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Common Cooking Oil Destroys Brains!?

The AHA! Team — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 06:26:38 +0000

Al Sears, MD, CNS – It’s cheap, flavorless, and the most popular oil in America… But it’s destroying your brain. I’m talking about cooking oil that comes from soybeans. For the past 20 years or so, clever marketers have made all kinds of outlandish health claims about soy. They tell you it’s organic, high in protein, heart-healthy, and even prevents diabetes. Sadly, the truth is that unless it’s fermented into a traditional Japanese dish called natto, soy is toxic. Studies show that soybean products are loaded with estrogen mimickers that cause erectile dysfunction, man boobs, loss of bone and muscle mass, as well as at least half a dozen different types of cancer. And scientists have known for years that soy does not prevent diabetes. In fact, it impairs insulin secretion and may actually result in diabetes.1 But even worse than soy is the oil that comes from it. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of California, Riverside, recently revealed that cooking with soybean oil can upregulate a number of genetic switches in the hypothalamus part of the brain, and trigger a range of neurological changes that can result in:2 Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s Mood swings Anxiety Depression Schizophrenia Your body simply wasn’t designed to consume soy. Sadly, that hasn’t prevented Big Agra from pushing it on millions of unsuspecting Americans as healthy. By selling soy as a “health food,” Big Agra’s marketers have turned soybeans into America’s favorite cooking oil. And the problem is not just about cooking with soybean oil – because it is already present in dozens of commercial foods. These include most salad dressings, baked goods, and the so-called “healthy” whole-grain breads. It’s even in baby formula. The UC Riverside study also found that soybean oil could induce obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, and fatty liver disease in mice. In this study, the researchers compared soybean oils to coconut oil. Then they looked at the hypothalamus of the mice. This is a small, but critical area of the brain that affects numerous body functions. The research team found that the soybean oils – but not coconut oil – caused more than 100 genes in the brain to stop working as they should. You see, soybean oil is loaded with pro-inflammatory omega-6s, which act as a metabolic poison when consumed in excess.3 Additional studies show that cooking with coconut oil produces the fewest changes in hypothalamic genes, and therefore carries the least risk of causing neurological damage.4 I recommend my patients use coconut oil every day to improve their health. Studies show the medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) in coconut oil can: Protect against heart disease5 Reduce insulin resistance6 Boost brain function in people with Alzheimer’s disease7 Reduce inflammation and arthritis8 Prevent osteoporosis9 Protect the liver10 3 Ways To Add More Coconut Oil To Your Diet Here are three ways you can get more coconut oil in your diet – and ditch soybean oil once and for all… Fry with it. Coconut oil has a high smoke point. That means that it won’t degrade at high temperatures — leaving all the fatty acids intact. It’s especially great for pan searing. If you do cook with it, consider getting it without flavor. This is known as “expeller-pressed” coconut oil. Make a smoothie. Scoop a healthy serving of coconut oil (it’ll probably be solid, but that’s okay) into the blender. Mix in your favorite fresh fruits. Maybe even add some protein powder. Add organic milk and a little ice. Blend it all and enjoy a tasty, heart-healthy smoothie. Take it to go. This delicious and healthy trail mix is great for people on the go. Here’s how to make it… Ingredients: 1 cup almonds 1 cup cashews ¼ cup raw shelled pumpkin seeds ½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes ¼ cup coconut oil (melted) ½ cup raw honey 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp Himalayan pink salt 1 cup dried fruit (optional) Directions: Preheat oven to 275 F. Place the almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and coconut flakes in a food processor or blender. Pulse a few times to break into chunks. Place the coconut oil, raw honey, and vanilla extract in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat and allow to melt. Stir to combine, then add the ground nut mixture. Stir until everything is fully coated. Spread the trail mix evenly onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cook for 25-30 minutes until lightly browned, stirring once or twice. Remove from the oven, add the dried fruit, and sprinkle with sea salt. Press the mixture together firmly to form a tight, flat surface. Cool for 20-30 minutes or until fully hardened. Break into chunks. Store it in an airtight container. It will keep for up to a week. References: Deol P, et al. “Soybean oil is more obesogenic and diabetogenic than coconut oil and fructose in mouse: potential role for the liver.” PLoS One. 2015 Jul 22;10(7):e0132672. Deol P, et al. “Dysregulation of hypothalamic gene expression and the oxytocinergic system by soybean oil diets in male mice.” Endocrinology. 2020; 161(2). Patterson, E et al. “Health implications of high dietary omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids.” J Nutr Metab. 2012:539426. Deol P, et al. “Dysregulation of Hypothalamic gene expression and the oxytocinergic system by soybean oil diets in male mice.” Endocrinology. February 2020. 161(2). Khaw KT, et al. “Randomised trial of coconut oil, olive oil or butter on blood lipids and other cardiovascular risk factors in healthy men and women.” BMJ Open. 2018;(8)3:e020167. Han JR, et al. “Effects of dietary medium-chain triglyceride on weight loss and insulin sensitivity in a group of moderately overweight free-living type 2 diabetic Chinese subjects.” Metabolism. 2007;56(7):985-991. De la Rubia Orti JE, et al. “Improvement of main cognitive functions in patients with Alzheimer’s disease after treatment with coconut-oil enriched Mediterranean diet: A pilot study.” J Alzheimer’s Dis. July 20, 2018. Vysakh A, et al. “Polyphenolics isolated from virgin coconut oil inhibits adjuvant induced arthritis in rats through antioxidant and anti-inflammatory action.” Int Immunopharmacol. 2014;20(1):124-130. Hayatullina Z, et al. “Virgin coconut oil supplementation prevents bone loss in osteoporosis rat model.” Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012;2012:237236. Otuechere CA, et al. “Virgin coconut oil protects against liver damage in albino rats challenged with the anti-folate combination, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole.”.J Basic Clin Physiol Pharmacol. 2014;25(2):249-253. To read the original article click here.

