A Healthy Additive?
Sounds like an oxymoron

Lecithin is now widely used as a food additive. Its mechanism of action is based mainly on its similarity to phospholipids in cell membranes and blood lipoproteins. This similarity allows the
inclusion of plant phospholipids like lecithin into these structures promoting healthy cell membranes and lipids and preventing a number of disease processes. Lecithin is a source of easily accessible linoleic acid, choline and inositol. Lecithin acts as a synergist for antioxidants also. The proven health benefits which can be achieved by taking lecithin include:

- Lipid-lowering
- Control of blood levels of cholesterol and triglyceride
- Stabilization of cell membranes, and
- Supporting liver function.

Lecithin is found at high concentrations in egg whites. It also is in
soybeans, grains, fish, legumes, yeast and peanuts. Most commercially used
lecithin comes from soybeans. Lecithin can alter food taste and texture and
also can be mixed with water to disperse fats, making it a common additive
in margarine, mayonnaise, chocolate and baked goods.

Yours in health,
Pamela

Eatertainment - July 27, 2009

Patients often tell me that they eat when they are either bored or lonely.
This emotional eating is usually their dietary undoing. There is an
excellent book review on eating as entertainment in the New Yorker this
week, I've borrowed this excerpt from it because I couldn't have written it
better:

David A. Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug
Administration, says that it’s not that sweet and oily foods have become
less expensive; it’s that they’ve been re-engineered while we weren’t
looking. Kessler spends a lot of time meeting with (often anonymous)
consultants who describe how they are trying to fashion products that offer
what has become known in the food industry as “eatertainment.” Fat,
sugar, and salt turn out to be the crucial elements in this quest:
different“eatertaining” items mix these ingredients in different but
invariably highly caloric combinations. A food scientist for Frito-Lay
relates how the company is seeking to create “a lot of fun in your
mouth” with products like Nacho Cheese Doritos, which meld “three
different cheese notes” with lots of salt and oil. Another
product-development expert talks about how she is trying to “unlock the
code of craveability,” and a third about the effort to “cram as much
hedonism as you can in one dish.”

Kessler invents his own term—“conditioned hypereating”—to
describe how people respond to these laboratory-designed concoctions. Foods
like Cinnabons and Starbucks’ Strawberries & Crème Frappuccinos are, he
maintains, like drugs: “Conditioned hypereating works the same way as
other ‘stimulus response’ disorders in which reward is involved, such
as compulsive gambling and substance abuse.” For Kessler, the analogy is
not merely rhetorical: research on rats, he maintains, proves that the
animals’ brains react to sweet, fatty foods the same way that addicts’
respond to cocaine.

If you would like to read the whole article, which is excellent, here's the
link:

New Yorker Article

Yours in health,
Pamela

But Why?

This blog topic comes to us courtesy of my 3 year old son,
Brandon.  Brandon's favourite phrase these days is "but why?"
which has me convinced he'll make an excellent naturopathic
doctor.  You see its an inherent part of the job that you must
always be asking yourself the question "but why?" in order to
get to the root cause of the problem.  You can insert your
own health condition here but as an example I'll use
asthma.

Patient A has asthma
But why?
Because her bronchi restrict in response to certain stimuli
But why?
Because they have developed a hypersensitivity
But why?
Because she had excessive stress, was depleted in vitamin C,
B6, essential fatty acids and her liver wasn't clearing toxins
effectively
But why?
Improper diet, poor absorption of vitamins/minerals,
stress-related depletion of the nutrients she did have and her
liver didn't have what it needed to do its job
But why?

You get the idea, at some point we are satisfied with the answer
and you've reached what I call the end point of explanations and
there's where you need to start to treat the problem.  In a
simplistic world we could give herbs to open up the bronchi, but
that's nowhere near the root cause of the problem.  Without
asking "but why?" we would only be masking the underlying
deficiencies rather than treating the actual cause.
The "but why?" philosophy can be applied to any life situation,
not just health problems.  It's important to keep asking the
question to eventually get a satisfactory answer and a place to
start finding solutions.

Yours in Health,
Pamela

 

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A@#$%tame is a Dirty Word

On the subject of food additives, here's the low-down on one artificial sweetener that starts with "A" ends with "tame", you fill in the blanks. It UNEQUIVOCALLY worsens: Hypertension Migraine Epilepsy and Obesity

I had one patient who after consuming only a little of it, would wake in the middle of the night with her heart pounding, drenched in sweat, losing bladder control, losing bowel control and feeling as if she were going to die. The only change we made was to eliminate aspartame and this all immmediately went away.

Still thinking of having that Diet Pop?

Weekly Post #2 - MSG and Weight Gain

There are at least 1500 scientific articles on MSG. In rats, there is overwhelming evidence of brain damage, retinal damage, hypothalamus damage, induced obesity and diabetes. Just two doses of MSG during the second half of pregnancy damage the developmental process, appetite control and various hormones in the offspring of rats. MSG consumption is used to induce obesity in animals! Incidentally, monkeys are at least as sensitive to MSG damage as are rats. Personally, I love good Chinese food (not the greasy, MSG crap). If it's well prepared I think it's healthy - lots of dark green leafy vegetables and protein. Stay clear of the MSG and if you having rice make it only a very small serving and enjoy!

Yours in health, Pamela

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Bowels and Blueberries - Weekly Post #1

Information was released today showing that blueberries contain a substance that seems to be protective against colon cancer. Blueberries are nutritional powerhouses full of antioxidants that help protect eyesight and the heart, prevent aging and now are shown to help prevent cancer. I try to incorporate them into breakfast at least 3-4 times per week. Frozen blueberries may be better for you than fresh because they are often wild (meaning organic) and the freezing process actually breaks down the cell wall making it easier to obtain the nutrients from the inside. All my life I've loved blueberries - now I know why!

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