IBS Linked to Microplastics

 

Concerns about microplastic particles making their way into the human food chain have been growing for years and now recent research done at China's Nanjing University reports that people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) - including ulcerative colitis and Crones disease - have 50% higher levels of microplastics in their stools than those without these conditions.

Microplastics come from a variety of sources, including from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces. In addition, microbeads, a type of microplastic, are very tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added as exfoliants to health and beauty products, such as some cleansers and toothpastes. These tiny particles easily pass through water filtration systems and end up in the ocean and Great Lakes, posing a potential threat to aquatic life. From there they make their way into the human food and water supplies.

"Human ingestion of microplastics is inevitable due to the ubiquity of microplastics in various foods and drinking water," they study says. The Chinese study shows correlation and not direct causality. "Whether the ingestion of microplastics poses a substantial risk to human health is far from understood," say the study authors. But they estimate that on average humans ingest the equivalent of one credit card's worth of plastic every week.

Exercise and Prostate Cancer

 

Exercise oncology is an evolving science that considers the addition of physical activity regimens to the treatment plans of cancer patients and survivors. Studies in this field demonstrate the significance of exercise for cancer patients during and after treatment. A recent study done at Edith Cowan University in Australia and published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that prostate cancer patients undergoing standard androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) who participated in a three-month exercise program including resistance training, aerobic exercise, and protein supplementation had increased levels of OSM, a myokine protein. After applying the OSM serum directly to prostate cancer cells, researchers observed significant suppression of tumor growth. 

While this trial only included 10 patients, the results suggest that exercise-driven myokines can suppress tumor growth and, moreover, the same myokines help fight prostate cancer cells.  These findings also indicate that exercise may promote a cancer suppressive environment within the prostate. 

While the researchers believe that additional studies are needed to clarify the impact of specific exercises on myokine expression, high-intensity resistance training should be included in treatment for any type of cancer. Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men in the United States and it is estimated that close to 250,000 prostate cancer diagnoses occured in 2021.  Validation of the potential benefits of easy to implement measures like exercise intervention could give many of these patients a boost in fighting the disease.

 

Does Fast Food Make You Dumber?

 

It is already old news that fast food is probably best avoided. Now a study of 1,300 children between the ages of six and 11 by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and published in Environmental Pollution has more good news for fast food fans. Eating it regularly lowers standard measures of intelligence in children.

Even after correcting for other factors such as air pollution, environmental chemicals and 84 other lifestyle factors, scores for fluid intelligence (ability to solve novel reasoning problems) and working memory (ability of the brain to retain new information while it is needed in the short term) were higher among those children who ate the most organic foods and lowest among those including the most fast food in their normal diet.

The explanation for this association may be that “healthy diets, including organic diets, are richer than fast food diets in nutrients necessary for the brain, such as fatty acids, vitamins and antioxidants, which together may enhance cognitive function in childhood,” commented lead author Jordi Júlvez. To date, there has been little research on the relationship between type of diet and cognitive function, but fast food intake has been associated with lower academic performance and some studies have also reported positive associations between organic diets and executive function scores. So maybe its "just a theory"?

More than 70% of Imported Olive Oil Isn't

 

Thanks to the genuine and well known health benefits of olive oil, worldwide demand has skyrocketed in recent years. Genuine, 100% pure extra virgin olive oil is expensive, so sadly, but not surprisingly, scammers and actual criminal organizations have seized on this as an opportunity. 

Criminals in Italy and Greece have been raking in fortunes by selling massive amounts of counterfeit olive oils, mostly to North America. 60 Minutes recently cautioned that you face a "sea of fakes" when you shop for olive oil in the grocery store. Food journalist Alicia Upton reported that even in Italy up to 50% of the olive oils in supermarkets are fakes and the percentage is closer to 75% in the US market. The New Yorker Magazine reported that profits from counterfeiting olive oil are "comparable to cocaine trafficking with none of the risks."

The problem is not confined to generic brands. Colavita, Star, Bertolli, Filippo Berio, Pompeian and other name brands failed International Olive Council testing 73% of the time. Thirty-three people were recently arrested in Italy for fraudulently exporting olive oil. Investigators allege that the Calabrian mafia is a “major player in agromafia, including an elaborate olive oil scheme.” Per The Olive Oil Times, investigators report that the Piromalli clan has been, "labeling low-quality, adulterated oil products as extra virgin olive oil and exporting it to the U.S."

So what can you do to protect yourself from paying top prices for inferior oils? The North American Olive Oil Association's Olive Oil Quality Seal program conducts random testing and certifies oils shown to be genuine. You can find a list of them here. Generally, olive oils produced in California are reliable.

Such is the world in which we live.

 

If Not Metabolism, Then What??

 

 

So yesterday I talked about how blaming your metabolism for being overweight is a fools errand. The culprit is your brain, and the way you have let it train you to live. You can't take a magic pill that resets your metabolism and allows you to lose weight while sitting on the couch watching Lipozene commercials. The standard advice to burn more calories than you consume through diet and exercise is still right on target. But for most people it isn't really very helpful (if it was no one would be overweight).

So here are some lifestyle tips from Herman Pontzer, a professor of anthropology at Duke University and author of several books on healthy, sustainable weight loss.