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Is Soy Harmful, Harmless, or Helpful for Fibroids?

AHA Publisher — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 07:00:07 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – When it comes to uterine fibroids, is soy harmful, harmless, or helpful? About one in four women will eventually suffer from fibroids, most commonly manifesting as excessively heavy periods, pain, or pressure. Why might you feel pressure? Because, as you can see at 0:17 in my video Should Women with Fibroids Avoid Soy?, you may be carrying around 26 pounds of tumors in your uterus. Fibroids are the most common reason women get hysterectomies, the complete removal of the uterus, a major surgery “associated with disability and death.” All surgery carries risk, though, and the chances of dying within a month of hysterectomy surgery may only be about 1 in 1,200, which makes it among our safest surgeries. As you can see at 0:40 in my video, getting your uterus removed is safer than getting your gallbladder removed, for example. But, of course, you lose the ability to bear children with a hysterectomy, and in total these surgeries cost billions of dollars a year. Yet, despite the high prevalence of fibroids, significant pain and suffering, and huge economic impact, relatively little is understood about the cause and disease process that lead to fibroid tumors. In terms of decreasing fibroids risk, it’s probably a good idea to avoid atomic bomb blasts whenever you can, but what about more easily modifiable risk factors? Consumption of alcohol, particularly beer, is associated with increased risk. Whenever beer is implicated, you may think about the hormonal effects specific to beer, particularly the powerful phytoestrogen found in hops, an essential ingredient in beer. If that phytoestrogen is increasing fibroids risk, what about the phytoestrogens in soy? The Black Women’s Health Study looked into this. Fibroids are two to three times more prevalent among Black women, so it was thought that dairy intake might be contributing to the disparity, given Black women’s higher levels of lactose intolerance. Indeed, dairy consumption was associated with reduced risk, perhaps, thought researchers, because of the calcium or vitamin D content. Was it possible the women were drinking soy milk instead, and that was increasing their fibroid risk? No. Soy intake was found to be unrelated. The same was found in a group of predominantly white women, though researchers did note a protective association with the amount of lignans flowing through their bodies. Lignans are another class of phytoestrogens found predominantly in flaxseeds but also throughout the plant kingdom. It was hard for the researchers to make any generalizations about the soy phytoestrogens, though, because soy consumption by the subjects was rather low across the board. That research was done in Washington state. Japan, however, has the highest per capita soy consumption in the world, which could allow for a bigger spread of intakes. Researchers had “previously found that soya intake was inversely associated with the risk of hysterectomy,” meaning women who consumed more soy had lower hysterectomy rates, “suggesting a potentially protective effect of soya against uterine fibroids,” the main reason women have their uterus removed. This is consistent with in vitro studies that found that the main soy phytoestrogen seemed to inhibit fibroid tissue proliferation in a petri dish. But when the researchers in Japan specifically looked at that connection, they found there was no evidence of a link to soy at all, protective or otherwise. The same was found in a study from China. As you can see at 3:18 in my video, fruit and vegetable intake was associated with a significantly lower risk of fibroids, but soy food consumption was not. A second study out of China published the same year, however, did find a significant association between soy milk intake and fibroids, which was consistent with three alarming case reports of women with symptomatic fibroids reporting an “unusually high intake of soy milk,” “regularly consuming excessive amounts of soy, or having “an extremely high intake of soy” every day for decades. It’s hard to take these cases seriously when nowhere does it specify how much they were consuming. The only quantitative mention was 40 grams of isoflavones, roughly equivalent to 400 gallons of soy milk every day, which would be excessive, but also impossible. The only way to know for sure is to put it to the test—and not just in a population study or anecdotal reports, but to randomize women to two years of soy phytoestrogens in the amount found in three to five cups of soy milk a day. When researchers did just that, no significant effect on the frequency or growth of fibroids was found. KEY TAKEAWAYS About 25 percent of women will suffer from fibroids, which commonly manifest as excessively heavy periods, pain, or pressure and are the most common reason for hysterectomies. Alcohol consumption, especially beer, is associated with greater risk of fibroids. Fibroids are two to three times more prevalent among Black women, who have higher levels of lactose intolerance. Per capita soy consumption is highest in Japan. Researchers had thought soy may have a potentially protective effect against uterine fibroids, but no evidence of a link to soy was found, whether protective or otherwise. Intake of fruits and vegetables was associated with significantly lower risk, but not soy foods. Researchers randomized women to two years of soy phytoestrogens in the amount found in three to five cups of soymilk a day, and did not find any significant effect on the growth or frequency of fibroids. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here.

