Claiming that millions of young Americans age 17 to 24 – prime candidates for military recruitment – are “too fat to fight” and would be rejected for military service due to weight problems, a group of 130 retired generals, admirals, and other senior military leaders has endorsed a sizeable increase in funding for school meal programs to assist in strengthening our military. “When that many young adults can’t fight because of their weight, it affects our national preparedness and national security,” said retired rear admiral Jamie Barnett, representing the group, titled “Mission: Readiness, Military Leaders for Kids.”
“Our national security in 2030 is absolutely dependent on reversing the alarming rates of childhood obesity,” claimed Barnett, who called on Congress to pass legislation reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act, including the Obama Administration’s recommendation to increase funding by $10 billion over ten years. Mission: Readiness also endorsed adoption of nutrition standards for food sold in schools as recommended by the Institute of Medicine.
School meal programs owe their existence to defense policy; the National School Lunch Act was passed in 1946 in response to large numbers of draftees failing to qualify for military service in World War II due to diet-related health problems. Back then, the main concern was not obesity but malnutrition.
The more traditional child nutrition supporters welcomed the show of military muscle. “Schools have already made tremendous strides in offering children healthy food options, but it will take the support of the entire community from parents, to our military leaders to Members of Congress, voting to fund these critical efforts, to turn around the childhood obesity crisis,” said Dora Rivas, director of food services for the Dallas, TX school district and president of the School Nutrition Association. “The fact that so many youngsters are not fit for military service is, indeed, a wake-up call for this country,” echoed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the Mission: Readiness news conference.
Military recruitment efforts have been more successful of late, as the recession makes military service a more attractive alternative to unemployment. And it is recruiters who work with young people to help them get into shape so they are ready for boot camp, Barnett said. “But given the fact that so many more kids are carrying so many more pounds, asking recruiters to fix the problem is like asking for a safety pin after the seams have burst,” he commented.
Could playing in the dirt make you smarter? Studies in mice suggest that it could.
Mice given peanut butter laced with a common, harmless soil bacterium ran through mazes twice as fast and enjoyed doing so. So says Dorothy Matthews of the Sage Colleges in Troy, New York state, who presented her results at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego, California, this week.
In a classic test of learning ability, Matthews gave mice a treat – white bread with peanut butter – as a reward to encourage them to learn to run through a maze. When she laced the treat with a tiny bit of Mycobacterium vaccae, she found that the mice ran through the maze twice as fast as mice that were given plain peanut butter. This suggests that they had learned to navigate the maze faster, Matthews says.
Moreover, the mice given the bacteria continued to run the maze faster than those without it for 18 more trials over the next six weeks, showing they weren’t just made more alert by a surprise change to their treat. This effect lasted for four weeks after the last piece of doctored peanut butter was given to the mice.
Speedy solvers
Matthews believes this was caused by the effect M. vaccae has on the immune system, something that was investigated in 2007 by Chris Lowry, now at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Lowry was trying to explain why sick people – who have activated immune systems – often become depressed and sluggish, which could be an adaptation that speeds recovery.
This result led Matthews to investigate whether the bacteria’s effect on the brain extended to a more general difference in cognitive function – and she found that it did.
Focus on that maze
The bacteria may speed up learning because the Raphe nuclei stimulate a brain region called the hippocampus, which handles spatial memory, she says.
But the bacteria also changed the mice’s mood – they showed less behaviour that indicates anxiety, such as grooming and searching, perhaps analogous to the calmer behaviour immune activation triggers in people.
This is likely to have been caused by changes to the higher mental functions in the forebrain, which perhaps allowed them to focus better on the maze.
Matthews says that exposure to soil bacteria may affect human brains too. “It just shows that we evolved with dirt as hunter-gatherers,” she says. “So turn off your TV and go work in your garden, or walk in the woods.”
If you’re eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.
Most alarming are the fruits and vegetables dubbed the “Dirty Dozen,” which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving. These foods are believed to be most susceptible because they have soft skin that tends to absorb more pesticides.
