake of dietary acrylamide with an increased risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer in postmenopausal women, particularly among non-smokers.  It has also been associated with nerve damage and other neurotoxic effects.

There are currently no guidelines limiting the amount of acrylamide in food itself, although the EPA regulates acrylamide in drinking water and the FDA regulates the amount of acrylamide in materials that can come into contact with food.

So, how much acrylamide is actually present in the foods we eat?  Well the federal limit for acrylamide in drinking water is 0.5 parts per billion, or 0.12 micrograms in a standard glass of water (213 ml approx).  However, a serving of chips (French Fries) about 170mg can contain 60 micrograms of acrylamide - thats roughly 500 times the permitted limit.  Crisps (Potato chips) are very high in acrylamide.  They are, in fact, so high that in 2005 the State of California actually took potato chip makers to court for failing to warn consumers about the health risks of acrylamide in their products.  A settlement was eventually reached in 2008 when Fito-Lay and several other crisp makers agreed to reduce the levels of acrylamide to 275 parts per billion by 2011, that is low enough to avoid needing a cancer warning on the package but still does not eradicate the problem.


A report published in 2005 titled "How Potato Chips Stack Up: Levels of Cancer-Causing Acrylamide in Popular Brands of Potato Chips," by the California-based Environmental Law Foundation (ELF), underlined the dangers of these foods.  The report states that ALL the potato chip products tested exceeded the legal limit of acrylamide by at least 39 times, and as much as 910 times the limit.  Surprisingly, baked chips which are considered more healthy, can contain MORE than 3 TIMES the level of acrylamide in regular chips, according to data from the US FDA.

So, as I have said many many times before, it's time to get back to basics.  Back to our ancestors way of eating... lots of fruit and vegetables, raw nuts, a little animal protein here and there and keep it all as raw as possible.  Forget anything processed and that includes bread!  The flour has been so refined before it is turned into bread that there is very little nutritional value left - if any.  

Could this be the reason you can't get up in the morning?

Lots of us wake up in the morning feeling as tired as when we went to bed the night before.  Modern life, at least as we know it, can be very stressful.  Holding down a full time job in the current economic crisis is not easy, family obligations - especially if you have small children, and the need to have fun with friends and family in the little spare time you have can take it's toll.  Or, the stress of being unemployed and trying hard to find a job or family problems all stress us far more than many would believe.  All or any one of these modern problems can lead to high stress levels and a feeling of being burnt out.

This feeling of being burnt out can be due to an illness called Adrenal Fatigue.  It is estimated that up to 80% of adults experience adrenal fatigue at some time during their lives, however it is still one of the most under-diagnosed illnesses in the United States.  Stress is the main factor in adrenal fatigue, if the stress is not treated and controlled it can, overtime, tax your adrenal glands to the point of causing other health problems such as:

• Fatigue
• Depression
• Sleep disorders
• Weight gain

So, if you are experiencing any of the above symptoms you need to read on...

Dr. Daniel Kalish has designed The Kalish Method which integrates scientific testing with natural health solutions to heal your adrenals and restore them so that they function normally again.

The Kalish Method is divided into 3 stages:

Stage 1:

Your cortisol levels are very high and you're under a lot of stress.  However, you are usually on a "high" enjoying yourself and not really aware of the toll.  Your body needs that excitement, but the key is to absorb that stress, enjoy it, reap the benefits and then dissipate it.  If you do not get enough rest to recharge your batteries, as it were, then the adrenal glands become over taxed, causing your cortisol levels to descend, which is when most people begin to notice there's a problem.

Stage 2:

This second stage means that the cortisol levels are starting to fail, which is when people begin to gain weight, stop sleeping properly and their sex drive starts to falter.  If you don't change your lifestyle, don't correct your bad eating habits, stop exercising and lack of beneficial rest you enter stage 3.

Stage 3:

Adrenal burn out and your cortisol levels are low all the time, the result is you feel chronically fatigued and are unable to recoup your energy despite resting.

