Even more reasons to eat less processed meats....

Today's Post: Thursday, 8-11-2011

A few posts back we noted the news of research showing that processed meats were far more likely to cause heart disease than meat that isn’t processed and other sources of protein such as wild caught fish, eggs, lowfat dairy foods, nuts, and beans and lentils. Even chicken, turkey, full fat cheese, and other sources were better for you than processed meats.

Processed meats include: hot dogs, lunch meats, bacon, pepperoni, sausage, and ham.

Now there is more bad news for these foods. Eating even a small serving daily was tested as making colon cancer, prostate cancer, and some other cancers more likely.

The non-profit organization, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, had this in their article I saw:

“At least 58 scientific studies have looked at the issue, and the jury has rendered its verdict, which is now beyond reasonable doubt. The more hot dogs people eat, the higher their risk of colorectal cancer. And it's not just hot dogs. Any sort of processed meat -- bacon, sausage, ham, deli slices -- is in this group.

And here are the numbers: Every 50 grams of processed meat you eat on a daily basis (that's about one hot dog) increases your risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent. And just as there is no safe level of smoking, no amount of hot dogs, bacon, sausage, ham or other processed meats comes out clean in scientific studies.

The problem goes beyond colorectal cancer. An NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study found a 10 percent increased risk of prostate cancer for every 10 grams of increased intake of processed meats. Other studies have linked these same products to leukemia and ovarian cancer.

Exactly how processed meats do their dirty work is not clear; it could be their nitrites, saturated fat or other ingredients.”

But there’s MORE yet. Other research recently in the news shows one of the ways that eating processed meats causes or worsens heart disease had this:

“Red meat boosts diabetes risk: US study AFP Weds, 8-10-2011

Two slices of bacon, a hot dog or a serving of deli meat daily has been found to significantly boost the risk of getting type 2 diabetes, said a major US study published on Wednesday.

The research by experts at the Harvard School of Public Health represents the largest study of its kind to date and appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Eating 50 grams of processed red meat every day increased a person's diabetes risk by 51 percent, while eating 100 grams of unprocessed red meat each day, about the size of a deck of cards, boosted the risk by 19 percent.

However, those risks went down if the red meat was substituted with nuts, white meat, low-fat dairy or whole grain proteins.”

Our news is this.

We, meaning the overall health promoting industry and the more knowledgeable people in it, DO know some of the reasons for this.

Although these foods are high in fat, saturated fat, salt, and preservatives such as nitrites and nitrates, none of which is good for you -- particularly not in high daily doses, I think most of the damage comes from a different source.

These high fat meats are virtually all from grain fed animals. In his book, Anticancer, A New Way of Life, New Edition, Doctor David Servan-Schreiber makes a very strong case that the very high amounts of omega 6 oils in the fat of meats from animals fed grain, particularly corn, causes chronic inflammation.

We know that such inflammation causes heart disease. Dr Servan-Schreiber makes a strong case in his book that it also helps cause many cancers. These many studies seem to find strong evidence this is the case.

But there’s more. The grain these animals are fed contains some of the pesticides and herbicides that were sprayed onto the grain. It’s not a lot on the grain. But cattle and other large animals eat a lot of grain. And these pesticides and herbicides are then bioconcentrated in the fat of the animals that eat the grain.

Most of these processed meats taste good unfortunately.

What can you do now that you know this?

1. For one thing, you can eat these foods a LOT less. Instead of once to three times a day, if you have them at all, drop them to once or twice a month. That’s over 30 times safer to start with.

2. For ham, a processed meat, and beef and lamb, two of the red meats, another way to go is to start with lean versions and trim off most to almost all of the fat.

(I once de-fatted a 10 pound ham my wife brought home one Thanksgiving as a gift from her job.

I cut off all the easily accessible fat. I cut the rest into about one inch cubes. Then I boiled those cubes and removed all the chunks of fat that came loose. Then I put the water and ham chunks into the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, I skimmed off the layer of saturated fat off the top. Then I repeated the whole process a second time. Did the whole process a third time. And after skimming off the saturated fat off the top of the water, I poured out the water.

