Seeking Health

Dried plums — or prunes — are among the highest antioxidant foods shown to help improve bone strength. However, in early studies, the level of prune intake originally found to bone-enhancing was fairly high at 100 grams, or 10-12 prunes a day.

While researchers were happy with this first prune-positive finding, they did hear more than a few complaints about the number of prunes the women had to consume. So they decided to investigate if half that prune intake would still provide potent benefits.

How many prunes to reverse bone loss?

At the recent International Symposium on Nutrition and Osteoporosis I had the opportunity to meet a researcher studying the prune-bone link -Dr. Shirin Hooshmand from San Diego State University. Even though her clinical trial has been going only for six months, preliminary results are very positive. 

She has found that only 6 prunes a day helped women with osteopenia to reduce bone resorption as much as some of the osteoporosis drugs.

How to get 6 prunes in a day

Those of you who do my programs know that I encourage preparation for healthy eating through batch cooking. Although prunes are delicious straight out of the bag, they are also delcious stewed. I sometimes stew up 42 prunes for a week’s supply and eat 2-3 a meal. I love them as a “sweet” ending to my meal or mixed into my hot cereal. I also eat them warmed up a bit and even drink the juice.

To stew prunes:

• Put 42 dried prunes in pan and cover with water 1” above prunes, add a cut up lemon
• Bring water to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer
• Simmer for 20-30 minutes or until soft
• Cool prunes and put in refrigerator

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With weight loss goals in the air, protein praise is everywhere...

Though herbivores can easily get plenty of protein, here are 6 ways to ensure you don't have to worry about it:

1. Like the koala-fied star of the meme, aim for at least 3 hefty servings of leafy greens every day. One serving equals 1 cup raw or 1/2 cup cooked, so it is super easy to meet this goal by including a daily salad, soup, and side of cooked greens.

2. Consume at least 3 servings of legumes every day. One serving equals 1/2 cup of lentils, beans, peas, or soy foods. Throw beans over salad, whip up a batch of hummus (mmm...hummus), cook up a stew or soup with beans and/or lentils, and/or use beans to make a delicious oil-free dressing (see recipe ideas below).

3. Look how ubiquitous protein is in the plant kingdom with just some of the protein superstars and the amount of protein they contain per cup:

All beans (10-29 g)

All seeds (24-58 g)

Nuts/nut butters (20-64 g)

Tofu (11 g/4 oz)

Tempeh (41 g)

Seitan (31 g/3 oz)

Peas (9 g)

Lentils (18 g)

Soy milk (7 g)

Spinach (5 g)

Broccoli (4 g)

Pasta (8 g)

Brown rice (5 g)

Quinoa (9 g)

Veggie burger (13 g)

4. Remember that we only require approximately 10-15% of our calories to come from protein. The average woman needs about 46 grams per day and the average man, 56 grams per day, according to the Institute of Medicine. This can also be looked at in grams per kilogram bodyweight per day (g/kg/d), which looks like this by age:

--->

1.5 g/kg/day for infants

1.1 g/kg/day for 1-3 y

0.95 g/kg/day for 4-13 y

0.85 g/kg/day for 14-18 y

0.8 g /kg/day for adults >19 y

1.1 g/kg/day for pregnant (using pre-pregnancy weight) and lactating women

5. Include 1-2 ounces of nuts per day for a boost of protein along with healthy fats, fiber, vitamin E, L-arginine, and plant sterols. Also, including a sprinkle of seeds can provide protein packaged together with essential fats, vitamin E, fiber, trace minerals, and phytochemicals such as lignans, an uber-powerful health-promoting nutrient.

6. Simply ensure you are consuming adequate calories. I do not advocate calculating numbers, but make sure you are eating enough to meet your needs and preferentiating *whole* foods (not processed products, which are stripped of protein and other essential nutrients). You can monitor this by your energy levels, on the scale by weight, and by performance in workouts.

Recent undercover footage from Farmwatch and SAFE has highlighted the cruel practices inherent in the dairy industry as well as out-right abuse of bobby calves. While most are rightly appalled at the video footage showing calves being thrown, dragged and kicked, some see other widespread industry practices such as removing calves from their mothers to be killed or raised for veal as a “necessary evil” in order to produce a product necessary for human consumption and our economy. But is this the truth?

Many New Zealanders, including some vegetarians, still consume substantial amounts of dairy products—and government policies still promote them—despite scientific evidence that questions their health benefits and indicates their potential health risks. Following is information from the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine on dairy.

Bone Health

Calcium is an important mineral that helps to keep bones strong. Our bones are constantly remodelling, meaning the body takes small amounts of calcium from the bones and replaces it with new calcium. Therefore, it is essential to have enough calcium so that the body doesn’t decrease bone density in this remodelling process. Though calcium is necessary for ensuring bone health, the actual benefits of calcium intake do not exist after consumption passes a certain threshold. Consuming more than approximately 600 milligrams per day—easily achieved without dairy products or calcium supplements—does not improve bone integrity.