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Plant-Based Diet Rich in Soy Reduces Troubling Menopause Symptoms by 84%

AHA Publisher — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 07:00:49 +0000

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine via News-Medical – A new study, published by the North American Menopause Society in the journal Menopause, found a plant-based diet rich in soy reduces moderate-to-severe hot flashes by 84%, from nearly five per day to fewer than one per day. During the 12-week study, nearly 60% of women became totally free of moderate-to-severe hot flashes. Overall hot flashes (including mild ones) decreased by 79%. The study, called the WAVS trial–the Women’s Study for the Alleviation of Vasomotor Symptoms-shows that diet changes can be much more powerful for treating hot flashes than scientists had thought. Vasomotor symptoms refer to night sweats, hot flashes, and flushes. The study used no hormone medications or extracts. Instead, the research team tested a combination of a low-fat plant-based diet plus 1/2 cup of ordinary soybeans added to a salad or soup each day. “This is a game changer for women aged 45 and over, most of whom we now know can get prompt relief from the most severe and troubling menopause symptoms without drugs,” says lead researcher Neal Barnard, MD, president of the Physicians Committee and adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine. As many as 80% of postmenopausal women suffer from hot flashes. Heat wells up from the chest, causing flushing, sweating, and chills. At night, hot flashes interfere with sleep. Estrogen-based medications were once routinely used to treat hot flashes but have been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer and other serious problems. Isoflavoneextracts from soybeans work only modestly, leaving women and their doctors with few effective options. Study Details Postmenopausal women reporting two or more hot flashes per day were randomly assigned to either an intervention group–consisting of a low-fat, vegan diet, including half a cup of cooked soybeans daily–or to a control group that made no diet changes for 12 weeks. Frequency and severity of hot flashes were recorded using a mobile application, and vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, and sexual symptoms were assessed using the Menopause Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL). Each participant was given a digital self-calibrating scale to track body weight day by day, a mobile app to track hot flashes in real time, and an Instant Pot to prepare soybeans at home. Each week, the group got together with the research team via Zoom. “Previous studies have shown that soy could be beneficial, so we decided to put a diet change to the test. We believe that the combination is what is important. By the end of the study, the majority of women on a plant-based diet rich in soy reported that they no longer experienced moderate-to-extreme hot flashes at all and that they experienced significant improvements in their quality of life.” Hana Kahleova, MD, PhD, study author, director of clinical research for the Physicians Committee Key Findings Total hot flashes decreased by 79% and moderate-to-severe hot flashes decreased by 84% in the intervention group. At the study’s conclusion, 59% of intervention-group participants reported becoming free of moderate and severe hot flashes. There was no change in this variable in the control group. In previous randomized trials, soy products have been shown to modestly reduce the frequency of hot flashes. The researchers theorize that the effect may be a result of soy products containing isoflavones, which can be metabolized by gut bacteria into equol–a nonsteroidal compound that has been shown in some studies to reduce the incidence and severity of hot flashes. Previous studies have also shown that those following vegetarian or vegan diets produce higher levels of equol. The new study showed a more robust response, using the combination of a plant-based diet plus soy. Many study participants also reported improvements in sexual symptoms, mood, and overall energy. “This was basically a lifesaver for me,” said one study participant. “I’ve got my quality of life back.” Another said, “I am sleeping better, and my hot flashes diminished tremendously.” Several participants also noticed significant weight loss and better digestion. “Before you jump to any kind of medication, I would try this route, because it’s easy,” a study participant said. “Anybody can do it.” The study was based on the new approach to menopausal symptoms described by Dr. Barnard in his book Your Body in Balance. After the book was released in 2020, a reader contacted Dr. Barnard to let him know that his method eliminated her hot flashes within five days. Rather than using isoflavone extracts or soy foods such as soy milk or tofu, she used whole soybeans. To read the original article click here.