What I wound up with was about a pound or so of pea sized pork chunks that were dramatically less fat. Needless to say the salt and processing chemicals were also more than 95 % gone.

I then cooked it with small green peas and pearl onions. It was pretty good actually. But that was a LOT of work.)

You can always cook fat removed grain fed meats into mixed dishes with onion, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, and other spices to get good flavor and the stick to your ribs effect of the original.

3. It’s also possible to buy beef and lamb from animals fed only grass --100 % grass fed. (Grass fed, grain finished beef costs more and is not that much better than just grain fed.)

Such real grass fed beef and lamb is leaner and less fat to start with, so you may need to cut them into smaller chunks and perhaps cook them into mixed dishes with onion, some extra virgin olive oil, garlic, and other spices for the best eating.

But the excessive omega 6 oils and all or most of the bioconcentrated herbicides and pesticides are gone. The animals never ate them to begin with!

So eating such meats as often as once or twice a week is likely safe.

4. The best solution is to eat other kinds of protein foods on most days.

Beans and lentils are very inexpensive and good for you in many ways besides not having animal fats high in omega 6 oils. They have incomplete proteins but need not be eaten by themselves. You can eat them with two percent lowfat milk. You can eat them with eggs. You can eat them with cheese. And, I even eat them with wild caught salmon occasionally.

Wild caught salmon, sardines, herring, and small mackerel are fish that do you triple good. They are all good protein sources. They all have enough oils to be quite filling. But best of all, they are high in the omega 3 oils that lower inflammation and help balance any omega 6 oils that you do eat.

Eggs and skinless poultry from pasture fed chicken and turkey are OK. And they aren’t too bad in moderation if even grain fed because they have so much less fat than red meats and processed meats.

Mushrooms and nuts (if you aren’t allergic to nuts) are also high in protein. Like beans and lentils, they are incomplete proteins; but also like beans and lentils they provide many kinds of health benefits besides the protein in them.

Whole grain foods are like beans and lentils as they have incomplete protein. Eating some is OK. But you need to avoid too much or eating them without less glycemic foods to balance them. Refined grain foods and even 100 % whole grain foods eaten by themselves boost your blood sugar more than sugar does.

The summary is that processed meats are best eaten if at all as a very infrequent treat.

Eating them more often than that tends to cause diseases -- heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer and other cancers to be specific.

Surprising foods to prevent cancer....

Today's Post: Thursday, 7-8-2010

Most people know that eating broccoli helps to prevent cancer. Many people have heard that most of the foods in the cruciferous vegetable group broccoli is in prevent cancer.

Some of you have read in our previous posts that eating raw broccoli once or more every week was found to cut the incidence of the really dangerous kind of prostate cancer that kills people by more than half.

But, if you read those posts, you may remember that eating raw cauliflower also did that well or even a touch better at preventing aggressive prostate cancer cutting its incidence a bit more than half.

Needless to say, cancer is something most of us want to completely avoid; but we can use all the help we can get.

For example, in my family there is a history of prostate cancer though not the aggressive kind as far as I know.

Also before I knew better and even as a kid when few people knew better I’ve been exposed to tobacco smoke a good bit even though that is no longer true.

And, I am exposed to many of the chemicals now run amok in our lives that are not that safe.

So, clearly it would pay me and most of us to eat as many cancer preventing foods as possible.

The really nice thing about the other foods I’ve found that prevent cancer is they almost all are low in calories and high in nutrition and fiber, so they make staying or getting free of excess fat easy.

The more of them you eat, the less fat you will wear and the better cancer protection you’ll have.

I’ve been reading the book, Anticancer, A New Way of Life, New Edition by David Servan-Schreiber. (It’s available on Amazon & is current so may also be at your local bookstore. I found it recently at Keplers in Menlo Park.)