Clinical research shows that dairy products have little or no benefit for bones. A 2005 review published in Paediatrics showed that milk consumption does not improve bone integrity in children. In a more recent study, researchers tracked the diets, physical activity, and stress fracture incidences of adolescent girls for seven years, and concluded that dairy products and calcium do not prevent stress fractures in adolescent girls. Similarly, the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, which followed more than 72,000 women for 18 years, showed no protective effect of increased milk consumption on fracture risk.

It is possible to decrease the risk of osteoporosis by reducing sodium intake in the diet, increasing intake of fruits and vegetables, and ensuring adequate calcium intake from plant foods such as kale, broccoli, and other leafy green vegetables and beans. You can also use calcium-fortified products such as breakfast cereals and juices. Soy milk and fortified orange juice are two examples of products which provide about the same amount of calcium per serving as milk or other dairy products.

Exercise is one of the most effective ways to increase bone density and decrease the risk of osteoporosis, and its benefits have been observed in studies of both children and adults.

Individuals often drink milk in order to obtain vitamin D in their diets, unaware that they can receive vitamin D through other sources. Without vitamin D, only 10-15 percent of dietary calcium is absorbed.

The best natural source of vitamin D is sunlight. Five to 15 minutes of sun exposure to the arms and legs or the hands, face, and arms can be enough to meet the body’s requirements for vitamin D, depending on the individual’s skin tone. Darker skin requires longer exposure to the sun in order to obtain adequate levels of vitamin D. In colder climates during the winter months the sun may not be able to provide adequate vitamin D. During this time the diet must be able to provide vitamin D.

Few foods naturally contain vitamin D, and no dairy products naturally contain this vitamin. Therefore, fortified cereals, grains, bread, orange juice, and soy or rice milk exist as options for providing vitamin D through the diet. Supplements are also available.

Fat Content and Cardiovascular Disease

Dairy products—including cheese, ice cream, milk, butter, and yogurt—contribute significant amounts of cholesterol and saturated fat to the diet. Diets high in fat and especially in saturated fat can increase the risk of heart disease and can cause other serious health problems.

A low-fat, plant-based diet that eliminates dairy products, in combination with exercise, smoking cessation, and stress management, can not only prevent heart disease, but may also reverse it.

Dairy and Cancer

Consumption of dairy products has also been linked to higher risk for various cancers, especially to cancers of the reproductive system. Most significantly, dairy product consumption has been linked to increased risk for prostate and breast cancers.

The danger of dairy product consumption as it relates to prostate and breast cancers is most likely related to increases in insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which is found in cow’s milk.Consumption of milk and dairy products on a regular basis has been shown to increase circulating levels of IGF-1. Perhaps the most convincing association between IGF-1 levels and cancer risk is seen in studies of prostate cancer. Case-control studies in diverse populations have shown a strong and consistent association between serum IGF-1 concentrations and prostate cancer risk. One study showed that men with the highest levels of IGF-1 had more than four times the risk of prostate cancer, compared with those who had the lowest levels. In the Physicians Health Study, tracking 21,660 participants for 28 years, researchers found an increased risk of prostate cancer for those who consumed ≥2.5 servings of dairy products per day as compared with those who consumed ≤0.5 servings a day. This study, which is supported by other findings, also shows that prostate cancer risk was elevated with increased consumption of low-fat milk, suggesting that too much dairy calcium, and not just the fat associated with dairy products, could be a potential threat to prostate health.

In addition to increased levels of IGF-1, oestrogen metabolites are considered risk factors for cancers of the reproductive system, including cancers of the breasts, ovaries, and prostate. These metabolites can affect cellular proliferation such that cells grow rapidly and aberrantly, which can lead to cancer growth. Consumption of milk and dairy products contributes to the majority (60-70 percent) of oestrogen intake in the human diet.

In a large study including 1,893 women from the Life After Cancer Epidemiology Study who had been diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer, higher amounts of high-fat dairy product consumption were associated with higher mortality rates. As little as 0.5 servings a day increased risk significantly. This is probably due to the fact that estrogenic hormones reside primarily in fat, making the concern most pronounced for consumption of high-fat dairy products.

The consumption of dairy products may also contribute to development of ovarian cancer. The relation between dairy products and ovarian cancer may be caused by the breakdown of the milk sugar lactose into galactose, a sugar which may be toxic to ovarian cells. In a study conducted in Sweden, consumption of lactose and dairy products was positively linked to ovarian cancer. A similar study, the Iowa Women’s Health Study, found that women who consumed more than one glass of milk per day had a 73 percent greater chance of developing ovarian cancer than women who drank less than one glass per day.

Milk Proteins and Diabetes

Insulin-dependent (type 1 or childhood-onset) diabetes is linked to consumption of dairy products in infancy. A 2001 Finnish study of 3,000 infants with genetically increased risk for developing diabetes showed that early introduction of cow’s milk increased susceptibility to type 1 diabetes. In addition, the American Academy of Paediatrics observed up to a 30 percent reduction in the incidence of type 1 diabetes in infants who avoid exposure to cow’s milk protein for at least the first three months of their lives.