Dr. Kalish illustrates the way cortisol works using units.  When you wake up in the morning you should have 20 units of energy, at the end of the day you should have around 2 units.  This would be normal, and would create the normal feeling of a day ending normally followed by restful sleep.  However many people are waking up in the morning with reduced cortisol levels, which brings on the feeling of exhaustion despite having just woken up.  Also the reverse happens, many people go to bed at night with elevated cortisol levels which makes sleep difficult as you can't shut your brain off.

The four main causes of adrenal dysfunction are:

1. Emotional stress, usually related to grief or loss
2. Poor diet, eating too many refined carbs can alter cortisol levels.
3. Chronic inflammation in the body.
4. Hypothyroidism.

Before trying any remedies on your own, if you have reason to believe that you are suffering from adrenal fatigue, you should be tested appropriately         by a specialist.

As far as dietary changes are concerned, it would be advisable to make sure you are getting the following:

• Protein, high quality animal protein is advisable, preferably lightly cooked or raw whenever possible such as: sushi, ceviche, steak tartare, eggs, legumes combined with whole grains, seeds or nuts.
• Healthy fats.  Coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernal oil, cocoa butter, butter, almond oil and olive oil.  Fats are essential especially because some fats such as butter, contain cholesterol which the adrenal glands need to produce hormones.  However, fat should not exceed  20 - 25% of total daily calories.
• Complex carbohydrates.  The body metabolizes unrefined, complex carbs in whole foods more slowly than the refined carbs in white bread, pasta or pastries - this means your energy levels last longer and the sugar crashes from refined carbs don't happen.  The best complex carbohydrates are: Spinach, chard, red peppers, yellow and butternut squash, beets, carrots, millet, brown rice, quinoa, papaya, mango, plums, pears, kiwi, apples and cherries.
• Up your intake of fermented foods to improve healthy gut bacteria.

Stay away from:

• Coffee and black tea (even decaf)
• Juice
• Sugar
• Alcohol
• Deep-fried foods
• Rancid oils, seed and nuts
• Soda - even diet soda
• Precessed meats and cheeses
• Textured vegetable protein
• Chocolate
• White flour in breads, pies, cakes, cookies and pasta
• Cow's milk
• Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame
• Fast food
• White rice

The hidden health risk

Under normal circumstances, inflammation is part of a healthy immune response, a biological automatic response to an injury sees cells and chemicals being sent to heal an infection or injury.  Which is what happens when you are, for example, bitten by a mosquito, the area around the bite becomes inflamed, red, itchy and often painful.  This swelling is actually to stop the poison from the mosquito bite circulating freely in the blood while other cells and histamines repair the area and eliminate the poison.

However, just like in many other areas of life, there is a dark side to this normally healing process.  Chronic "hidden" inflammation, that you can't necessarily feel or see can occur throughout the body when something kick-starts the immune system and turns off the shut-off button.  What sets off the alarm and kick-starts the immune systems differs in each person: repeated or prolonged infections, smoking, gum disease, obesity, etc all of which have the same end result: an endless trickle of immune cells that interferes with the body's healthy tissues, which set off genetic mutations that can lead to cancer, diabetes, depression, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, and a long list of etc..

However, on the whole a person will not know they suffer from chronic inflammation until something more serious happens.  There isn't even a reliable medical test for it.  There is a test for an inflammatory marker called C-reactive protein (CRP), which is recommended for people at risk of heart disease, as high levels of CRP are associated with future heart attacks and strokes, but it is not used on a general level as researchers still don't fully understand the role CRP plays and whether it really is a sign of incremented risk of disease.  However, what has been clearly established is that people with poor health habits tend to have higher levels of inflammation.

"In recent years, we've come to accept that inflammation plays a role in many chronic diseases, but it's about an imbalance - too many pro-inflammatory chemicals and not enough anti-inflammatory ones," says Moise Desvarieux, an inflammation researcher at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

In a normal situation, hours after the alarm is set off kick-starting the immune system to fight and injury or infection, the body then sends out anti-inflammatory substances to restore equilibrium.  So in order to stay healthy, both systems have to be in good working order.