If you want to prevent or get rid of cancer, the book is a gold mine. He has researched almost everything you can do besides medical treatment that actually has real evidence it works.

He found, for example, that the same eating changes that prevent heart disease also prevent cancer:

Completely avoiding omega 6 oils, hydrogenated oils, and refined grains; only eating whole grains moderately or less; either only eating meat from animals fed only grass or pasture fed OR eating the grain fed stuff sparingly and trimming as much of the fat as possible --- ALL cut back on the massively excessive intake of omega 6 oils that have jumped into the modern diet in the last 100 years. Such massive doses of these in our bodies which are NOT evolved to handle them, cause inflammation which in turn causes heart disease AND the author found tends to cause or worsen cancers. They also lower your HDL cholesterol which adds to your heart disease risk.

You can also ingest more of the foods that counterbalance the omega 6 oils, the omega 3 oils by eating wild caught fish (farmed is toxic) and which are low in mercury &/or you can take purified fish oil omega 3 supplements.

Third, you can use extra virgin olive oil to replace the omega 6 oils. Olive oil tends to lower LDL, increase HDL – both heart protective and is an oil that’s close to free of omega 6.

This post is about all the foods you can do IN ADDITION to those three steps.

In his book, in the “action” section in the middle, he lists a large number of vegetables that tend to help prevent colon cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and breast cancer.

Yes, broccoli and cauliflower DO rank high. But in his list, several foods including some you might have never guessed would be there actually ranked higher!

The best one of the cruciferous vegetables listed was Brussels sprouts! They were close to the number one food –NOT broccoli. Green cabbage was also very high. Savoy cabbage and kale were also very high.

Red cabbage was listed; but it was not quite as strong a cancer fighter as the others.

Also, four foods you may never have dreamed would be on his list ranked up with Brussels sprouts:

garlic, onions, scallions – aka green onions, and leeks!

These foods also help protect your heart and are a very effective way to spice up food that does not use salt. And, you can also take de-odorized garlic as a supplement if you want the health benefit without the effects on your breath. (Kyolic is the brand most health food stores carry.)

I do some of each myself.

In a separate place in the book, he also lists eating mushrooms and notes that the inexpensive button mushrooms work. He lists green tea, particularly Japanese green tea.

One study he quotes even found that in women who ate mushrooms and drank green tea every day had an 89% lower chance of getting breast cancer than women who did neither.

Here again, you can buy mushroom supplements. But those are a bit pricey. Adding button mushrooms to your salad or casserole dish a few times a week is likely close to as good for you, gives you a super low cal food to eat, and is a LOT cheaper.

Whole Foods Markets sells the Choice line of organic, Japanese green tea. And, NOW supplements makes an inexpensive green tea extract supplement. I use both. They wake you up without overdoing it as coffee can and have an even better track record for protecting your heart than their cancer preventing one.

Though his book doesn’t stress it as much, it is known that cooked tomatoes eaten with extra virgin olive oil deliver a LOT of the carotenoid, lycopene that helps prevent prostate cancer and may help prevent other cancers. So, tomato sauces that contain cooked or pureed tomatoes, garlic (&/or onion), and extra virgin olive oil are unusually protective. (You can also take 30 mg a day of lycopene as a supplement.)

He does say that eating curried foods that combine turmeric in the curry, black pepper, and extra virgin olive oil makes the cancer preventing turmeric as much as 50 times more bioavailable as taking curcumin supplements does.

Eating such curried foods is known to not only prevent many cancers, it also is one of the best ways to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Eating a Mediterranean diet* and emphasizing these foods is already known to help prevent cancers, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. Eat many of these kinds of foods every week, and you’ll be in better health and live far longer than those who do not.

*(Extra virgin olive oil, garlic, cooked tomato dishes, lots of vegetables, and hardly any grain fed meat and no junk food are the key aspects of a Mediterranean diet. The other part, drinking red wine with meals in moderation, is more of a stress reliever and heart attack preventer.)

Cut your chance of getting cancer 10 to 1....