Health Concerns about Milk for Children and Infants

Milk proteins, milk sugar, fat, and saturated fat in dairy products pose health risks for children and encourage the development of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. While low-fat milk is often recommended for decreasing obesity risk, a study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood showed that children who drank 1 percent or skim milk, compared with those who drank full-fat milk, were not any less likely to be obese. Moreover, a current meta-analysis found no support for the argument that increasing dairy product intake will decrease body fat and weight over the long term (>1 year).

For infants, the consumption of cow’s milk is not recommended. The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends that infants below 1 year of age not be given whole cow’s milk, as iron deficiency is more likely due to the low amount of iron found in cow’s milk as compared with human breast milk. Colic is an additional concern with milk consumption. Up to 28 percent of infants suffer from colic during the first month of life. Paediatricians learned long ago that cow’s milk was often the reason. We now know that breastfeeding mothers can have colicky babies if the mothers consume cow’s milk. The cow’s antibodies can pass through the mother’s bloodstream, into her breast milk, and to the baby.

Additionally, food allergies appear to be common results of cow’s milk consumption, particularly in children. Cow’s milk consumption has also been linked to chronic constipation in children.

Conclusions

Milk and dairy products are not necessary in the diet and can, in fact, be harmful to health. It is best to consume a healthful diet of grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and fortified foods including cereals and juices. These nutrient-dense foods can help you meet your calcium, potassium, riboflavin, and vitamin D requirements with ease—and without facing the health risks associated with dairy product consumption.

But what about our economy? Won’t the downfall of the dairy industry mean the downfall of the NZ economy?

No. Recent research done by Massey University found that the environmental costs to society of dairy farming are approximately equal to the export revenue and gross domestic product (GDP). In other words, the industry is a zero-sum gain for New Zealand.

So what is the environmental impact of dairy farming in NZ?

It is difficult to separate the environmental impact of dairy farming from animal agriculture in general because the dairy industry and the meat industry are one and the same. New Zealand’s agricultural sector is responsible for almost half of all our domestic greenhouse gas emissions (49 per cent), with the dairy sector by far the biggest contributor. One third of all agriculture’s emissions are from nitrous oxide gas (from livestock urine, manure and artificial fertilizer use) and two-thirds come from methane, emitted when cows burp. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas; 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. But nitrous oxide is even more potent; 300 times more climate-damaging than CO2.

It was unbelievable that at the Climate Change march on Sunday, even though it accounts for nearly half our GHG emissions, not one of the speeches mentioned animal agriculture. Instead protestors walked down the street carrying banners about carbon emissions while eating ice creams.

Then we come to land and water use and pollution. The single biggest consumer of water in New Zealand is the dairy industry. As of 2010, farmers are permitted to take about 4707 million m3 of water per year from New Zealand’s rivers and aquifers to irrigate pasture, most of which is for dairying. This is 44% of all consumptive uses, and 68% of this water is allocated in Canterbury alone. It takes about 945 L of water to produce 1 L of milk in the Waikato. For Canterbury, it’s 1084 L of water.

When I was growing up, my Dad used to take us camping and tramping. Whenever we’d come to a stream or river, we’d fill up our water bottles and Dad would always tell us that it was the best and freshest water in the world.

Over the years as I’ve taken my children camping and tramping, we’re increasingly finding, not only lower river levels, but signs telling us “No Swimming” due to pollution. The thought of drinking the stuff is out of the question. This pollution isn’t coming from factories or chemical processing plants. It’s coming from dairy farms.

On any given acre of land we can grow twelve to twenty times the amount in kilograms of edible vegetables, fruit, and grain as in kilograms of edible animal products. We are essentially using twenty times the amount of land by consuming meat and dairy.

This also translates to 20 times the amount of crops as well. It’s been estimated that the amount of grain produced world-wide each year is enough to feed twice as many people as we currently have on earth. But 43% of all grain produced goes to livestock. Over 90% of the world’s soy bean harvest is used for animal feed. The extra billion tons of cereals experts are concerned about producing by 2030 to feed the rising population can be found today – we’re feeding it to livestock.

Since human settlement in Canterbury, widespread burning of native vegetation has occurred. Over the last 150 years, the introduction of modern farming methods has dramatically changed the natural habitats of the Canterbury Plains. Sadly, it is now one of the most depleted New Zealand regions, in terms of loss of native flora and fauna. Less than 0.5% of the plains still supports native vegetation.

The loss of these native plant communities has reached a point where habitats for our native wildlife have been reduced to a level where they are now insufficient for continued survival. Many of these native remnants exist now only as non-regenerating ageing populations that will be lost when the current plants die. The Canterbury Plains used to be covered in wetlands and podocarp forests. Now the only place you can see Kahikatea native forest is in a fenced off area called Riccarton Bush or Deans Bush – kind of like a tree museum. They haven’t started charging us a dollar and a half to see it yet, but there is a donation box. When you drive along state highway number one, through the Canterbury Plains, there is grazing land as far as the eye can see, not one Kahikatea tree in sight.