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Eat to Beat Disease: How to Eat for Optimal Health

AHA Publisher — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 08:00:04 +0000

Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DMN, CNS – It’s no secret that what you eat has immense effect on your health, and it turns out you can actually eat to beat disease. No one know this better than Dr. William Li, MD, author of the book “Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Health Itself.” Li has been featured on numerous media outlets, and he’s also the author of over 100 scientific publications, including research published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. He’s also served on faculty at Harvard Medical School and has spent decades practicing medicine. I was lucky enough to talk with Dr. Li on my podcast, where he shared insights on how to combat cancer and other diseases through diet by activating the body’s five health defense systems. Here are his insights on how to eat to beat disease. The Study of Food One of the biggest breakthroughs for Dr. Li during his career was the realization that while the practice of medicine is vital and life-changing, a lot of his formal training focused on treating diseases and little on prevention. “When I went to medical school, I was really taught about health for maybe a few courses, and then everything else was about disease and what we should do to stamp it out, treat it, cut it burn it, give chemotherapy or antibiotics. That’s really how I entered the world of medical practice,” he says. “It is really just waiting for the horse to come out of the barn, which is illness, and then throwing the kitchen sink, ideally, smartly at it. “… I started to realize after many years of practice that the science was advancing so rapidly for treating disease and yet it didn’t seem like it was being applied to actually preventing disease, and you know prevention is really the mirror image of treatment.” Li realized that you can’t really use drugs as a prevention method so in order to focus on disease prevention, he shifted his attention to food. That led him to start researching the effects of food on health in the same manner medical researchers studied drugs, utilizing the same tools and methods to understand just how powerful food can be — and how to eat to beat disease. “I grew up uh eating traditional Asian cuisines and Mediterranean cuisines, whole foods freshly cooked not too much, designed to be really tasty. So I always felt that food was something that sustained me and sustained my well-being,” says Li. “… As an adult on my own eating in the cafeteria or hospital food, traveling around and going to restaurants, I started to realize we’ve actually lost touch with what our own history and cultures actually have given us, which is something pretty elemental that speaks to the body.” The focus for many today is on dieting, which can cause its own issues. Most diets are strict and exclusionary, and that can make them difficult for people to follow and sustain. “I just felt like there’s got to be a better way to do this, and what I discovered is when it comes to food and health, in fact it’s not just about the food — it’s about how our body responds to what we put inside it,” Li says. “You have to understand first before you choose any diet and any food combination how your body responds to keeping your health intact.” What Li found working for more than 30 years with Dr. Judah Folkman, a pioneer in the medical field, is that health is critically dependent on circulation. When circulation is excessive, it can feed diseases like cancer, while lack of circulation can cut off oxygen and nutrients to tissues so they die off — which in turn can promote disease. “Lab research has shown when a cancer that doesn’t have a blood supply suddenly gets one, that tiny little tumor can grow 16,000 times in only a couple of weeks. That’s enough to kill somebody. That’s led to the development of more than 18 medicines that cancer doctors use to cut off the blood supply to cancers,” Li says. “Using the same tools to discover medicines that can interfere to cut off a blood supply to starve a cancer, I’ve actually been able to test food, and when you test food in those systems, you can test them head-to-head, side-by-side, you wind up seeing that green tea, soy, lavender, citrus fruits, broccoli — they can stand up right next to cancer drugs.” The 5 Health Defense Systems The body is designed to protect health, while environmental factors all around are trying to get in. “Think of our body as a fortress. If you remember a medieval castle, you got the moat, you got the tall, sloping walls, you’ve got the little slits in the walls where people could shoot arrows out, you’ve got the little tiger traps, little holes with spikes in middle it, you got the winding staircases — all these things. A fortress is designed to protect itself from invaders,” says Li. “That is exactly our body except that rather than stone structures or spears, it’s actually biology.” There are five main health defense systems, according to Li: Blood or circulation/angiogenesis — The body grows blood vessels that feed every cell in the body. Stem cells in bone marrow — Help us heal from the inside out and regenerate our organs as we age or when we’re injured. Microbiome — This is the healthy gut bacteria, and humans have almost 40 trillion gut bacteria. “You know how a pregnant mom says, ‘I’m eating for two?’ We’re eating for 40 trillion, and that’s leading to a whole new insight into what we eat and how it impacts our gut defense,” says Li. DNA — Our DNA is hardwired to protect us against the assaults from the environment. Immune system — “It is more powerful than we ever thought because we now know that even an elderly person in their 80s, their immune system is so powerful that it can not only help resist infection, but it can help resist cancer as well.” “These five health defense systems are at play all the time, and when we sit down to eat something we are either building up and fortifying and boosting these defense systems or we’re taking it down and destroying it, ” says Li. “Everybody who thinks about food and health according to the traditional ways that have been everywhere for the last few decades, it’s about what program should I get into and what things should I cut out and what do I need to eat every single day. Here’s the news flash, which is good news: There’s no one size fits all. It’s about our individual preference, what our bodies seek, what we enjoy — and by the way, the enjoyment’s really important because if you can pick something that’s healthy that you enjoy, then you are already ahead of the game.” How to Eat to Beat Disease In “Eat to Beat Disease,” Dr. Li touches on 200 foods that can help boost immunity and activate the health defense systems. Here are some of the top foods to eat to beat disease: 1. Soy “There’s a belief out there that soy is actually dangerous for your health because it can cause breast cancer, and we believe this because there’s a plant estrogen in soy that we know is there, and we know that some types of human breast cancers can be activated by human estrogen. However, if you look at soy plant estrogen vs. human estrogen, they don’t look anything alike, and it turns out the science shows us that plant estrogens actually counter the effects of human estrogens so they actually block human estrogens almost like a drug does,” says Li. “There’s a study of 500 women who already have breast cancer, and it was studied that those women with breast cancer who actually ate more soy had better survival — they had about a 30 percent reduced risk of dying from breast cancer — and those who ate more soy were able to decrease the risk of having the cancer come back.” A note is to be wary of highly processed foods, including in soy products. A lot of soy milk is overly processed and contains unnecessary and sometimes harmful additives. That’s why I’m a proponent of natto, a fermented soy. It’s also why I’m in favor of fresh foods instead of buying juiced foods. Eating blueberries or an apple vs. buying blueberry juice or apple juice — it’s better to eat the whole, fresh fruit that hasn’t been processed or had any unhealthy ingredients added. Flaxseeds have a similar compound as soy that can protect against disease, along with lavender, vitex, clary sage. They can actually balance estrogen. 2. Tomatoes “There’s a lot of people out there saying tomatoes are harmful because they’re related to the nightshade plant,” says Li. “In fact, tomatoes don’t have any of the poisons of nightshade, and in fact there is a really important natural chemical called lycopene which is present in tomato. “Lycopene in tomato has been studied. There’s a study of 35,000 men, and they looked at their intake of tomatoes, cooked tomatoes, and found that those men who ate two to three servings of cooked tomatoes actually had up to a 30 percent lowered risk of developing prostate cancer. “In those men who did develop prostate cancer, the more tomatoes they ate, the less aggressive their prostate cancer because lycopene is anti-andorgenic, which means it cuts off the blood supply feeding cancers. It starves cancer in this really remarkable way.” 3. Green Tea Drink two-plus cups of green tea a day. It floods the system with natural bioactive chemicals that come from the tea plant that can actually cut off the blood supply to tumors, actually even kill cancer stem cells. It also protects blood vessels. 4. Tree Nuts Pistachios, almonds, cashews, macadamias and walnuts are some of the best options. “A major study of over 700 people from the American Society of Clinical Oncology showed that people who ate a couple handfuls of walnuts a day, about 15, a week actually had up to a 50 percent reduction in death if they had stage 3 colon cancer, and if they had their cancer successfully treated, it also markedly decreased the risk fo their cancer coming back,” shares Li. “A couple handfuls of nuts as a snack is a really great way to reduce your risk of cancer. “It turns out nuts not only have healthy omega-3 fatty acids that can cut off the blood supply feeding cancer cells, but they also have insoluble fiber. They’re a great source of fiber. “This insoluble fiber feeds our microbiome and activates our immune system. It lowers inflammation, which lowers cancer risk.” What Does Dr. Li Eat to Beat Disease? First and foremost, Dr. Li stresses “there’s no single food you need to eat all the time. It’s eating diversity, mostly plant-based foods, minimal processing like ultra-processed foods and cutting down on your meat also reduces your risk of cancer as well.” Instead, he says to focus on dietary patterns, such as the Mediterranean dietand traditional Asian diets. In addition, he likes to focus on plant-based foods and tries to build his meals around a vegetable. So what does Dr. Li typically eat to beat disease each day? Breakfast “When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is reach for either green tea or coffee,” Li says. “Coffee contains caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, all these natural bioactives that are amazingly healthy for you. They increase your telomeres, which slows down cellular aging. They’re anti-androgenic so they cut off the blood supply feeding cancers, and they make our blood vessels actually healthier. Many lower the risk of dementia. “… I’ll have tea or coffee every day. Every day...