“It’s critical people know what they are consuming,” the Environmental Working Group’s Amy Rosenthal said. “The list is based on pesticide tests conducted after the produce was washed with USDA high-power pressure water system. The numbers reflect the closest thing to what consumers are buying at the store.”
The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables.
“You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen,” Rosenthal said.
The Dirty Dozen
Celery
Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Domestic blueberries
Nectarines
Sweet bell peppers
Spinach, kale and collard greens
Cherries
Potatoes
Imported grapes
Lettuce
Not all non-organic fruits and vegetables have a high pesticide level. Some produce has a strong outer layer that provides a defense against pesticide contamination. The group found a number of non-organic fruits and vegetables dubbed the “Clean 15″ that contained little to no pesticides.
The Clean 15
Onions
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapples
Mango
Sweet peas
Asparagus
Kiwi fruit
Cabbage
Eggplant
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Grapefruit
Sweet potatoes
Sweet onions
What is a pesticide?
A pesticide is a mixture of chemical substances used on farms to destroy or prevent pests, diseases and weeds from affecting crops. According to the USDA, 45 percent of the world’s crops are lost to damage or spoilage, so many farmers count on pesticides.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the FDA and the USDA work together to monitor and set limits as to how much pesticide can be used on farms and how much is safe to remain on the produce once it hits grocery store shelves.
“In setting the tolerance amount, the EPA must make a safety finding that the pesticide can be used with ‘reasonable certainty of no harm.’ The EPA ensures that the tolerance selected will be safe,” according the EPA’s website.
Although the President’s Cancer Panel recently recommended that consumers eat produce without pesticides to reduce their risk of getting cancer and other diseases, the low levels of pesticides found on even the Dirty Dozen are government-approved amounts.
Can small amounts of pesticides hurt you?
The government says that consuming pesticides in low amounts doesn’t harm you, but some studies show an association between pesticides and health problems such as cancer, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and nervous system disorders and say exposure could weaken immune systems.
The Environmental Working Group acknowledges that data from long-term studies aren’t available but warns consumers of the potential dangers.
“Pesticides are designed to kill things. Why wait for 20 years to discover they are bad for us?” Rosenthal said.
Some doctors warn that children’s growing brains are the most vulnerable to pesticides in food.
“A kid’s brain goes through extraordinary development, and if pesticides get into the brain, it can cause damage,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Can pesticides be washed away?
Not necessarily. The pesticide tests mentioned above were conducted after the food had been power-washed by the USDA. Also, although some pesticides are found on the surface of foods, other pesticides may be taken up through the roots and into the plant and cannot be removed.
“We’ve found that washing doesn’t do much,” Rosenthal said. “Peeling can help, although you have to take into account that the pesticides are in the water, so they can be inside the fruit because of the soil.”
All fresh produce, whether it’s grown with or without pesticides, should be washed with water to remove dirt and potentially harmful bacteria. And health experts agree that when it comes to the Dirty Dozen list, choose organic if it’s available.
“To the extent you can afford to do so, [parents] should simply buy organic, because there have been some very good studies that shows people who eat mostly organic food reduce 95 percent of pesticides [in their body] in two weeks,” Landrigan said
Is enough being done to protect us from chemicals that could harm us? Watch “Toxic America,” a special two-night investigative report with Sanjay Gupta M.D., June 2 & 3 at 8 p.m. ET on CNN.
Children exposed to higher levels of a type of pesticide found in trace amounts on commercially grown fruit and vegetables are more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children with less exposure, a nationwide study suggests.
Researchers measured the levels of pesticide byproducts in the urine of 1,139 children from across the United States. Children with above-average levels of one common byproduct had roughly twice the odds of getting a diagnosis of ADHD, according to the study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics.
Exposure to the pesticides, known as organophosphates, has been linked to behavioral and cognitive problems in children in the past, but previous studies have focused on communities of farm workers and other high-risk populations. This study is the first to examine the effects of exposure in the population at large.
Organophosphates are “designed” to have toxic effects on the nervous system, says the lead author of the study, Maryse Bouchard, Ph.D., a researcher in the department of environmental and occupational health at the University of Montreal. “That’s how they kill pests.”