NZ cows are increasingly being fed genetically modified palm kernel, soy and cottonseed meal from Southeast Asia, Argentina and Indonesia, a practice that contributes to the destruction of rainforest and the habitat of species, such as the orang-utan. There is nothing illegal in this. It is perfectly legal to import and feed GM food to animals, just not directly to humans.

So, as you can see, the problem is far bigger than the abuse of bobby calves. This is just the tip of a very large ice berg. These calves are being killed and hurt for us to have a product that we don’t need and is actually making us sick, while destroying our planet at the same time. And we’re not even making any money out of it. If you haven’t ditched the dairy yet, yesterday was the best time to do it. Today is the next best time.

While most people instinctively know that living forever is likely to get pretty boring, most people want to enjoy a long life.

But how long is long? And how long is possible? I love life so much that I would eat a plateful of cardboard to spend another afternoon walking in the bush, another hour working in my garden, or another evening lying on the ground gazing up at the stars with my partner, Michael or our children. About to enter my sixth decade of life, I can hardly believe how young and healthy I feel. As long as I am functional, comfortable, and content, I want to live to be 120.

Aging is a normal part of life—a process that cannot be stopped or reversed; but age-associated diseases can be prevented and our functional lifespan can be prolonged. But for how long? The maximum human lifespan is believed to be about 125 years, but so far no one for certain has reached this limit. The oldest person of authentic record was a French woman who lived to be 122 years old.  The longest lived person in New Zealand was Maudie Wilson who lived to be 110 years old and died in October 2013. 

About 50 people alive today are over 110 years old —and there are presently 80,000 known centenarians (people who have reached 100 years).1 Interestingly, almost all of these “successful survivors” never saw a doctor until after age 90—obviously their exceptional longevity had nothing to do with medical intervention.

Life Expectancy Has Increased

The average life expectancy was 25 years or less during most (99.9%) of human existence. No prehistoric remains have been found of people older than 50 years. With few exceptions, war, accidents, starvation or infection ended lives before any of the signs of old age—graying of the hair, wrinkling of the skin, shortened memory, reduced strength, and decreased visual acuity—appeared. With the development of civilization people learned to control their environment and better protect themselves; with these advances some people then lived to a ripe old age. 

Do adults live longer today than they did in 1900?

We know that life expectancy has gone up tremendously. It was 47 in 1900. And today it’s 78. That’s 31 years. And people think that that’s because of modern medicine. But I come back to the question – are adults living longer than they did in 1900?

No. Not really. So how can that be? I just said that life expectancy went up 31 years. But let’s look at the data a little more carefully. If you were 65 in 1900, you could expect to live on average another 12 years, to age 77. That’s only one year less than life expectancy today. So, that means that adults today live little longer than they did in 1900. So what’s up with these figures?

The explanation is that the difference is seen in infant mortality. It used to be that 200 per thousand babies died in infancy, usually because of water-born illnesses, starvation, those type of issues. Today only 7 per thousand die. So that difference – those 193 babies in every thousand births that are now surviving to adulthood adds 31 years to the average lifespan. It’s not that people in 1900 were mostly dieing at 47 – a lot of people were dieing as infants and children and those that didn’t weren’t really living much less than we are today.

And most of the differences in lifespan are attributable to improvements in public hygiene, not medical advancements.

The History of Average Lifespans (in years)

Prehistoric 25

Classical Greece 28

Classical Rome 28

Medieval England 29

USA 1800 37

USA 1900 47

USA in 1950 68

USA in 2015 79

New Zealand in 2015 82

Japanese in 2015 84

All Adventists 85

Vegetarian Adventists 88.5

Conquer Chronic Diseases for the Next Big Boost

People living in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand eat a rich diet that shortens their life in many ways:

• Fat and cholesterol infiltrate their arteries, eventually causing ruptures and blockages (heart attacks and strokes).
• Inflammatory reactions scar the heart muscle and decrease its function.
• Food-borne environmental chemicals mutate the cells into cancer.
• Excess animal protein causes important loss of kidney function.

Even with all this disease from malnutrition, the average life span for the USA is 79.

Observing the health and longevity of people who eat better than most westerners provides clues to the potential gains from reducing chronic diseases. Japanese people who eat a diet based on plants (rice and vegetables) with little meat and no dairy products have an average lifespan of 84. But vegetarian Adventists do even better with women living, on average, to 90 years and men to 87 years. In fact, a direct comparison with other white Californians found vegetarian Adventists live an average of 10 years longer. However, these vigorous vegetarians still include way too much dairy, eggs, and vegetable oils in their diets to achieve the full potential of human longevity—leaving the opportunity to add a few more “good” years for people who are fully informed.