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10 Warning Signs of a Food Allergy in Children and Adults

AHA Publisher — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 08:00:03 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – Food allergy is on the rise – in a big way. According to Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE), the prevalence of food allergy in children increased by a whopping 50 percent between 1997 and 2011. As it stands now, 1 in 13 American kids and 1 in 10 American adults have at least one food allergy. Now, new research published in Cell adds to the mounting pile of evidence that shows environmental toxins, processed food, and other modern-day factors are partly to blame for this growing public health concern. Too Much of the ‘Bad” and Not Enough of the “Good” Cause the Food Allergy Epidemic Among Children A food allergy is an inappropriate immune system response to proteins in food that are normally harmless. Common foods known to trigger allergic reactions include wheat, soy, sesame, egg, tree nuts, peanuts, and shellfish. Why are so many more people suffering allergic reactions to food these days? A team of Yale researchers recently investigated this very question. Based on immunobiological data, they’ve proposed several concepts. First, modern Americans are exposed to a significant amount of environmental chemicals, like pesticides, additives in processed foods, and even dishwashing detergent. These toxins, the researchers say, naturally trigger protective reactions from the immune system. Unfortunately, since compounds are frequently in or on the food we eat, the immune system may also begin mistakenly attacking proteins in food as if the proteins themselves were toxic – a phenomenon that the study’s co-author Ruslan Medzhitov has referred to as “guilt by association.” Second, many Americans aren’t being exposed to various parasites, and bacteria normally present in the environment, thanks to the overuse of antibacterial soaps, antibiotics, and other excessive hygiene practices. But natural microbial exposure is actually an important way for the human immune system to learn how to protect itself and neutralize real threats. Plus, natural exposure to environmental microorganisms supports a healthy, diverse, and robust gut microbiome, which is closely tied to immune health. So, in our overly-sterilized environment, many people’s immune systems are becoming hypersensitive, and their gut bacteria are being thrown out of balance – making their immune systems more likely to respond inappropriately to otherwise harmless food proteins. In other words: Foods are becoming intolerable to a growing number of people because we are constantly being exposed to more of what isn’t helpful (toxins, chemicals) and less of what is helpful (microorganisms naturally found in the environment). This suggests, of course, that minimizing our exposure to toxins, avoiding processed foods, and resisting the urge to excessively sterilize our surroundings are all useful strategies for reducing the risk of food allergy. Know These 10 Warning Signs and Symptoms of a Food Allergy Most people who have a food allergy will experience symptoms within a few minutes after consuming the food, although some symptoms take several days to develop. Look out for these symptoms: Hives (raised, itchy, and/or red skin rash) Tingling or itching in the mouth Abdominal pain Diarrhea Nausea and/or vomiting Hay fever-like symptoms (e.g., sneezing, itchy eyes) Difficulty swallowing Shortness of breath or wheezing Swelling around the mouth and face Dizziness or lightheadedness Some of these symptoms – including dizziness, swelling of the mouth or tongue, dizziness, and difficulty breathing – could indicate anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis is a serious and life-threatening allergic reaction that affects about 1 in 50 Americans. Bottom line: Do not take these symptoms lightly. Call your healthcare provider or, if you must, 911 immediately if you or a loved one experiences any of these symptoms. Remember, fast action can be lifesaving. Sources for this article include: ScienceDaily.com Cell.com NHS.uk Foodallergy.org To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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Can Soy Prevent and Treat Prostate Cancer?