The pesticides act on a set of brain chemicals closely related to those involved in ADHD, Bouchard explains, “so it seems plausible that exposure to organophosphates could be associated with ADHD-like symptoms.”
Environmental Protection Agency regulations have eliminated most residential uses for the pesticides (including lawn care and termite extermination), so the largest source of exposure for children is believed to be food, especially commercially grown produce. Adults are exposed to the pesticides as well, but young children appear to be especially sensitive to them, the researchers say.
Detectable levels of pesticides are present in a large number of fruits and vegetables sold in the U.S., according to a 2008 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited in the study. In a representative sample of produce tested by the agency, 28 percent of frozen blueberries, 20 percent of celery, and 25 percent of strawberries contained traces of one type of organophosphate. Other types of organophosphates were found in 27 percent of green beans, 17 percent of peaches, and 8 percent of broccoli.
Although kids should not stop eating fruits and vegetables, buying organic or local produce whenever possible is a good idea, says Bouchard.
“Organic fruits and vegetables contain much less pesticides, so I would certainly advise getting those for children,” she says. “National surveys have also shown that fruits and vegetables from farmers’ markets contain less pesticides even if they’re not organic. If you can buy local and from farmers’ markets, that’s a good way to go.”
A direct cause-and-effect link between pesticides and ADHD “is really hard to establish,” says Dana Boyd Barr, Ph.D., a professor of environmental and occupational health at Emory University. However, she says, “There appears to be some relation between organophosphate pesticide exposure and the development of ADHD.”
This is the largest study of its kind to date, according to Barr, who researched pesticides for more than 20 years in her previous job with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but was not involved in the study.
Bouchard and her colleagues analyzed urine samples from children ages 8 to 15. The samples were collected during an annual, nationwide survey conducted by the CDC, known as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
The researchers tested the samples for six chemical byproducts (known as metabolites) that result when the body breaks down more than 28 different pesticides. Nearly 95 percent of the children had at least one byproduct detected in their urine.
Just over 10 percent of the children in the study were diagnosed with ADHD. The kids were judged to have ADHD if their symptoms (as reported by parents) met established criteria for the disorder, or if they had taken ADHD medication regularly in the previous year.
One group of pesticide byproducts was associated with a substantially increased risk of ADHD. Compared with kids who had the lowest levels, the kids whose levels were 10 times higher were 55 percent more likely to have ADHD. (Another group of byproducts did not appear to be linked to the disorder.)
In addition, children with higher-than-average levels of the most commonly detected byproduct — found in roughly 6 in 10 kids — were nearly twice as likely to have ADHD.
“It’s not a small effect,” says Bouchard. “This is 100 percent more risk.”
To isolate the effect of the pesticide exposure on ADHD symptoms, the researchers controlled for a variety of health and demographic factors that could have skewed the results.
Still, the study had some limitations and is not definitive, Bouchard says. Most notably, she and her colleagues measured only one urine sample for each child, and therefore weren’t able to track whether the levels of pesticide byproducts were constant, or whether the association between exposure and ADHD changed over time.
Long-term studies including multiple urine samples from the same children are needed, Bouchard says. She suspects such studies would show an even stronger link between pesticide byproducts and ADHD.
EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said in a statement that the agency routinely reviews the safety of all pesticides, including organophosphates. “We are currently developing a framework to incorporate data from studies similar to this one into our risk assessment,” Kemery said. “We will look at this study and use the framework to decide how it fits into our overall risk assessment.”
Kemery recommended that parents try other pest-control tactics before resorting to pesticide use in the home or garden. Washing and peeling fruits and vegetables and eating “a varied diet” will also help reduce potential exposure to pesticides, he said.
“I would hope that this study raises awareness as to the risk associated with pesticide exposure,” Bouchard says. “There’s really only a handful of studies on this subject out there, so there’s room for more awareness.”
Many who think they have food allergies actually do not.
A new report, commissioned by the federal government, finds the field is rife with poorly done studies, misdiagnoses and tests that can give misleading results.