The November 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine carried an excellent article, “The Secrets of Living Longer.” They reported on 3 groups of long-lived people from Okinawa Japan, Sardinia Italy, and Loma Linda California—and all had in common that they followed a plant-based diet. At the very end of this issue there is a one-page “Do It Yourself” article with the subtitle, “Go Vegetarian.”

World Osteoporosis Day, 20 October, might not be as exciting as Christmas Day, or even Pancake Day, but it's important nonetheless. An alarming number of people in New Zealand suffer from osteoporosis, a condition which can lead to serious and sometimes disabling fractures.

Many osteoporotic fractures are preventable – essentially it’s “the disease we don’t have to have”. Like the major epidemics of the past, targeted health interventions now could drastically curb the incidence of osteoporosis, fractures and morbidity, which in New Zealand currently stands at one hip fracture every two hours.

This year about 80,000 New Zealanders will break bones because of osteoporosis, and about three quarters will be women. That is a fracture every 6 minutes, and if nothing is done, this will increase to 120,000 people by 2020, with a fracture every 41/2 minutes.

Too Young to Have to Worry?

Most fractures are seen later in life, but the foundations of bone health are laid down in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, and so osteoporosis is sometimes referred to as a paediatric disease. If preventative action is taken early on, the health burden and financial burden of osteoporosis for New Zealanders can be significantly reduced in the future.

What is Osteoporosis?

Bone is living, growing tissue made mostly of an organic matrix (protein collagen), bone cells and bone minerals. Bone cells consist of osteoblasts (bone forming cells) and osteoclasts (bone resorption cells). The bones that form the skeleton of the human body undergo a continuous process of modelling during childhood and adolescence. The mechanical competence of the skeleton is maintained by the process of remodelling where osteoclasts remove old bone, which is replaced by new bone formation by osteoblasts. Formation of new bones on one site, and removal of old bone at another site on the same bone, allows for bone growth and repair. During the first three decades of life there is bone growth, with relative balance occurring (under normal circumstances) between 20-40 years of age.

Peak bone mass, the point at which bones have their maximum strength, is attained at the third decade of life. With higher peak bone mass, the impact of subsequent bone loss is lessened, and therefore the risk of fracture is reduced. Bone mineral density (BMD) is often used as a surrogate measure of bone strength. Bone loss starts to occur when there is increased bone resorption that is not followed by equivalent bone formation. This bone loss gives rise to porous bones, or osteoporosis. Bone loss is often gradual and without warning signs until the disease is advanced. For this reason, osteoporosis has become known as “the silent thief”.

Osteoporosis is generally viewed as resulting from a combination of age-related, hormonal, dietary, lifestyle and genetic factors, all of which can lead to reduced bone mass. Much can be done to optimise bone mass early in life and slow/prevent bone loss later on in life.

As with other diet and lifestyle related diseases, forewarned is forearmed. Early detection can prompt people to make changes that will provide them with better long term outcomes for their bone health and mobility into old age. However, due to scientific advances in our understanding of bone health in recent decades, much of the popular wisdom regarding osteoporosis prevention is outdated and counterproductive.

For the latest in education for prevention of osteoporosis, visit OsteoHealth NZ.

Article written by Cath King based on information from “The Burden of Osteoporosis in New Zealand: 2007-2020” University of Auckland

 Today, let's consider the humble apple. We all know the folk wisdom that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". This insight is supported by all the evidence science has amassed that shows the apple is a food that contributes to health. But what is it about the apple that promotes health? Food composition tables tell us that the average apple contains a significant amount of the following nutrients: vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B6, potassium, dietary fibre and riboflavin. Also, it’s got smaller amounts of vitamin A, vitamin E, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, manganese, and a whole host of other nutrients. From this long list can we figure out what really matters about an apple?

Well Dr Rui Hai Liu got curious about this question, and he and his research team set about looking for the answer.

In studying the apple, Dr Liu and his research team began by focusing on vitamin C and its antioxidant effect. They found that 100 grams of fresh apples had an antioxidant, vitamin C-like activity equivalent to 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C (about three times the amount of a typical vitamin C supplement). When they chemically analysed that 100 grams of whole apple, however, they found only 5.7 milligrams of vitamin C, far below the 1,500 milligrams that the level of antioxidant activity associated with vitamin C indicated.

The vitamin C-like activity from 100 grams of whole apple was an astounding 263 times as potent as the same amount of the isolated chemical. Said another way, the specific chemical we refer to as vitamin C accounts for much less than 1% of the vitamin C-like activity in the apple – a miniscule amount.

The other 99-plus% of this activity is due to other vitamin C-like chemicals in the apple, the possibility of vitamin C to be much more effective in the context of the whole apple than it is when consumed in an isolated form, or both.

The process of nutrition is profoundly wholistic, in that the way the body uses a particular nutrient depends on what other nutrients we ingest along with it. If we just take an isolated vitamin C pill, we miss out on the cast of “supporting characters” that may give vitamin C its potency. Even if we add many of these characters into the pill too, we are still assuming that whatever else is in the apple and not in the pill is somehow unimportant.

