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June 2007 vol. 12 no. 6

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
- Abraham Lincoln 16th President of the United States


Table of Contents:

Warning: Soft Drinks May Seriously Harm You

You may want to think twice before you sip another soft drink: research reported in the UK’s Independent newspaper says a common preservative used in fizzy drinks can switch off essential parts of DNA. The preservative may bring on premature aging and trigger diseases associated with old age.

The problem preservative is sodium benzoate, commonly used for many years by the $160 billion worldwide soft drink industry. Sodium benzoate, derived from benzoic acid, prevents mold in drinks like Coca-Cola, Oasis, Dr. Pepper, etc., and is also used in pickles and sauces.

Alarm bells have already been ringing about it, because it’s been discovered that when it’s mixed with vitamin C in soft drinks, it creates the carcinogenic substance benzene. Now UK Professor Peter Piper of Sheffield University has sounded an even louder alarm — his experiments show that benzoate damages DNA in the energy-producing mitochondria of cells.

“These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether,” Piper said. “The mitochondria consume oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA—Parkinson’s and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing.”

The World Health Organization, the Food Standards Agency in the UK, and the US Food and Drug Administration all say that sodium benzoate is safe. Professor Piper, however, says that FDA tests are out of date.

“The food industry will say these compounds have been tested and they are completely safe,” Piper said. “By the criteria of modern safety testing, the safety tests were inadequate. Like all things, safety testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety test than you could 50 years ago.”

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Published: 27 May 2007

Oranges May Fight Heart Disease

Eating an orange every day could lower your risk of developing heart disease. A study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found that chemicals called flavanones found in oranges, grapefruits, and other citrus fruits could prevent heart attacks and protect against cardiovascular disease.

Researchers found that flavanones reduced cholesterol levels by 20 to 25 percent in rats. In addition to reducing total cholesterol, they also reduced the levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol while raising the ratio of HDL (good) cholesterol.

Grapefruit has long been known to have an effect on cholesterol levels. It is the reason that doctors warn patients who take cholesterol-lowering drugs not to eat the fruit because it can alter the way the liver functions and increase the effect of the drugs.

Researchers suggested that people with high cholesterol try eating diets rich in citrus fruits before they resort to drugs such as statins to lower their cholesterol.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition October 2006

Diet and Exercise Keep the Invisible Fat Off Too

Some doctors now believe that internal fat surrounding vital organs could be as dangerous as more obvious external fat.

What’s more, people who maintain a slim appearance through diet alone, without exercise, are likely to have major deposits of internal fat. As one doctor put it, “Being thin doesn’t automatically mean you’re not fat.”

Doctors are concerned that those without the clear warning signal of exterior fat may be falsely assuming that they are healthy. In fact, they still could be at risk for diabetes or heart disease.

Researchers who scanned some 800 male and female patients with MRI machines that plotted internal fat maps found that as many as 45 percent of women and 60 percent of men with normal BMI scores (20 to 25) had excessive levels of internal fat. Researchers even found “TOFIs” (people who are “thin outside, fat inside”) who were professional models.

Yahoo News May 11, 2007
USA Today May 17, 2007

Processed Foods Are Even Sweeter Than You Think

Food companies have doubled the amount of sugar they add to many of their products. Soups, cereals, and other foods have been heavily sweetened to attract more customers.

Breakfast cereals have seen some of the biggest increases, but even whole grain bread now routinely contains almost a teaspoon of sugar in every three slices.

In 1978, Kellogg’s Special K contained about 10 grams of sugar for every 100 grams of cereal, but that amount has now increased to 17 grams, very close to the sugar level of vanilla ice cream. Over the same period, the sugar per 100 grams in tomato soup has increased from less than 3 grams to more than 6 grams.

Processed foods contain some of the highest sugar content, often with levels close to or higher than 20 grams of sugar per 100 grams of food.

Sugar consumption has been implicated in rising levels of tooth decay, diabetes, and obesity.

Times Online May 6, 2007
Daily Mall May 6, 2007

Another Reason Seniors Need to Avoid Aspirin

Seniors who regularly take regular aspirin to prevent strokes could instead actually be increasing their risk. In healthy older people, aspirin may very well be doing more harm than good.

Researchers looked at data on intracerebral hemorrhagic strokes that occurred between 1981 and 1985, and between 2002 and 2006.

The number of strokes caused by high blood pressure fell by 65 percent over this period. But in people over 75, so many more strokes occurred among patients taking blood-thinning drugs such as aspirin and warfarin, known as antithrombotics, that the overall rate of strokes remained the same.

Between the two periods studied, the proportion of stroke patients on antithrombotic drugs increased from 4 percent to 40 percent. The number of strokes associated with these drugs increased by a factor of seven.

The increasing use of these drugs means that they may soon overtake high blood pressure as the leading cause of intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke in those over 75.

The Lancet Neurology May 1, 2007
BBC News May 1, 2007

Global Warming: Don’t Have a Cow, Man

Eating meat may be as bad for the earth as it is for our own health. According to a new report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the greenhouse gases produced by farmed animals may be doing more damage to the environment than the pollution from our cars. These animals produce 35 percent to 40 percent of all methane emissions (which have 23 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide), 65 percent of nitrous oxide (which is 320 times as warming as carbon dioxide), and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes to acid rain. According to the report, livestock take up 30 percent of the Earth’s entire land surface, and total meat production is projected to double from 2001 to 2050. Global meat production, which adds immensely to water pollution and the reduction of forests for livestock grazing, continues to grow and threaten the health of the planet.

Toothpaste Dangers

This is not a hoax — it is the top story today on Foxnews http://www.foxnews.com/

The FDA issued a warning that some brands of toothpaste manufactured in China may contain the toxin DEG:

  • Cooldent Fluoride
  • Cooldent Spearmint
  • Cooldent ICE
  • Dr. Cool
  • Everfresh Toothpaste
  • Superdent Toothpaste
  • Clean Rite Toothpaste
  • Oralmax Extreme
  • Oral Bright Fresh Spearmint Flavor
  • Bright Max Peppermint Flavor
  • ShiR Fresh Mint Fluoride Paste