While there is no doubt that people can be allergic to certain foods, with reproducible responses ranging from a rash to a severe life-threatening reaction, the true incidence of food allergies is only about 8 percent for children and less than 5 percent for adults, said Dr. Marc Riedl, an author of the new paper and an allergist and immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Yet about 30 percent of the population believe they have food allergies. And, Dr. Riedl said, about half the patients coming to his clinic because they had been told they had a food allergy did not really have one.
Dr. Riedl does not dismiss the seriousness of some peoples’ responses to foods. But, he says, “That accounts for a small percentage of what people term ‘food allergies.’ ”
Even people who had food allergies as children may not have them as adults. People often shed allergies, though no one knows why. And sometimes people develop food allergies as adults, again for unknown reasons.
For their report, Dr. Riedl and his colleagues reviewed all the papers they could find on food allergies published between January 1988 and September 2009 — more than 12,000 articles. In the end, only 72 met their criteria, which included having sufficient data for analysis and using more rigorous tests for allergic responses.
“Everyone has a different definition” of a food allergy, said Dr. Jennifer J. Schneider Chafen of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Palo Alto Health Care System in California and Stanford’s Center for Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, who is lead author of the new report. People who receive a diagnosis after one of the two tests most often used — pricking the skin and injecting a tiny amount of the suspect food and looking in blood for IgE antibodies, the type associated with allergies — have less than a 50 percent chance actually having a food allergy, the investigators found.
One way to see such a reaction is with what is called a food challenge, giving people a suspect food disguised so they do not know if they are eating it or a placebo food. If the disguised food causes a reaction, the person has an allergy.
But in practice, most doctors are reluctant to use food challenges, Dr. Riedl said. The test is time-consuming, and doctors worry about asking people to consume a food, like peanuts, that can elicit a frightening response.
The paper, published on May 12 in the journal of the American Medical Association, is part of a large project organized by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to try to impose order on the chaos of food allergy testing. An expert panel will provide guidelines defining food allergies and giving criteria to diagnose and manage patients. They hope to have a final draft by the end of June.
“We were approached as in a sense the honest broker who could get parties together to look at this question,” said Dr. Matthew Fenton, who oversees the guidelines project for the allergy institute.
Authors of the new report — and experts on the guidelines panel — say even accepted dogma, like the idea that breast-fed babies have fewer allergies or that babies should not eat certain foods like eggs for the first year of life, have little evidence behind them.
Part of the confusion is over what is a food allergy and what is a food intolerance, Dr. Fenton said. Allergies involve the immune system, while intolerances generally do not. For example, a headache from sulfites in wine is not a food allergy. It is an intolerance. The same is true for lactose intolerance, caused by the lack of an enzyme needed to digest sugar in milk.
And other medical conditions can make people think they have food allergies, Dr. Fenton said. For example, people sometimes interpret acid reflux symptoms after eating a particular food as an allergy.
The chairman of the guidelines project, Dr. Joshua Boyce, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard and an allergist and pediatric pulmonologist, said one of the biggest misconceptions some doctors and patients have is that a positive test for IgE antibodies to a food means a person is allergic to that food. It is not necessarily so, he said.
During development, he said, the immune system tends to react to certain food proteins, producing IgE antibodies. But, Dr. Boyce said, “these antibodies can be transient and even inconsequential.”
“There are plenty of individuals with IgE antibodies to various foods who don’t react to those foods at all,” Dr. Boyce said.
The higher the levels of IgE antibodies to a particular food, the greater the likelihood the person will react in an allergic way. But even then, the antibodies do not necessarily portend a severe reaction, Dr. Boyce said. Antibodies to some foods, like peanuts, are much more likely to produce a reaction than ones to other foods, like wheat or corn or rice. No one understands why.
IgE blood tests are widely available. That makes it easy for doctors to test patients who think they are allergic to foods. Then, when the tests come back positive, often for several foods, patients and their doctors may think they have proof of an allergy, Dr. Boyce said.