The conclusion of Dr Liu’s study was that “natural antioxidants from fresh fruit could be more effective than a dietary supplement.”

Dr Liu’s subsequent research provided an even clearer picture of the mind-blowing complexity of a simple food like an apple. Once he discovered that an apple was far more powerful a vitamin C delivery system than it “should” have been, he wondered about the mechanisms that might explain that difference.

His lab focused on searching for the kinds of chemicals that might account for the rest of the vitamin C-like activity in apples. In the summary of their findings, they show that there is a treasure trove of such vitamin C-like compounds in apples. These include other antioxidants with names like quercetin, catechin, phlorizin and chlorogenic acid found only in plants, each which may exist in many forms within the apple. The list of these chemicals in apples is long, and likely reflects just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s as if the inside of the apple is bigger than it looks from the outside.

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. This applies especially to health. However, holistic health is not about avoiding doctors; it is about not needing to go to doctors. The idea is to be well. Each of us is ultimately responsible for our own wellness, and we should consider all options in our search for better health. We get out of our bodies what we put into them; our bodies will respond to efforts to improve our health.

We need to be smart medical consumers and learn to manage our doctors as well as we manage our employees. (After all, that’s what your doctor is – your employee.) So how do we do this?

First we need to ask a lot of questions, but don’t consent to anything until you have complete understanding of it. You go to the doctor and say, “Look, I’ve got this pain in my side and I can’t figure out what it is.” And she says, “Well we need to do some imaging.” Okay, well, what kind of imaging? She might say a CT scan, but if you investigate CT scans, you may decide that’s way too much radiation and you’ll probably be better off with an MRI. What you really want to do is gather information. If you don’t know the answers to some of these questions, go home, do some research, and then decide what you’re going to do.

That doesn’t mean you should dillydally for another nine months – you may be on a fairly tight schedule of needing to figure out what’s wrong or what to do about it – but you don’t just do what you’re told. In truth, it’s very rare that you wouldn’t have a few months or weeks to make a decision.

So, if your doctor does find something to worry about – high blood pressure, a lump, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, arthritis, you say, “Great, I’d like to have any images and any other information that you can give me so that I’m really clear on what’s going on with me.” Take notes and then say, “Thank you very much. Now please tell me what you think I ought to do and I’m going to take really careful notes. Also, please understand when you’re telling me what you want me to do, I would like some outcomes and expectations in absolute rather than relative terms. I want you to tell me the straight story. I’m going to check this out with some other people who may have different tools in their toolbox, get a second opinion , and then I’m going to make up my mind about what to do.” And that’s when you get in contact with someone like me, another GP or specialist and get some other points of view. And then make your best decision about what you think is right for you. Don’t get herded into some type of procedure without looking into it first.

It’s important to remember that the vast majority of illness can be prevented, healed and reversed by making changes in your diet and lifestyle, sometimes supported by nutritional therapy, herbal medicine and other natural therapies. There is a natural alternative to every drug and in most cases this includes prescription drugs as well.

Note that it may be necessary to take a recommended drug or have an operation or procedure in order to buy yourself enough time to address the root cause of your symptoms by making changes to your diet and lifestyle. But the long term goal should always be to reduce or eliminate medications as soon as your body heals and corrects the imbalances caused by incorrect diet and lifestyle. Remember that no cell in the human body is made from a drug. Not one. They are made from what you eat. And what you eat, or won’t eat is entirely in your control.

And if your doctor is not prepared to support you in your decisions, then you need to fire your doctor and find one who is. Doctors are very smart people, but I think that many times they’re admitting the wrong people to medical school. They’re bringing people into the profession who are very bright and technically very proficient, but they don’t have the right idea about what medical practice should be about: preventing, stopping and reversing disease. So they go to work every day and get used to the idea that everybody gets worse, everybody has to have more drugs, more procedures. This is all they know, all they’re taught at medical school and by the drug companies, and they convince themselves that this is what’s best for their patients.

So, take back your control in your own health. Don’t hand it over to someone else, especially someone else whose idea of health care is medication, operations or other medical procedures that will treat your symptoms without getting to the root cause of your problem. However, please bear in mind that self-sufficient health care is not about refusing needed medical care; it’s about putting yourself in a position to not need medical care.

“No illness which can be treated by diet should be treated by any other means.” (Moses Maimonides, 12th century physician)

“One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.” (Sir William Osler, MD)

Since turning 45 I, like all women in NZ over that age, have been invited to participate in the national breast screening program. This program is solely comprised of regular mammograms. I have opted out of this program due to the research I have done into the effectiveness of mammograms and the risks involved.

This is fairly shocking to most women who have been told that mammography can and does save lives. However, we need to remember that these are marketing messages that are informing us and not messages that report scientific findings. Here are my issues with mammograms:

1. Mammography is highly unreliable. It tends to miss aggressive tumours that grow between screenings, while detecting small, benign tumours, such as carcinoma in situ, that are usually not cancers at all and are often referred to as “pseudo-cancers”. In spite of the fact that most of these pseudo-cancers will not develop into a cancer that will require treatment, women diagnosed with them are advised to have lumpectomies, to receive radiation treatments, and to take drugs like tamoxifen. This is overtreatment for a condition that is highly unlikely to be life-threatening.

