*March 2004 issue of Dr. Greger's Newsletter*

[Guest guest]

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March 2004 issue of Dr. Michael Greger's Monthly Newsletter

 

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CONTENTS

 

I. Latest Updates in Human Nutrition

A. Bowel Movement Frequency

B. Raw Vegetables More Protective than Cooked?

C. Eggs and Colorectal Cancer Mortality

D. Green Tea May Protect from Prostate Cancer

E. Girls, Fruits & Veggies and Skeletal Development

F. Eat the Peel? Antioxidant Power of Peels and Seeds

 

II. Bird Flu: Meateaters Put the Entire World at Risk

 

III. What's Wrong with Atkins: The 2004 Veg Speaking Tour

 

IV. Update on Mad Cow Disease

 

V. Personal Update - Aah, my laptop is dying!

 

VI. MAILBAG: " You said last month to eat greens and flax seeds--yeah but how? "

 

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I. LATEST UPDATES IN HUMAN NUTRITION

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A. Bowel Movement Frequency

 

With a title like " Nutrition and Lifestyle in Relation to Bowel

Movement Frequency, " I knew it just had to be good.[1] In the biggest

study of it's kind ever, British researchers compared the reported

bowel habits of about 15,000 meateaters to 5000 vegetarians and about

1000 vegans.

 

The study was peppered with memorable quotes like " That non

meat-eaters have a higher frequency of defecation is well documented "

and " Our finding of a very clear trend towards an increasing number

of bowel movements with a more rigorous degree of vegetarianism could

be a field for further investigation. "

 

Constipation is the most common gastrointestinal complaint in the

United States, leading to millions of doctor visits every year.

Constipation can increase one's risk for a hiatal hernia, varicose

veins, hemorrhoids, and painful conditions with names like " anal

fissure. "

 

The researchers conclude " Being vegetarian and especially vegan is

strongly associated with a

higher frequency of bowel movements. " Vegans, for example, were three

times more likely to have daily BMs.

 

It's like we've always said: vegans are just regular people

 

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B. Raw Vegetables More Protective than Cooked?

 

Eating lots of vegetables every day is one of the most powerful

things anyone can do to prevent a wide variety of diseases, including

cancer. Researchers have been puzzled, though, why the protective

effect for breast cancer has not been as strong or consistent as for

some of the other cancers. Researchers in Germany may have just found

a clue to the mystery.[2]

 

The researchers looked at the past diets of hundreds of breast cancer

victims and healthy controls, and like many studies before them, they

found a modest trend towards decreased risk of breast cancer

development in people with the highest daily vegetable consumption.

But when they broke up intake categories into raw vegetables versus

cooked vegetables, they were surprised to find that women who ate

just a single small salad a day seemed to cut their risk of

developing breast cancer in half (compared to those who like only ate

a salad every couple days) while the women eating the most cooked

veggies didn't seem to have any protection from developing breast

cancer at all.

 

Cooking reduces the availability of some of the carotenoids in

vegetables like lutein, zeaxanthin, and B-cryptoxanthin, but cooking

also actually increases the bioavailability of other carotenoids like

lycopene, alpha carotene and beta carotene. So I encourage people to

eat a variety of cooked and raw foods. Although this study did show

that raw vegetables seemed to have a distinct advantage, for example,

it also showed that women who ate cooked whole grain products like

whole wheat bread and brown rice also seemed significantly protected

from developing breast cancer.

 

The mechanism by which vegetables decrease cancer risk is unknown,

but evidence suggests that it's immune related. Our immune system has

special cells called natural killer cells, whose mission in life is

to just go around killing cancer cells. Their job is to rove around

the body on seek and destroy missions trying to remove any budding

tumors anywhere in our body. Our mission (if we choose to accept it)

is to boost their cancer-fighting abilities. That's where vegetables

come in. A recent study, for example, found that those drinking

vegetable juice (carrot or tomato) every day significantly increased

the cancer fighting ability of their immune system.[3]

 

It's time for all of us to get back to our salad days of youth.