The guidelines panel hopes its report will lead to new research as well as clarify the definition and testing for food allergies.
But for now, Dr. Fenton said, doctors should not use either the skin-prick test or the antibody test as the sole reason for thinking their patients have a food allergy.
“By themselves they are not sufficient,” Dr. Fenton said.
Found in the meat and milk of grass-fed ruminants, like cows, Conjugated Linoleic Acid or CLA is a potent nutrient. Researchers are just beginning to understand the mechanisms behind the potent and positive health effects traditional peoples have enjoyed since the days of hunting and gathering. CLA is known as a potent antioxidant and anti-carcinogen. CLA has shown promise in the treatment of various cancers. Research conducted at the University of Alberta in Canada, Dartmouth Medical Center and elsewhere indicates that CLA shows promise in the fight against breast cancer. [1. Lipids. 2009 Mar 6.], [2. Nutr Cancer.2009;61(1):114-22] Further, CLA even could be valuable in the treatment of brain cancer due to its ability to prevent the development of new malignant tumors as well as inhibit the growth of existing tumors. [3. Brain Res. 2008 Jun 5;1213:35-40. Epub 2008 Feb 16.]
2. Iron
Red meat is a rich source of iron; better yet, it’s a rich source of the most easily absorbed iron: heme iron. Heme iron is very readily and easily absorbed. Contrasted with red meat plant sources of iron, like lentils, offer non-heme iron which is poorly absorbed. Iron is critical to health because, when properly absorbed, it assists the blood’s hemoglobin in carrying oxygen to the body’s cells. Low iron may lead to fatigue, headaches and dizziness. Women of child-bearing age, infants and children are most likely to be deficient due to their increased level of need for iron. Red meat should be considered especially important for women–particularly during and after menstruation when the loss of blood brings down iron levels.
3. Stearic Acid
Stearic acid is a saturated fat found in beef and other meats. Despite the current and prevalent thought that saturated fats cause an elevation in cholesterol, research indicates that stearic acid actually lowers LDL cholesterol [4. Lipids. 2005 Dec;40(12):1201-5.]
4. Protein
Red meat is an easy source of complete protein. Protein is essential to the human diet not only because it provides energy, but also because it is critical to the growth and repair of cells. Every cell in the human body contains protein including the antibody cells of the immune system which protect the body against pathogens. Red meat is an easy to prepare complete protein containing the full spectrum of amino acids.
5. Zinc
The mineral zinc plays an important role in human health. It is essential for immune system function and can combat the effects of premature aging due to its anti-inflammatory properties. [5. Genes Nutr. 2008 Jul;3(2):61-75.] Zinc also plays an important role in skin health, particularly in healing from afflictions like acne and eczema. Zinc deficiency is linked to skin disorders like dermatitis. [6. Orv Hetil. 2004 May 9;145(19):1007-10.
7. Vitamin A
The suet and tallow of grass-fed animals is rich in vitamin A - including both retinol and beta-carotene. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin noted for its positive effects on health. Vitamin A promotes fertility, good vision and immunity. Inadequate maternal intake of vitamin A prior to and during pregnancy has been linked to birth defects. Retinol or pre-formed vitamin A is essential to properly functioning immune and endocrine systems while beta-carotene is a potent anti-carcinogen due it is powerful antioxidant activity. The fat from grass-fed cows, lambs and bison is rich in these nutrients--greatly more so than the fat of conventionally fed animals from concentration animal feed operations (CAFOs and feedlots). The naturally occurring beta-carotene found in abundance among the wild grasses of pastures and plains feed the animals naturally. Some of this beta-carotene is transformed into retinol in the fat, while some of it remains as beta-carotene. Red meat and the fat of grass-grazing animals provides a good source of this powerful and essential nutrient.