Lots of medications, such as Aspirin, can reduce inflammation.  However, there are healthier options to reduces inflammation other than popping pills, here are some tips:

While being overweight raises your risk of inflammation, what is more important is where your fat deposits are.  "It's where your body puts the fat, on your waist as opposed to your hips and thighs, that indicates a pro-inflammatory state," says Carol Shively, Professor of Pathology at Wake Forrest University School of Medicine who has studied fat distribution.  Fat stored around internal organs is far more dangerous than subcutaneous fat on the hips and thighs.  The fat surrounding internal organs leads to stress and the stress hormone cortisol, "appears to bind receptors on these fat cells, setting off a process that promotes the storage of fat and increases the number of fat cells," says Prof. Shively.  "These extra cells then produce more chemicals that increase inflammation."

Now this, as you are probably aware, takes us back to the apple or pear body shapes.  Having a large waist measurement (80cm or more in women and 94cm or more in men) means you are likely to have excess inflammation.  Other indicators are:

• high blood pressure (130/85 or above)
• raised glucose levels (100mg/dl after fasting)
• high triglyceride levels (150mg/dl)

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), these all point to an inflammatory condition called metabolic syndrome, a common precursor of diabetes and heart disease.

So what is the best way to reduce belly fat?

Now the good news is that belly fat is a lot easier to get rid of than the subcutaneous kind on hips and thighs.  So basically all you really need to do is to eat less and move more.  Adopting a mediterranean diet which is rich in fruit, vegetables, fish, nuts, seeds and olive oil has been proven to protect the heart, probably because it lowers the level of pro-inflammatory chemicals.  Another benefit of this type of diet is that it may protect against depression by raising levels of Omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants used by the body to manufacture anti-inflammatory chemicals that increase blood flow to the brain.

Don't over do the exercise to start off with.  Exercise has been proven to produce less inflammation as it protects against metabolic syndrome.  1 hour, 5 times a week is enough.  Just walking at a fast pace which makes conversation difficult is adequate.  If you want to run but never have, start slowly little by little.  Intersperse fast walking with bits of jogging and build up gradually.  There is a brilliant podcast called From Couch to 5K - free on the NHS website (Couch to 5K), is a great way to learn to run if you never have.

Surprising recent data shows that flossing and brushing your teeth twice a day reduces the risk of heart disease.  There is a well established link between gum disease and heart disease, researchers believe that the same bacteria that cause inflammation and swelling in the gums appear to be a source of inflammation and thickening of the arteries.

The top 10 ANTI-INFLAMMATORY foods you should include in your diet:

1. Wild Salmon
2. Kelp
3. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4. Cruciferous Vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and brussel sprouts
5. Blueberries
6. Turmeric
7. Ginger
8. Garlic
9. Green tea
10. Sweet potato

The top 5 INFLAMMATORY foods to avoid:

1. Sugars: sodas, fruit drinks, sweets, etc..
2. Common cooking oils: grape seed, cottonseed, sunflower, corn and safflower oils
3. Trans fats: deep fried foods, fast foods, commercially baked products, margarine, etc..
4. Dairy produce.
5. Factory farm animals.  Stick to grass fed animal produce.

So the key is to:

• Eat less
• Get Active
• Floss and brush twice a day.

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

Just what is your body trying to tell you?

Not enough of us actually listen to our bodies.  Sometimes we experiment cravings for certain foods such as cheese or red meat.  Our bodies are far wiser than we are.  We, after all, are conditioned from the amount of advertising we see on a daily basis to crave sugar, fast food, etc..  But sometimes we suddenly get a craving for a specific food like cheese.  Cheese is high in an essential amino acid called tryptophan which is a precursor to Serotonin, also known as the happy hormone.  If you aren't getting enough tryptophan you may have a problem producing enough Serotonin.

However, there are other little "everyday" minor health problems that annoy us which could simply be our bodies trying to make us aware that there is a nutritional deficit which is not being met and could be easily remedied.

For example:

Swollen ankles.  This could be a sign that you are not getting enough potassium in your diet.  Potassium helps regulate the body's water balance and a low potassium count can contribute to water retention that, in turn, causes blood pressure to rise - this happens especially when combined with too much dietary salt.