 

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C. Eggs and Colorectal Cancer Mortality

 

In the largest study of it's kind ever, researchers compared egg

consumption across 34 countries over a three decade time span to

colon and rectal cancer death rates. They found egg consumption on a

population level was significantly associated with mortality in men

and women in countries across the world. Yes, but perhaps that's

because egg eaters were also more likely to eat meat, or to smoke, or

less likely to eat vegetables. Even after controlling for almost all

established and potential risk factors for these two cancers, the

relationship remained. On a population level, the more eggs that were

eaten, the more deaths there was from rectal and colon cancer.

 

Just because something is related on a population level, however,

does not necessarily mean cause and effect. For example, just because

the total egg sales in one country is higher than in another country,

that doesn't necessarily mean that people are actually eating more

eggs in the first country. Maybe one country feeds more of their eggs

to farmed or companion animals. Maybe one country cooks or stores

eggs differently such that more is wasted or thrown away or spoils in

one country than another. What population comparison studies can do,

however, is to stimulate more research. As the researchers concluded,

if more studies do continue to show this relationship between egg

consumption and cancer mortality, urging people to eat less eggs " may

provide an easy and practical intervention measure to reduce the

tremendous public health burden of colon and rectal cancers. " [4]

 

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D. Green Tea May Protect from Prostate Cancer

 

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of male cancer death in

Western countries, but countries like China have 60 times lower

prostate cancer rates than the United States. This month,[5]

Australian researchers published evidence that some of that

protection may be because of green tea consumption (without milk).

They found that the men drinking the most green tea seemed to have up

to 90% less risk of developing prostate cancer.

 

As always, vegetarians should try to limit their green or black tea

consumption during meals, as tea can interfere with the absorption of

iron from plant foods. It doesn't interfere with the absorption of

iron from blood, so those who eat blood--meateaters--can drink tea

anytime.

 

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E. Girls, Fruits & Veggies and Skeletal Development

 

We've known that adults can protect their bones eating fruits and

vegetables, but it's never been studied in children... until now.

University of Tennessee researchers just published a study which

found that girls (aged 8-13) who ate more fruits and veggies seemed

to have significantly increased bone mass compared to girls who ate

less even after controlling for many other factors. The size of their

skeletons was significantly increased.

 

Although this study was relatively small (limited to 56 subjects) and

only looked at affluent white girls, hopefully this will be the first

of many studies on maximizing peak bone mass in adolescent women. The

researchers suspect that the reason fruits and vegetables were so

protective is because most plant foods tend to decrease the calcium

loss in the urine that is triggered in part by the consumption of

meat.[6]

 

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F. Eat the peel? Antioxidant Power of Peels and Seeds

 

More and more diseases--Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease--are being

linked to what's called " oxidant stress " in the body, which is the

tissue damage wreaked by free radicals in our diet and environment.

To prevent these diseases we rely on the superheroes and heroines of

the body, the antioxidants found predominantly in whole plant foods

like fruits. Most studies measuring the antioxidant power in fruits,

though, has only studied the pulp of the fruit. In the most

comprehensive study of it's kind ever published, a recent study out

of China measured the antioxidant power of the pulp, peel and seed

fractions of 28 different fruits,.[7]

 

Researchers found that with a few exceptions, the peel and seeds of

fruit has more antioxidants than the pulp. So for example, the peel

of kiwi fruits, for example, has about three times the antioxidants

than the inside of the fruit and the peel of fruits like pomegranates

have almost 30 times the antioxidant punch. Grape seeds have a

hundred times more antioxidant power than the pulp! So grapes with

seeds are healthier than seedless, but only of course if one actually

chews the seeds up.

 

If you do choose to not to peel nutrition off your fruit, it's

particularly important to wash them under running water and to buy

organic.

 

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II. BIRD FLU: Meateaters Put the Entire World at Risk

 

The deadliest plague in human history was the influenza pandemic of

1918, which killed up to 50 million people around the world. Modern

flu strains tend to spare young healthy adults, but every few decades

a strain arises that can kill people in the prime of life. In 1918,

more than a quarter of all Americans fell ill.[1] What started for

millions across the globe as a runny nose and a sore throat ended

days later with people bleeding from their ears and nostrils and into

their lungs. The victims drowned in their own blood. Their

corpses--tinged blue from suffocation--were " stacked like cordwood "

outside the morgues as cities ran out of coffins.[2]

 

Where did this disease come from? Brilliant medical detective work,

which included digging up corpses discovered frozen in the Alaskan

permafrost for tissue samples, recently pieced together the genetic

makeup of the virus. The disease came from bird flu.