8. EPA
Similarly, the fat from naturally fed cows and other ruminants contains significant amounts of EPA. EPA is also found in oily, ocean-going fish. This omega-3 fatty acid is essential for cognitive function and emotional health and is only naturally available from animal food sources. EPA is known for its many health benefits including protection from cardiovascular disease, cognitive function and emotional well-being. Intake of EPA has been proven effective time and time again in the treatment and prevention of heart disease, and regular, daily intake of EPA from diet alone "would be expected to significantly reduce deaths from coronary heart disease." [8. Curr Atheroscler Rep. 2008 Dec;10(6):503-9.] While DHA, another notable nutrient found naturally in combination with EPA, is known primarily for its positive effects on brain and cognitive development, EPA is known for its positive effects on mood and emotional well-being. Combinations of these two omega-3 fatty acids have shown remarkable benefits in treating ADHD/ADD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism and even dyslexia. [9. Altern Med Rev. 2007 Sep;12(3):207-27.] Low levels of EPA have been linked with the development of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. [10. Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Sep;88(3):714-21.] Grass-finished meat represents an excellent source for EPA due to its favorable omega 3 to omega 5 fatty acid ratio. Grass-finished meat offers an omega 3 to omega 6 ratio of approximately 1 part omega-3 fatty acids to 2 parts omega-6 fatty acids; by contrast, conventionally fed cows produce meat with a much less favorable ratio and are lacking in the vital nutrient EPA.
9. Mono-unsaturated Fat
Beef fat is comprised of approximately 35% monounsaturated fat. The consumption of monounsaturated fats are linked to a reduction in LDL cholesterol and an increase in HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol)–particularly among insulin-resistant individuals. [11. J Am Coll Nutr. 2007 Oct;26(5):434-44.]
10. Tradition
Traditionally, red meat has comprised an important element of the human diet. Consider the venison that nourished Europeans, the bison that nourished the Native Americans or the lamb and mutton that provided sustenance for the nomads of the Middle East: all of these foods provide value to the diet including wholesome fats, vital protein, minerals and vitamins. Red meat has been part of the human diet for millennia – yet the people who consumed it didn’t suffer from cancers or heart disease or other diseases of industrialization; rather, they benefited from its many positive and essential nutrients. If it nourished your ancestors, it can nourish you too. Take care to purchase only grass-finished meats which offer the very best nutritional profile.
You may already be aware of a new published study led by Princeton University researchers suggesting that high fructose corn syrup may play a more important role in the obesity epidemic than table sugar.
Bart Hoebel, who specialize in the neuroscience of appetite, found that of rats that drank the same amount of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (or HFCS), those that consumed the HFCS gained significantly more body weight than those drinking table sugar.
Furthermore, they found that drinking a HFCS solution for a long term, (which is the case of rats is six months), the rats experienced some signs of metabolic syndrome, such as abnormal increases in body fat and circulating blood fats called triglycerides.
This is an animal study. The results may not apply to humans; animals do not have the critical thinking skills to help them monitor their intake of sweeteners.
The Center for Consumer Freedom, the non-profit organization that often attacks research findings that may potentially hurt the food industry or the food service industry, issued a statement on March 26 claiming that “Every day, more people are pointing out flaws in last month’s Princeton University study finding that rats fed high fructose corn syrup gained more weight than rats fed sucrose.”
The Corn Refiners Association maintains that high fructose corn syrup is the same as table sugar nutritionally, and it launched a national TV campaign to educate consumers and extol the sweetener’s virtues, fooducate.com reported last year.
Some major food companies like PepsiCo have already decided to stop using high fructose corn syrup in their foods and beverages, due to the demand from food consumers for alternative sweeteners.
In 2007, Rutgers University researchers reported that high fructose corn syrup contains astonishingly high levels of reactive carbonyls, which can lead to oxidative damage of retinal proteins, according to Pennathur S and colleagues who published a study in the June 17, 2005 issue of Journal of Biological Chemistry addressing the potentially damaging effect of reactive carbonyls and polyunsaturated fattyacidson retinal proteins.
A trip to the doctor is all good news these days for 4-year-old Max Irvine.
Just a year ago, however, Max was enduring more than 100 seizures a day. Even a barrage of tests at the famed Mayo Clinic’s Epilepsy Laboratory revealed no clear medical explanation.
Epilepsy was consuming every waking hour of Max’s life.