Today's post: Thursday, 7-31-2008

“The incidence of the top four cancers in the U.S. - colon, breast, prostate, and lung - is ten times lower in India.”

Research has now been done to explain why. There is evidence that taking one specific supplement can give you the same protection the people in India get.

(Note that this is on top of the many other actions, such as staying away from tobacco smoke, and getting the several other supplements and foods that protect you from getting cancer.

We’ve posted for example on taking boron, selenium, vitamin D, & resveratrol all of which, in addition to other health benefits, tend to prevent cancer. Eating raw broccoli & or cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables, particularly if they are organically grown is also protective.)

People in India eat a lot of curried foods. Curries vary in their ingredients; but they all seem to contain the spice, turmeric, a member of the ginger family of spices. This produces a sharpness or heat to the food and imparts an intense yellow color.

A study published in the August 15, 2005 issue of the journal Cancer, found that curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, stopped laboratory strains of melanoma from proliferating and caused the cancer cells to commit suicide.

Since melanoma is one of the most dangerous and hard to kill cancers, I believe this is extremely significant news.

The research found that curcumin shut down nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB), a powerful protein that causes strong inflammatory responses that tend to cause cancer, arthritis, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.

In fact, this effect may explain why curcumin seems to prevent Alzheimer’s disease as strongly as it prevents cancers.

Daily capsules of curcumin powder may also strongly slow growth of pancreatic cancer and multiple myeloma according to the authors of the study.

One of them also said that:: "The incidence of the top four cancers in the U.S. - colon, breast, prostate, and lung - is ten times lower in India,"

Curcumin made desirable changes in virtually every tumor biomarker they tested.

They found that curcumin down-regulates EGFR activity that mediates tumor cell proliferation, and the VEGF helps create in angiogenesis.

That means that curcumin tends to prevent cancers from growing and from getting increased access to blood supply. And, that means the cancer cells tend to stop growing and become starved for energy and oxygen.

They also found that curcumin reduces NF-kB and IKK the protein that turns NF-kB 0n& suppresses a STAT3 pathway that is also involved in tumorigenesis two. Both these pathways play a central role in cell survival and proliferation

One researcher said that curcumin’s ability to suppress numerous biological routes to cancer development is helped explain why it was effective. This helps to ensure “aptosis’ or death of the cancer cells.

They also found that. "The NF-kB machinery is suppressed by both short exposures to high concentrations of curcumin as well as by longer exposure to lower concentrations of curcumin,"

That suggests that if you take curcumin regularly as a supplement for quite some time, it will give you quite robust protection against getting cancer since with far less inflammation less cancers will start and any that develop will tend to die off instead of taking hold and growing.

It also suggests, that unlike some drugs and supplements where more is NOT better or is even dangerous -- such as taking more than 100 mg a day of vitamin B6 or far more than 10,000 iu of the retinol form of vitamin A-- if you have cancer, taking very large doses of curcumin may prove to be an effective treatment. The researchers found the desirable effects for both ways of taking the curcumin.

On a personal note, I’ve taken one capsule a day of curcumin for quite awhile for its ability to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

The news that it also may have that strong of a preventive effect on prostate cancer for which I have a family history, AND colon and lung cancer is very welcome news.

I also am pleased that it looks likely to prevent breast cancer. And, it looks likely to prevent or even be a decent supplementary treatment for many other cancers.

I also forwarded the information on this study to my nephew who didn’t have a nasty looking mole on his leg checked out early and who is now being treated for stage III melanoma as a result.

It sounds like he would do well to take 3 capsules 3 times a day of curcumin for a month and then 3 a day after that. I read a report of the study instead of the study itself. If you can get a copy of the study, the study may show what amount of curcumin the authors tested as a “very large” dose and for how long they gave it to get the effects they found.

By the way, people who often eat curried food also get plenty of curcumin. If you have access to such foods several times a week and enjoy them, that may also work as the very low rate of these cancers in India suggests.