 

The 1918 virus probably jumped species in crowded World War I army

camps in Europe where they raised chickens for slaughter. That flu

would go on to bury more people than the World War.[3] The army camp

outbreaks started in 1917. It took a year before the virus had enough

human victims to mutate inside of before it could explode upon the

world. " That's what could happen in Asia, " noted one flu expert this

week, " It could be another year before it really gets moving. " [4]

 

We now know that bird flu is the original cause of all of these human

influenza " type A " viruses. Although the viruses can affect a wide

range of animals including pigs, horses and wild birds, the initial

source seems to be domesticated fowl such as chickens and turkeys.[5]

 

Over the last few decades meat and egg consumption has exploded in

the developing world, leading to industrial-scale commercial chicken

farming and mass animal transport, favoring the emergence and spread

of influenza superstrains.[6] The World Animal Health Organization

blames changes in the global poultry industry, such as shorter

production cycles and greater animal densities, for the increased

risk of spawning epidemics.[7] Even backyard farms in Asia have

turned almost industrial, filling every square inch with chickens.

" As soon as you have that many animals in one spot you are likely to

get into trouble with disease, " said Dr. Samuel Jutzi, Director of

Animal Production and Health at the U.N. Food and Agriculture

Organization.[8]

 

The World Health Organization also blames the present bird flu

outbreak on " intensive poultry production. " [9] As one infectious

disease expert noted, " There are a whole lot of practices in animal

husbandry that means we have got large numbers of animals all close

together with practices to give often a very short-term gain that may

not be sustainable in the long term, but may well have long-term

consequences that are not known, or not thought through at the

time. " [10] The stress of intensive confinement alone on the birds'

immune systems increases the risk that factory farms will become the

breeding ground for the next global pandemic.[11]

 

According to a recent editorial in The Lancet, one of the most

prestigious medical journals in the world, " All human diseases to

emerge in the past 20 years have had an animal source... " [12] For

example, hepatitis B, a disease which now kills a million people

every year, probably appeared upon the world stage thanks to people

eating chimpanzee meat. Ebola, the virus that causes one's organs to

dissolve and kills up to 90% of people infected within a week, is

thought to have originally come from people eating gorilla meat. Of

course the disease doesn't limit itself to killing just those that

ate the flesh of their fellow primates. Once it's jumped species it

can spread throughout the human population.

 

The AIDS virus has now infected 50 million people. Where did it come

from? The leading theory is that human beings originally got it

through " direct exposure to animal blood and secretions as a result

of hunting, butchering, or other activities (such as consumption of

uncooked contaminated meat)... " (a competing theory is that the AIDS

virus was originally spread through vaccines manufactured using

chimpanzee kidneys).[13]

 

Historically, tuberculosis and measles emerged when humans started

herding cattle in large numbers. The SARS virus spread into the human

population because people were raising civet cats for their flesh.

Mad Cow disease is another direct result of industrial practices, and

now threatens the safety of the world's blood supply.[14] Animal

agriculture has become a public health hazard for more than those

that consume the meat.

 

The World Health Organization has described the speed at which this

new outbreak of bird flu in Asia has spread as " historically

unprecedented. " [15] And the human lethality of the strain is

ferocious--killing 70% of people it infects.[16] The 1918 strain only

killed 2.5% of it's victims.[17]

 

Although fifty million chickens are dead, only a few people have

become infected. The fear is that the bird flu will spread to a pig

or person already infected with a human strain of influenza. Once

this happens, a deadly gene swap can take place in which the human

transmissibility of the human flu virus combines with the lethality

of the bird flu virus. The World Health Organization in a conference

today reiterated that conditions are " ripe " for the emergence of just

such a virus that could trigger the next global pandemic.[18]

 

No war, no plague, no famine has ever killed so many in so short a

time as the 1918 influenza pandemic.[19] One scientist observed in

1918 that " civilization could have disappeared within a few more

weeks. " At that time, though, there were less than 2 billion people

in the world and no mass international commercial air travel.