AHA Publisher — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 08:00:34 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via NutritionFacts – As I discuss in my video The Role of Soy Foods in Prostate Cancer Prevention and Treatment, a compilation of 13 observational studies on soy food consumption and the risk of prostate cancer found that soy foods appear to be “protective.” What are observational studies? As opposed to interventional studies, in observational studies, researchers observe what people are eating but don’t intervene and try to change their diets. In these studies, they observed that men who ate more soy foods had lower rates of prostate cancer, but the problem with observational studies is that there could be confounding factors. For example, “people who choose to eat soy also make other lifestyle decisions that lower the risk of cancer (e.g., lower fat intake, higher vegetable and fruit intake, more frequent exercise),” maybe that is why they have less cancer. Most of the studies tried to control for these other lifestyle factors, but you can’t control for everything. What’s more, most of the studies were done in Asia, so maybe tofu consumption is just a sign of eating a more traditional diet. Is it possible that the reason non-tofu consumers got more cancer is that they had abandoned their traditional diet? If only we could look at a Western population that ate a lot of soy. We can: the Seventh-Day Adventists. In the 1970s, more than 12,000 Adventist men were asked about their use of soy milk and then were followed for up to 16 years to see who got cancer and who did not. So, what did they find? Frequent consumption of soy milk was associated with a whopping 70 percent reduction of the risk of prostate cancer, as you can see at 1:33 in my video. Similarly, in a multiethnic study that involved a number of groups, soy intake appeared protective in Latinos, too. Prostate cells carry beta type estrogen receptors, which appear to act as a tumor suppressor, a kind of “gatekeeper…inhibiting invasion, proliferation and…preventing” the prostate cells from turning cancerous. And, those are the receptors targeted by the phytoestrogens in soy, like genistein, which inhibits prostate cancer cell invasion and spread in a petri dish at the kind of levels one might get consuming soy foods. The prevention of metastases is critical, as death from prostate cancer isn’t caused by the original tumor, but its spread throughout the body, which explains why it “is recommended that men with prostate cancer consume soy foods, such as soybeans, tofu, miso and tempeh.” Wait a moment. Dean Ornish and his colleagues got amazing results, apparently reversing the progression of prostate cancer with a plant-based diet and lifestyle program. Was it because of the soy? Their study didn’t just include a vegan diet, but a vegan diet supplemented with a daily serving of tofu and a soy protein isolate powder. There have been studies showing that men given soy protein powders develop less prostate cancer than the control group, but what was the control group getting? Milk protein powder. Those randomized to the milk group got six times more prostate cancer than the soy group, but was that due to the beneficial effects of soy or the deleterious effects of the dairy? Dairy products are not just associated with getting prostate cancer, but also with dying from prostate cancer. Men diagnosed with prostate cancer who then ate more dairy tended to die sooner, and “both low-fat and high-fat dairy consumption were positively associated with an increased risk of fatal outcome.” The best study we have on soy protein powder supplementation for prostate cancer patients found no significant benefit, and neither did a series of soy phytoestrogen dietary supplements. But, perhaps that’s because they used isolated soy components rather than a whole soy food. “Taking the whole-food approach may be more efficacious,” but it can be hard to do controlled studies with whole foods: You can make fake pills, but how do you give people placebo tofu? A group of Australian researchers creatively came up with a specially manufactured bread containing soy grits to compare to a placebo regular bread and gave slices to men diagnosed with prostate cancer awaiting surgery. As you can see at 4:31 in my video, they saw a remarkable difference in just about three weeks time. It was the first study to show that a diet incorporating a whole soy food could favorably affect prostate cancer markers, but you can’t just go out and buy soy grit bread. Another study was a little more practical. Twenty men with prostate cancer who had been treated with radiation or surgery but seemed to be relapsing were asked to drink three cups of regular soy milk a day. The PSA levels in each of the 20 patients were all rising before they started the soy milk, suggesting they had relapsing or metastatic cancer growing inside of them. However, during a year drinking soy milk, 6 out of the 20 subjects got better, 2 got worse, and the remaining 12 remained unchanged, as you can see from 5:02 in my video. So, they concluded that soy food may help in a subset of patients. Based on all these studies, the results Ornish and his colleagues got were probably due to more than just the soy. Similarly, the low prostate cancer rates in Asia are probably because of more than just the soy, since the lowest rates are also found in parts of Africa, where I don’t think they’re eating a lot of tofu. Indeed, in the multiethnic study, other types of beans besides soy also appeared protective for Latinos and all the groups put together, when looking at the most aggressive forms of prostate cancer. So, the protection associated with plant-based diets may be due to eating a variety of healthy foods. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Greger click here.

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How Phytoestrogens Can have Anti-Estrogenic Effects