2. Particularly troubling is how these women are classified as “cancer survivors”. Almost all of them would be alive five years after diagnosis (the benchmark for survival) even with no treatment. This skews the survival statistics numbers, making it look like treatments for breast cancer are much more effective than they really are. While mammography detects pseudo-cancers resulting in overtreatment, it does not reduce the risk from dying from the real cases of breast cancer.

3. A research letter published in 2001 in Lancet reported the findings of the Cochrane Review that looked at the efficacy of mammograms for reducing breast cancer deaths. It is important to note that the Cochrane Collaboration is the most independent medical research organisation in the world, and therefore its conclusions about various issues related to medicine should be taken seriously. The article stated, “In 2000, we reported that there is no reliable evidence that screening for breast cancer reduces mortality. As we discuss here, a Cochrane Review has now confirmed and strengthened our findings.”

4. Cochrane has further concluded that screening led to an increase in radical treatments due to overdiagnosis or 25 to 35%; that 49% of screened women would experience at least one false positive; and that the absolute reduction in risk of death was 0.1%.

5. The Cochrane researchers also concluded that studies showing that mammograms reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer do not take into consideration the deaths related to breast cancer treatments, and that more women are harmed from overtreatment than are saved with mammography. The group stated, “There is no reliable evidence from large randomised trials to support screening mammography at any age.”

6. Another study published online by the British Medical Journal was conducted in Denmark, a great country for studying mammography outcomes. For the past 17 years, only about 20% of women in Denmark have been screened, leaving a large control group from which data can be gathered. Two geographic areas were included in the study: Copenhagen, where screening was introduced in 1991; and Funen, where screening was introduced in 1997. Between 1997 and 2005, deaths from breast cancer dropped by 5 % for women between the ages of 35 and 55 in both these areas. For women aged between 55 and 74, the decline was 1% in mortality rate. In the non-screened population in Denmark, the death rate from breast cancer declined by 6% for women between the ages of 35 and 55 and 2% for women between 55 and 74. The researchers also observed that diagnosis of carcinoma in situ (pseudo-cancer) doubled in the population of women who were screened and remained the same in the nonscreened population.

7. Studies even show that mammography is contraindicated for women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation, which predisposes them to a higher risk of developing breast cancer. In one study, researchers concluded that mammography screening beginning at age 25 to 29 years of age results in a higher risk of breast cancer due to increased lifetime radiation exposure, and that mammography may have a net harmful effect for these patients.

Add to that the research showing that eating a wholefood, plant based diet significantly reduces your chances of developing cancer in the first place and I feel pretty confident in my decision.

New Zealanders, including most health care professionals, are very misinformed about nutrition and health, which leads to a lot of confusion and frustration. Many people with degenerative conditions have tried dietary improvement and have decided that it doesn't work. But most of these people have not improved their diets enough to make a difference in their health outcomes.

For example, I recently spoke with a woman who told me that she had to take drugs for high blood pressure and high cholesterol because these conditions "run in her family" and "changing her diet didn't work." Under her doctor's direction, she had tried to eat more chicken and fish, avoid fried foods, and eat less fat, and doing these things did not result in her blood pressure or cholesterol going down. She was both skeptical and shocked when I told her that eating chicken and fish actually caused her coronary artery disease to progress. She then ordered a cheeseburger and fried onion rings, because she believed, based on her experience, that her condition could not be controlled by diet, and her doctor had told her that the medications would offer her protection, neither of which is true.

Diet does work, but you have to adopt the right diet. And research shows that the right diet is the wholefood, plant based diet I recommend at Seeking Health. Making a few or even many changes to your diet, but not adopting the whole plan, will not produce results (I define results as preventing, stopping the progression of, or reversing disease).

I talk to people regularly about their attempts to eat better. Their food journals show that they have tried to do the right things - they don't eat fast food, they avoid fried foods, they have stopped drinking soft drinks, and they don't eat dessert. But they are dehydrated, they eat fish 3-4 times per week, they eat too much fat and too much processed food, and while claiming to be vegetarian, they include dairy products in their diet. Many are confused because their weight and health problems have not resolved or they've gotten worse, or new conditions have developed, all while they have been trying to use diet to improve their health. The tools they are using are not wrong, the problem is that they are not enough. Getting 75% of the diet right does not result in 75% health improvement. It takes 100% to get the job done.

Dietary change is like a combination lock. A lock that requires three numbers to open it will not open if you only use two of the numbers, even if they are two of the right numbers and they are in the right sequence. Without the third number, the lock simply will not open. Add the third number and the lock opens right away.

And so it is with diet. If you've been frustrated by attempts to change your health outcomes with diet, try adopting the whole dietary excellence programs I recommend. The last few changes you make will be like the third number needed to open the lock - your weight and health will improve very quickly after you make them.