Scientists today fear a global influenza pandemic could be many times

worse even with modern medical advances.

 

According to the Lancet editorial, vaccination would not be a viable

option due to the lethality of the strain, antiviral drugs are not

effective enough, and, since influenza is more contagious than

diseases like SARS, quarantine measures are unlikely to control a

human outbreak. The editorial concludes, " In view of the mortality of

human influenza associated with this strain, the prospect of a

worldwide pandemic is massively frightening. " [20]

 

Humanity's lust for flesh not only kills billions of animals every

year directly, but threatens the health of our planet and may

threaten our health in more ways than we know.

 

 

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III. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ATKIN'S: The 2004 Veg Speaking Tour

 

The American Dietetic Association called the Atkins diet a " nightmare

of a diet. " Pulling in $100 million a year, the Atkins empire is

putting people at risk for permanent physical damage to their health.

Thankfully, we have George Eisman.

 

George Eisman, R.D., is one of my heroes. He is one of the world's

foremost experts on plant-based nutrition--in fact I learn more

listening to him than from almost any other speaker on vegetarian and

vegan nutrition. And he's going on a national speaking tour!

 

As part of Farm Sanctuary's Veg-for-Life campaign, he's now booking

dates across country to give talks AT NO COST on the dangers of the

Atkins diet. To reserve a spot on his 2004 Veg Speaking Tour, go to

http://vegforlife.org/veg_tour.htm

 

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IV. UPDATE ON MAD COW DISEASE

 

The top Mad Cow story last month was the discovery of a new form of

Mad Cow disease that looks just like the sporadic form of CJD killing

hundreds of older Americans every year.

 

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

Italian researchers named the new strain of Mad Cow disease BASE,

bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy. Based on the CJD-like

pattern of brain damage and molecular " fingerprint " of the strain,

researchers are concerned that this second form may be causing the

form of CJD so often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's disease in the

United States. This builds on earlier evidence (documented in my

latest report available for download at

http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/Greger.pdf) that infected meat may

also be to blame for this so-called " sporadic " form of

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

For weekly updates on the evolving Mad Cow disease crisis, visit my

website http://organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm Or for just my latest

writings and commentary, send a blank email to

DrGregersMadCowUpdates- to to my

Mad Cow email list.

 

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V. PERSONAL UPDATE - Aah, My Laptop is Dying!

 

Everyone who knows me knows that ever since Vegan Outreach donated

their laptop to me it hasn't left my side. I even seatbelt it in next

to me on the road. Whenever something bad would happen to me on tour,

my mantra was always " At Least My Laptop is OK. " Unfortunately I can

no longer say that.

 

My screen just started flickering. I took it in and was told that

the " inverter " is shot, and that a repair would be so expensive that

it's not worth fixing. Right now it's OK most of the time, but then

all the sudden goes into this like seizure inducing flicker and

blacks out from time to time. The repair guy said that it will just

get worse and worse until it blacks out permanently. Help!

 

My laptop is how I'm able to get all the work I do done. It turns

hours of bus, train and plane rides into productive time. It's how I

stay in touch with everyone, it's how I update the Mad Cow site,

write my books, this newsletter, etc. It's basically become my life.

If anyone has a used laptop that they are considering getting rid of

please consider donating it to me. If everyone could just ask around

to people and organizations they know, I'm hoping one will pop up.

 

Not that beggars can be choosers, but I've only ever worked on Apple

computers, and so my familiarity and files are all in Mac format, but

at this point I'm getting desperate. Used or refurbished Apple

laptops are running under $800 these days, and so if anyone wants to

make a tax-deductible donation to help me purchase one if my search

is unsuccessful I would be eternally grateful.

 

The advantage of not having a salary is that I can devote my life

full-time to activism. The way I can do that is that I have almost no

expenses--I don't pay rent (people put me up and feed me), have no

health insurance (or even car insurance now), etc. The downside is

that unexpected expenses like this come up. Please everyone keep

your fingers crossed for me.

