August 4, 2008 Research Update
ByJames Bogash,D.C.Mesa,AZ
info@lifecarechiropractic.com
www.lifecarechiropractic.com
Health focus of control in patients with epilepsy and its relationship to anxiety, depression, and seizure control.
This article gets into some touchy, but very important, aspects of health. The bottom line, regardless of all other factors, is that we are in control of our own health. With a very few purely genetic associations, whatever happens to us is a result of the decisions that we make. Period. We and not anyone else, are responsible for our health. Many disease states will never be managed effectively until that patient “buys into” the fact that their health outcomes depend NOT on their doctor giving them the right medication or surgical procedure, but rather on their own choices. This article found that epileptic patients who had a higher internal locus of control had better seizure control. Keep in mind that much of mainstream medicine does not foster this independent thinking, but rather that your disease is a result of “bad luck” of the gene draw and there really isn’t anything you can do for it but take this pill. Read More.
Dietary Flavonoid Intake and Breast Cancer Survival.
Having a family member currently dealing with cancer, I can attest from firsthand experience that the discussion of anything outside of chemotherapy and radiation that may positively effect outcome is never discussed. Given the dire consequences of not staying current on the medical literature when it comes to oncology, this is absolutely NOT an acceptable situation. In this study alone, one of thousands finding protective effects of lifestyle, breast cancer patients with a higher intake of flavonoids had a better chance of survival. Specifically when comparing highest vs lowest intakes, flavones (found in certain spices, celery, citrus peels) showed 37% reduction in death, isoflavones (found in soy) showed a 48% reduction and anthocyanidins (found in berries) showed a 36% reduction. I find the isoflavone relationship interesting given that many oncologists tell their breast cancer patients to avoid soy. In this study of 1210 breast cancer patient isoflavones had a massive protective effect on the outcome. Read More.
Gastric Cancer Risk and Erythrocyte Composition of Docosahexaenoic Acid with Anti-inflammatory Effects.
Just in case you think I’m making all this “cancer diet” stuff up, here’s another study strongly linking the highly unsaturated fat (most notably the DHA omega-3 fatty acid) levels in red blood cells to gastric cancer. Although this was a small study with 179 cancer and 357 controls, the associations were incredibly strong. The highest RBC highly unsaturated fat level vs the lowest levels had a 61% lowered risk of gastric cancer. Even more incredible, the risk of having a well-differentiated adenocarcinoma (the type of gastric cancer more closely associated with H. pylori infection), was 90% lower. 90%. If we could find any drug that could lower the risk of a type of cancer by 90% it would have all the shareholders of that drug company owning their own islands. Read More.
Association of Dietary Intake of Soy, Beans, and Isoflavones With Risk of Cerebral and Myocardial Infarctions in Japanese Populations.
As I’ve mentioned before, there is no shortage of “deadly soy” articles all over the internet. Unfortunately, this just does NOT agree with the medical literature. Again, in this study we see some very drastic reductions for women in heart attacks and strokes with higher intakes of soy. With soy intakes greater than 5 times per week, the reduction in stroke risk was 36%, heart attacks 45% and for cardiac death 69%. These are massive reductions. Compare this to the statin class of drugs, with huge costs and serious side effects, and NO reduction in cardiac mortality. It is also likely that the intake of soy in this study really correlates with the adoption of a more plant-based diet. Read More.
Insulin Metabolism is Altered in Migraineurs: A New Pathogenic Mechanism for Migraine?
One of the major problems with the way we treat headaches in this system of medicine is that we never step back and ask “why” this headache is occurring. Nope–just given some medication to suppress the signal the brain is sending out. The problem with this approach is that we know that migraine patients are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke. This article just adds further weight to the idea that just treating the headache is flat out wrong. This study finds that patients with migraines had higher insulin levels, indicating some degree of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance will lead to problems getting glucose into some cells, like the neurons. Less glucose means less efficient energy production. Less energy means a sick neuron. And who wants sick brain cells? The ONLY treatment for headaches is a whole body approach. Read More.
Interactions between oxidative stress and inflammation in salt-sensitive hypertension.
While this was a rat study, it does raise the question of whether salt, by itself, is truly an issue at all with hypertension. And given that reducing salt intake does not produce much bang for the buck anyway, it is surprising how much we hang our “hat” on this recommendation. Truly, high sodium intake is likely to be a marker for intake of processed foods. More processed foods will have little or no redox potential. This correlates strongly with the findings in this study, suggesting that antioxidants attenuate the kidney damage that occurs from high salt intake. Read More.
L-Carnitine treatment reduces severity of physical and mental fatigue and increases cognitive functions in centenarians.
While the results of this study seem pretty amazing, the bottom line is that L-carnitine is necessary for fatty acids to be shuttled into the mitochondria to be burned for energy. So, basically, all the researchers did was increase the ability of these patients to create ATP and energy for the cells. In addition to supplementation with L-carnitine, exercise, higher phytonutrient diet, low stress and a hundred other interventions will positively effect this same pathway. Read More.
Calcium intake and hip fracture risk in men and women.
I’ve never really been a strong supporter in the use of calcium to strengthen bones. Worse yet, I cringe every time I hear a dairy commercial claiming that milk gives you strong bones and muscles. This is a very large meta analysis (almost 171,111 women and 67,000 men) that did not find any association between calcium intake and fracture risk. So why is this? Haven’t we been heavily brainwashed into taking our Tums for calcium and drink 15 servings of dairy per day and our bones will set off the metal detectors at the airports? I’m not sure how much of this is the dairy industry’s doing, but consider this. We have large amounts of evidence on the benefits of Vitamin D across just about every disease state. But, for Vit D to protect us, it has to get converted to its active form, calcitriol. Conversion to calcitriol is controlled by calcium levels. Low calcium = better conversion to the active form = more protection from calcitriol. The reverse is true for low calcium. So it is highly possible that a high calcium diet (such as dairy) would actually create great harm by lowering the conversion of Vit D to its active form. The more this has come to light, the more I have recommended good levels of Vit D coupled with a good quality diet with an overall adequate source of calcium. Let the body use the active form of Vit D to absorb the calcium it needs and we’re all going to be better off long term. Read More.
Early protein intake and later obesity risk: which protein sources at which time points throughout infancy and childhood are important for body mass index and body fat percentage at 7 y of age?
We have a perception in this society that the foods we eat today will have an effect on us in a few days, weeks or months, but the association with our health years down the line is very poor. Unfortunately, the choices we make today have massive implications for future health. In this particular study, animal based proteins at 12 months led to an increased risk of being overweight at 7 years. And yes, dairy was particularly bad. Read More.
Declining Wild Salmon Populations in Relation to Parasites from Farm Salmon.
It is very rare that a server in a restaurant understands that there is a significant difference between farm raised and wild caught salmon. One server even thought that “Atlantic salmon” on the menu grown in aquifers in a river (must’ve been the “Atlantic” river….) but fed corn are a good thing. Farm raised are generally fed corn (high in omega-6 instead of the omega-3 we associate with fish) and given a dye for the pink color. No comparison to wild caught. Now, in this article, we find that the growing of farm fish is creating a hazard for wild caught salmon. Yet ANOTHER reason not to eat or support farm raised. Read More.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Since acquiring a passion for how the body works in chiropractic school, I have continued to indulge this desire by reading some 120 peer reviewed medical journals per month. I’m always learning more about how to help people avoid chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, dementia, osteoporosis, obesity and cancer, and pass along this information in my blog. There are currently almost 2,000 posts cataloged on almost every health topic imaginable. Click Here for more bio information
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