AHA Publisher — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 08:00:53 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – When the Women’s Health Initiative study found that menopausal women taking hormone replacement therapy suffered “higher rates of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and overall harm,” a call was made for safer alternatives. Yes, the Women’s Health Initiative found that estrogen does have positive effects, such as reducing menopausal symptoms, improving bone health, and reducing hip fracture risk, but negative effects were also found, such as increasing the blood clots in the heart, brain, and lungs, as well as breast cancer. Ideally, to get the best of both worlds, we’d need what’s called a selective estrogen receptor modulator—something with pro-estrogenic effects in some tissues like bone but at the same time anti-estrogenic effects in other tissues like the breast. Drug companies are trying to make these, but phytoestrogens, which are natural compounds in plants, appear to function as natural selective estrogen receptor modulators. An example is genistein, which is found in soybeans, which happen to be structurally similar to estrogen. How could something that looks like estrogen act as an anti-estrogen? The original theory for how soy phytoestrogens control breast cancer growth is that they compete with our own estrogens for binding to the estrogen receptor. As more and more soy compounds are dripped onto breast cancer cells in a petri dish, less and less actual estrogen is able to bind to them. So, the estrogen-blocking ability of phytoestrogens can help explain their anti-estrogenic effects. How do we then explain their pro-estrogenic effects on other tissues like bone? How can soy have it both ways? The mystery was solved when it was discovered there are two different types of estrogen receptors in the body and the way in which a target cell responds depends on which type of estrogen receptor they have. The existence of this newly discovered estrogen receptor, named “estrogen receptor beta…to distinguish it from the ‘classical’ estrogen receptor alpha,” may be the “key to understanding the health-protective potential of soy” phytoestrogens. And, unlike our body’s own estrogen, soy phytoestrogens preferentially bind to the beta receptors. For instance, within eight hours or so of eating about a cup of cooked whole soybeans, genistein levels in the blood reach about 20 to 50 nanomoles. That’s how much is circulating throughout our body, bathing our cells. About half is bound up to proteins in the blood, so the effective concentration is about half the 20 to 50 nanomoles. What does that mean for estrogen receptor activation? In my video Who Shouldn’t Eat Soy?, I feature a graph explaining the mysterious health benefits of soy foods. Around the effective levels we would get from eating a cup of soybeans, there is very little alpha activation, but lots of beta activation. What do we find when we look at where each of these receptors are located in the human body? The way estrogen pills increase the risk of fatal blood clots is by causing the liver to dump out extra clotting factors. But guess what? The human liver contains only alpha estrogen receptors, not beta receptors. So, perhaps eating 30 cups or so of soybeans a day could be a problem, but, at the kinds of concentrations we would get with just normal soy consumption, it’s no wonder this is a problem with drug estrogens but not soy phytoestrogens. The effects on the uterus also appear to be mediated solely by alpha receptors, which is presumably why no negative impact has been seen with soy. So, while estrogen-containing drugs may increase the risk of endometrial cancer up to ten-fold, phytoestrogen-containing foods are associated with significantly less endometrial cancer. In fact, protective effects are found for these types of gynecological cancers in general: Women who ate the most soy had 30 percent less endometrial cancer and appeared to cut their ovarian cancer risk nearly in half. Soy phytoestrogens don’t appear to have any effect on the lining of the uterus and can still dramatically improve some of the 11 most common menopausal symptoms (as compiled by the Kupperman Index). In terms of bone health, human bone cells carry beta estrogen receptors, so we might expect soy phytoestrogens to be protective. And, indeed, they do seem to “significantly increase bone mineral density,” which is consistent with population data suggesting that “[h]igh consumption of soy products is associated with increased bone mass…” But can soy phytoestrogens prevent bone loss over time? In a two-year study, soymilk was compared to a transdermal progesterone cream. The control group lost significant bone mineral density in their spine over the two years, but the progesterone group lost significantly less than that. The group drinking two glasses of soymilk a day, however, actually ended up even better than when they started. In what is probably the most robust study to date, researchers compared the soy phytoestrogen genistein to a more traditional hormone replacement therapy (HRT) regimen. Over one year, in the spine and hip bones, the placebo group lost bone density, while it was gained in both the soy phytoestrogen and HRT estrogen groups. The “study clearly shows that genistein prevents bone loss…and enhances new bone formation…in turn producing a net gain of bone mass.” The main reason we care about bone mass is that we want to prevent fractures. Is soy food consumption associated with lower fracture risk? Yes. In fact, a significantly lower risk of bone fracture is associated with just a single serving of soy a day, the equivalent of 5 to 7 grams of soy protein or 20 to 30 milligrams of phytoestrogens, which is about a cup of soymilk or, even better, a serving of a whole soy food like tempeh, edamame, or the beans themselves. We don’t have fracture data on soy supplements, though. “If we seek to derive the types of health benefits we presume Asian populations get from eating whole and traditional soy foods,” maybe we should look to eating those rather than taking unproven protein powders or pills. Is there anyone who should avoid soy? Yes, if you have a soy allergy. That isn’t very common, though. A national survey found that only about 1 in 2,000 people report a soy allergy, which is 40 times less than the most common allergen, dairy milk, and about 10 times less than all the other common allergens, such as fish, eggs, shellfish, nuts, wheat, or peanuts. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here. For more articles by Dr. Greger click here.

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