 

On an unrelated topic, a few quick things: First of all, I'm so sorry

for accidentally sending the February newsletter out twice. Hopefully

that will never happen again. Also, I am currently all out of the VHS

video copies of my nutrition DVD, but there are VHS copies still

available from the online Earthsave store at

http://shopping.earthsave.org/catalog/ Finally, every month I get

requests to reprint portions of my writings. There is no need to ask

permission. Please always feel free to reprint anything I write for

any (nonprofit) purpose. The same goes for my CDs--always feel free

to burn them and distribute copies far and wide.

 

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VI. MAILBAG: " You said last month to eat greens and flax seeds--yeah but how? "

 

However you want! But obviously the yummier it is the more you'll

stuff them in your face, so I decided to consult the one and only

Brook Katz, who's been cooking up vegan fare for 18 years (you can

check out his latest cookbook at http://brookkatz.com/books.html). I

called him up and said two words--greens and flax--and this is the

recipe he was so sweet to design for us. Please try it and get back

to me. If everyone likes it maybe I can entice Brook to give us a

monthly recipe featuring some of the plant foods I highlight!

 

GREENS IN JALAPENO MUSTARD FLAX SAUCE

1/2 cup flax seed --ground to a meal (or 2/3 cup preground flax)

1 1/2 cups of water (more if needed to make a thinner sauce)

2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast

1 Tbsp. your favorite mustard

1 Tbsp. tamari

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 jalapeno pepper – remove the seeds if you don't want it that hot!

Enough broccoli or brussel sprouts or dark leafy greens for 8 people

 

In a blender, combine the flax meal and water, and blend till it's

thick and creamy. (It will almost appear to be gelatinous) Add the

other sauce ingredients and blend well again. Steam the broccoli or

brussel sprouts till they are tender, but not too soft. Remove them

from the heat and pour the sauce directly over the hot vegetables.

Serving suggestion: as a side dish with your favorite Mexican food,

Ole’!

 

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REFERENCES:

(Full text of specific articles available by emailing

article-request)

1 Public Health Nutrition: 7(2004):77.

2 Nutrition and Cancer 46(2):131.

3 Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism 47(2003):255.

4 Nutrition and Cancer 46(2):158.

5 International Journal of Cancer 108(2004):130.

6 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79(2004):311.

7 Nutrition Research 23(2003):1719.

 

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REFERENCES (Bird Flu):

(Full text of specific articles available by emailing

article-request)

1 Kolata, G. Flu. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Gairoux, 1999.

2 Crosby, A.W. American's Forgotten Pandemic. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1989.

3 Ibid.

4 Biotech Week February 25, 2004

5 American Journal of Nursing. 103(7):22.

6 Biotech Week February 25, 2004

7 Australian Financial Review January 31, 2004 Saturday

8 Biotech Week February 25, 2004

9 Australian Financial Review January 31, 2004 Saturday

10 Ibid.

11 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 894:20-7, 1999

12 Lancet 363(9405):257.

13 Science. 287(5453):607-14

14 New York Times. January 28, 2004.

15 The Mercury (Australia) January 31, 2004 Saturday

16 22 out of the 32 infected human victims have died.

17 Kolata, G. Flu. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Gairoux, 1999.

18 Financial Times. February 26 2004

19 Crosby, A.W. American's Forgotten Pandemic. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1989.

20 Lancet 363(9405):257.

 

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If anyone missed previous months, check out my newsletter

<http://www.veganmd.org/newsletters.html>archive at

http://www.veganMD.org/newsletters.html

 

Until next month,

love,

Michael

 

--

(206) 312-8640

mhg1

http://www.veganMD.org

 

Check out my new Maximize Nutrition DVD at :

http://www.veganmd.org/dvd.html

Four of my most popular talks are now online (free) at:

http://www.veganmd.org/talks/

To to my free monthly email newsletter send a blank email to:

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HEART FAILURE: Diary of a Third Year Medical Student (Full text now

available free):

http://www.upalumni.org/medschool

The thinker that most changed my life: Noam Chomsky

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm

The single article that most changed my life:

http://www.petersingerlinks.com/famine.htm

Please everyone donate money to Tribe of Heart

http://www.tribeofheart.org/jointoh.htm

 

For periodic updates on the Mad Cow crisis send a blank email to

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