Pick a Diet. Any Diet. The bottom line is that any diet will cause you to lose weight so long as it reduces the number of calories you consume to below the number that you burn each day. Even the high-sugar, high fat Twinkie Diet (done to prove that ANY diet in a calorie deficit will cause weight loss, 27 pounds in 10 weeks, in this case). So what is the best diet for you? The one you can stick with forever. That being said, it is healthiest to eat foods that are filling and nutritious - vegetables, fruit, meat and fish. Any calories that are not burned, no matter what type of food they come from, end up being stored as fat.

Reduce Temptations. If you are craving half a bag of Doritos but there are none in your house, you have a pretty good chance of not eating them. (Yes, you can run to the grocery store, but will you really do that?) On the other hand, if there is a bag in the pantry, odds are it will be half gone in an hour. Don't stock foods you want to avoid.

Alter Your Rituals. A lot of the eating we do is simply habit and ritual and we do it without even really thinking about it. A doughnut or fast food McBlubber Sandwich for breakfast. A sugary desert after dinner. A salty, fat laden snack while watching TV. These are habits, and your brain loves habits. Change the food or change the habit. (Easier said than done yes, but I never said it was easy. Just possible.)

Your Scale is Your Friend. Despite what you may have heard, weighing yourself every day, or at least on a regular schedule, will make your weight loss efforts more likely to pay off. This simple, 10 second action makes you much, much more aware of where you stand (no pun intended) and what you are eating.

Exercise. Ok, you knew this one was coming. But there is a reason it is always on these lists. Beside helping you fend off heart disease, diabetes, cancers, dementia and a long list of other diseases and conditions, it burns calories. That means you can eat more than you could without exercising and still be in deficit and lose weight!

Have a Plan. Most people who try to lose weight succeed. That's right, they do. For a while. But over 90% of them end up regaining the weight they lost, and often more. To avoid regaining those pounds you worked so hard to lose requires a lifelong change of habits. Figure that part out at the start. Or save yourself the effort.

For most of my adult life (am am 70 years old) I was 20# to 50# overweight. Two years ago I adopted this approach, lost the extra weight and have kept it off ever since. Seriously, I am not special. If I can, you can. 

Drop a comment if you want the details of how I did it.

Don't Blame Metabolism

 

People have been blaming metabolism for their difficulty in losing weight for as long as people have been having difficulty loosing weight. As Eric Cartman would always say on South Park, "I'm not fat I'm just big boned." In fact, metabolism is not really to blame.

What is metabolism anyway?

Metabolism is blanket term that describes all the work that your cells do and the energy (in calories) that your body expends doing it. Most of this work involves moving molecules through the cell walls and converting one type of molecule into another through processes like digestion and respiration. The total calories your body burns each day is the sum of two things: the energy you expend at rest simply maintaining your bodily functions (your basal metabolic rate), and the calories your muscles burn when you are engaged in some activity (walking, exercise, looking for the remote). 

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) can vary by 200 calories or so between similar people because of your individual body composition. Tall people burn a little more than short people, lean people burn a bit less than heavier ones. And some people just burn a little more energy than others. But in the scheme of things, that 200 calories is not the challenge when it comes to losing weight.

Blaming a "low metabolism" for difficulty losing weight is a fundamental misunderstanding of how metabolism works. In fact, the culprit is your brain. The hypothalamus specifically. Our bodies have evolved to store excess calories (those consumed above what your BRM and activity burn) as fat. In the past, this was a backup for when food might be scarce. And the hypothalamus worries a lot about that. It doesn't want to let go of the "rainy day" fat supply. It is very good at making you compensate for any increase in energy use (calories burned) by increasing your sense of hunger.

It is fairly well established that people around the world have roughly the same BMR, give or take a little. And yet some societies are lean while others are... well, fat. But to understand why, you don't need to evoke metabolism at all.

The typical processed, packaged foods at our supermarkets have eliminated fiber, protein and just about anything that will make you feel full and satisfied. Sugar, fat, salt and artificial everything are added to light up your brain's reward system (dopamine receptors) when you eat it. And in the USA, food is everywhere.

Despite what promoters of foods and diet plans might say, it is simply not possible to "supercharge", "boost", "ramp up" or "reset" your metabolism. If you want to lose weight, you are going to have to do it the old fashioned way - consume fewer calories than you burn. Fortunately, there are ways to do this that can thwart your hypothalamus. I'll talk about them tomorrow.

Salt Substitutes

 

Salt is so pervasive, our entire food supply is so loaded with salt, that trying to reduce your sodium intake can seem almost impossible. So it is not surprising that many people have turned to a salt substitute products for help. Most salt substitutes make use of potassium chloride, which has a taste very much like sodium chloride - aka salt.

There is some evidence that switching to a substitute can lower your blood pressure as well as lower your risk of heart attack and stroke. Many people are deficient in dietary potassium, which helps regulate nerve impulses, metabolism, and blood pressure, so potassium-based salt substitutes can help there as well. But the news is not all good.

If your blood potassium level gets too high it can produce a number of problems. Having too much potassium in your blood is known as hyperkalemia, which can lead to complications in your heart and other areas of your body. The symptoms of high potassium may be unnoticeable to you. You may only find out that you have hyperkalemia after routine blood tests.

A better approach would be to cut back on processed and restaurant foods, which supply over 70% of the sodium in the American diet. That's right, most sodium does not come from your salt shaker. If you still think a salt substitute would benefit you, talk with your healthcare provider about the pros and cons.