To schedule a free Healthy Directions Strategy Session with me, call 357 4335 or email cath@ckinghealth.co.nz

On May 23, 2003, President Bush proposed an Initiative to End Hunger in Africa using genetically modified (GM) foods.

At the same time, Monsanto executives described a world with 100 percent of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented.

As yet neither of these things has come to pass, largely due to grassroots resistance. Citizens around the world, who do not share the industry’s conviction that these foods are safe or better, have not “just sort of surrendered” as Monsanto believed they would.

Widespread resistance to GM foods has resulted in a global showdown. U.S. exports of genetically modified corn and soy are down, and hungry African nations won’t even accept the crops as food aid. Monsanto is faltering financially and is desperate to open new markets.

Could the Trans -Pacific Partnership agreement, that NZ is considering being part of, be an attempt to do just that?

And what's the harm if they did?

The industry's chant from the start has been that, “Overwhelming scientific research shows that biotech foods are safe and healthy.” 

But are they?

I'd like to share a story with you of aBritish  scientist called Arpad Pusztai. Arpad is one of the top scientists studying genetic modification. Back in 1995 he lead a team of scientists at the Rowett Institute whose brief it was to design a rigorous method for studying the safety of GMO food.

During the course of their study, Arpad happened to review the previous research done on GMO safety. What he found shocked him. He found that the research presented was in no way adequate to demonstrate that the genetically modified foods described were safe for human or animal consumption. All of them failed to produce sufficient evidence. There was missing data, poor research design, and very superficial testing.

Arpad continued with his work determined to come up with a research design that would be robust, indepth and accurate.

In his research he was testing the safety of GMO potatoes on rats. The first nasty surprise he had we that, even though GM crops are supposed to be nutritionally identical to naturally grown crops, these potatoes weren't. Their nutritional makeup varied - between the GMO potatoes and the naturally grown ones and even within the GMO poatatoes there was no consistency.

But the second surprise he got was even worse. He found that rats which were fed GM potatoes suffered damaged immune systems. Their white blood cells responded much more sluggishly than those fed a non-GM diet, leaving them more vulnerable to infection and disease. Organs related to the immune system, the thymus and spleen, showed some damage as well.

Compared to rats fed a non-GM control diet, some of the GM-fed rats had smaller, less developed brains, livers, and testicles. Other rats had enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines. Some showed partial atrophy of the liver. What’s more, significant structural changes and a proliferation of cells in the stomach and intestines of GM-fed rats may have signaled an increased potential for cancer.

The rats developed these serious health effects after only ten days.

Some of these changes persisted after 110 days, a time period corresponding to about 10 years of human life.

From the better research design he used, he was able to see that there was some effect from the process of genetic engineering itself that caused the damaged organs and immune dysfunction of the adolescent rats. He used exactly the same methods of genetic engineering as used by the food companies.

Pusztai knew that his results strongly suggested that the GM foods already approved and being eaten by hundreds of millions of people every day might be creating similar health problems in people, especially in children.

Pusztai was in a terrible bind. He knew that if his potatoes had been subjected to the same superficial studies and approval process that the GM tomatoes, soy, and cornof previous studies had, they too would have flown through the approval process without a hitch. They would have ended up on supermarket shelves and in frying pans worldwide.

And Pusztai knew that the superficial research that had been done on the GM tomatoes, soy, and corn would not have picked up the types of serious problems he encountered. Furthermore, if human beings developed problems similar to his rats, it could take years to appear and it would be highly unlikely for anyone to suspect GM foods as the cause.

The traditional code of practice of a scientist dictates that he remain silent about his findings until he can present them at a conference or via publication.

But his codes of ethics dictated that he warn the public immediately about his findings.

After deciding to go public with his findings, rather than waiting the years it would take for his work to be published, Armad Pasztai was suspended and forced to retire.

The PR department of the institute then took over and gave out misleading information to the media to cover up the comments Armad had made.

And so, back to the hear and now - Aotearoa August 2015 - what could this mean for us and our health if the TPPA goes ahead?

Any laws New Zealand wants to push through to inhibit GMOs may see our Government sued. Trade deals like the TPPA favour corporate rights over sovereignty.

It is imperative that New Zealand producers and consumers have the right to uncontaminated soil, seeds and produce. In the USA and Australia, small producers are being sued due to patented GMO seeds on a neighbouring property blowing on to their properties, infesting their crops. Seeds like corn and maize can travel up to 10km. These farmers have lost their organic certification and their businesses have suffered.

Whole countries are being sued because they do not want to grow GMOs. Our agriculture and horticulture industries will be at a high risk with the TPPA.

it's 3.23 in the morning

and I'm awake

because my great, great grandchildren

won't let me sleep

my great great grandchildren

ask me in dreams

what did you do when the planet was plundered?

what did you do while the earth was unraveling?

Surely you did something

when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

Did you fill the streets with protest

when democracy was stolen?

what did you do?

once

you 

knew

By Drew Dellinger