“It got to the point where he couldn’t walk or talk or function, or even eat hardly,” said Max’s father Troy Irvine.
Medications control epilepsy for 75 percent of children, but not for Max. His family watched helplessly as the light disappeared from his eyes. Max’s playful nature vanished. Priceless intellectual developmental time was being lost.
Finally, Mayo Clinic Pediatric Neurologist Elaine Wirrell, an epilepsy specialist, proposed trading all of Max’s meds for a radical change in diet. The Ketogenic Diet is very low in carbohydrates and super high in fats. Max’s initial diet meal plan contained 80 percent fat.
“I just remember having tears and thinking how can I be giving my child so much fat,” said Max’s mother, Kristine Irvine. “The majority of his meal was bacon and butter, or oil and maybe one strawberry. It was very hard to adjust to that.”
Butter as an entree. Bacon as a main course. Flavored Canola oil as a beverage. Dr. Wirrell said the strict diet is worth a try for nearly any child who does not respond to medication.
“Over half of them have a meaningful reduction of seizures and nearly a third of them become seizure free on the diet,” she said.
Exactly why the diet works is unknown. Wirrell said research suggests it stabilizes brain cells and alters neurotransmitters, the brain chemicals that allow cells to signal each other. The Ketogenic Diet has actually been around since the 1920s. It was first described at the Mayo Clinic, in fact.
An obvious question the Irvines had was whether the cholesterol would create a new problem for Max’s health.
“We monitor the children very carefully,” Wirrell said. “We monitor their blood for cholesterol problems. And in truth very few children actually end up with cholesterol or lipid problems on the diet.”
Max’s remarkable improvement is documented on his EEG, an electroencephalogram. The previous lightning storm of misfiring electrical activity has now calmed. Max is taking no epilepsy medications and is seizure-free.
Wirrell said many children are able to come off the diet after getting better and their epilepsy does not necessarily return. Max’s brain is thought to have recovered enough that he is being gradually transitioned to normal meals.
Native American skulls, uncovered in the United States and Canada show perfect teeth. People dying without any dental deformity before the the advent of the modern diet!
More than sixty years ago, a Cleveland dentist named Weston A. Price decided to embark on a series of unique investigations that would engage his attention and energies for the next ten years. Possessed of an inquiring mind and a spiritual nature, Price was disturbed by what he found when he looked into the mouths of his patients. Rarely did an examination of an adult client reveal anything but rampant decay, often accompanied by serious problems elsewhere in the body such as arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, intestinal complaints and chronic fatigue. (They called it neurasthenia in Price’s day.) But it was the dentition of younger patients that gave him most cause for concern. He observed that crowded, crooked teeth were becoming more and more common, along with what Price called “facial deformities”–overbites, narrowed faces, underdevelopment of the nose, lack of well-defined cheekbones and pinched nostrils. Such children invariably suffered from one or more complaints that sound all too familiar to mothers of the 1990s: frequent infections, allergies, anemia, asthma, poor vision, lack of coordination, fatigue and behavioral problems. Price did not believe that such “physical degeneration” was God’s plan for mankind. He was rather inclined to believe that the creator intended physical perfection for all human beings, and that children should grow up free of ailments.
Price’s bewilderment gave way to a unique idea. He would travel to various isolated parts of the earth where the inhabitants had no contact with “civilization” to study their health and physical development. His investigations took him to isolated Swiss villages and a windswept island off the coast of Scotland. He studied traditional Eskimos, Indian tribes in Canada and the Florida Everglades, South Seas islanders, Aborigines in Australia, Maoris in New Zealand, Peruvian and Amazonian Indians and tribesmen in Africa. These investigations occurred at a time when there still existed remote pockets of humanity untouched by modern inventions; but when one modern invention, the camera, allowed Price to make a permanent record of the people he studied. The photographs Price took, the descriptions of what he found and his startling conclusions are preserved in a book considered a masterpiece by many nutrition researchers who followed in Price’s footsteps: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Yet this compendium of ancestral wisdom is all but unknown to today’s medical community and modern parents.