The Dallas Heart Study in the U.S. examined data from 3,300 people which showed that the amount of potassium in urine samples, and therefore reflecting dietary intake, was strongly related to blood pressure readings.  Almost a quarter of all women and teenagers and 16% of people over 65 years of age have low intakes of potassium as a result of their diet, as found by the National Diet and Nutrition Survey data.

The recommended daily allowance of Potassium is 3,500mg.  Bananas are naturally high in potassium, and if you are getting your 5 a day of fruit and vegetables should stop you being deficient.

Those annoying and painful cracks at the side of the mouth could be attributed to a lack of vitamin B2, this also goes for fissures and sores around the mouth.  Vitamin B2 is essential for cell production and growth, without it, the body cannot renew skin and mucosal cells around the lips.  Vitamin B2 is also necessary for converting food into energy, so if you also suffer from fatigue and migraines it may well be a B2 deficiency that is provoking them.

The recommended daily allowance of Vitamin B2 is 1.3mg for men and 1.1mg for women.  Although I am not an advocate for milk and/ or milk produce, a daily glass of 250ml of milk should solve a deficiency.  I, personally, would take a supplement.

Are you constantly in a bad mood?  Grumpy all the time?  Then you could have an iron deficiency.  The usual symptoms of iron deficiency are pale skin, spoon-shaped nails and light-headedness, however, feeling grumpy together with tiredness and poor concentration, is an early warning sign for lack of iron due to reduced levels of oxygen reaching the brain - as stated by the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Iron is an important component of red blood cells which allows them to collect oxygen and transport it around the body.  As much as 30% of teenage girls and 17% of women suffer from low iron counts, and the risk is even higher in women who have heavy periods.

The recommended daily allowance for iron is 8.7mg in men and 14.8mg in women.  Red meat, nuts and greens are packed with iron, the easiest to absorb come from animal sources such as beef, eggs and sardines.  However nuts, pulses, green leafy vegetables are also a good source, however you must accompany them with a source of Vitamin C such as fresh tomato with the skin left on or natural orange.  For a more severe deficiency supplements will be needed but you should see your doctor before taking supplements.

Has food become bland and unappetizing?  It might not just be your cooking (or your Mum's!).
Inadequate levels of zinc in the body can affect our sense of taste.  The University of Ulster  conducted a study on 387 participants and found that those participants with lower levels of zinc in their blood cells were less able to detect salty tastes.

Zinc is required for the production of salivary enzymes and development and maintenance of tastebuds which may point to the relationship between the lack of zinc and debilitated taste - although this is still unclear.

But a low zinc level does not just affect your tastebuds, other signs of zinc deficiency include more frequent infections such as colds and flu, wounds that take a long time to heal - this is due to the zinc's vital role in immune system function and the repair and renewal of cells.

Teenagers are most at risk, nearly one fifth of girls and a tenth of boys have been found to have unacceptable levels of zinc due to their diets.

The recommended daily allowance of zinc is 5.5 - 9.5 mg for men and 4-7mg for women.  Red meat - beef and lamb are among the best sources of zinc, so try to eat at least one to two portions a week.  Other sources include nuts, especially Cashews and Peanuts and other whole grains.

Those general aches and pains may not just be down to getting older!  Vitamin D is such an important part of a healthy body.  Weak bones are known symptoms of a long term Vitamin D deficiency but general aches, weakness and tiredness can also indicate a lesser deficiency.

Low Vitamin D levels occur across all age groups, this vitamin helps regulate calcium and phosphorous, minerales that are vital for developing and maintaining bone and muscle.  It is also thought that Vitamin D is important to the immune system and may boost cancer protection.

The recommended daily allowance is 5mcg (micro grams)  However it can be easier than that, 20 minutes of sunshine a day with no sunscreen on will keep your Vitamin D levels topped up, also you can eat two portions of oily fish such as salmon or sardines per week to prevent deficiency.

So, take a good look at your body, what is it trying to tell you?  Do you have any of the symptoms I've described?

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