Herbicides Can Alter the Nutritional Content of Food Crops

Herbicides are widely used commercially to improve crop yields and to reduce the need for hoeing and weeding. But do herbicides affect the nutritional content of food crops? Are organic foods nutritionally different from non-organic foods, and if so, are they better for you? Surprisingly, very little research has been done on this subject.

A research paper published last month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry suggests that some common herbicides can indeed change the nutritional content of a food crop (sweet corn). The research team exposed sweet corn to four different herbicides, with or without a commonly used "safener", which helps to protect the corn from herbicide damage. All of the herbicides increased the protein content of the corn slightly, and some of them increased the content of certain minerals (phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, and iron) as well. Several of the herbicides also altered the balance of sugars (fructose/glucose/sucrose) and the amounts of fatty acids.

Whether the effects of herbicides on nutritional content are good or bad is still an open question. All that can be said at the moment is that herbicides can affect the nutritional content of food plants in a myriad of ways.

A lot is still unknown about the effects of agricultural chemicals on food crops, including whether herbicides affect the food's taste. Further research is warranted.

Raw Water

What's in the water you drink? Pure water is just H2O - it contains just hydrogen and oxygen. But water from almost any natural source may contain a lot of other things, depending on where the water came from and how it was treated before it gets to you.

The latest craze is drinking raw water, loosely defined as water from a natural source, untreated and unfiltered. Proponents argue that it is better for you than filtered or treated water because it still contains certain useful minerals such as sodium, calcium, and magnesium, and that it is free of certain chemicals that may be added during water treatment, such as chlorine and fluoride. One seller of raw water even suggests that their water may be "naturally probiotic", meaning that it contains probiotic bacteria.

Naturally probiotic - really? If raw water contains bacteria, isn't it just as likely that some of them could be bad for you? And what about parasites and toxic chemicals that may be found in the environment? Do you want to take that risk? It's up to you.

You and Your Microbiome

Two recent findings on different subjects highlight the importance of the community of bacteria in our gut, called our microbiome.

First up is an article detailing the effects of exercise on our microbiomes. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign showed that a few weeks of moderate exercise by people who were not exercising previously alters the number and types of bacteria found in their guts. And although the types of bacteria were not the same in everyone, in general there were increases in the types of bacteria that reduce inflammation, fight insulin resistance, and enhance metabolism. The changes were not permanent, however; the bacterial community reverted back to the original state when the subjects quit exercising. The authors speculate that some of the benefits of exercise may be due to the effects of exercise on our biomes. A New York Times article discusses this topic in some depth.

On an entirely different subject, scientists may have discovered at least part of the explanation for why dietary fiber is good for you. It turns out that although we humans can't digest dietary fiber, some of the bacteria in our gut can. It's their major food supply! More dietary fiber means more bacteria, some of which reward us by supplying us with certain nutrients that we can use. In addition, bacteria signal the cells lining the gut to produce more mucus. A thick mucus coat on the inner surface of the gut is important; it protects the gut cells from damage and prevents the immune system from overreacting to the presence of so many bacteria. A more detailed explanation of this subject can be found here, for those who are interested.

Underweight Women are at Higher Risk of Early Menopause

A study in Human Reproduction reports that women who are underweight are at higher risk than women of normal weight of going through menopause before age 45.

The study enlisted nearly 80,000 women starting back in 1989. Over the next 22 years, 2,804 of them went through natural menopause. After controlling for several factors including smoking, oral contraceptive use, and pregnancies, the study found that women who had a Body Mass Index (BMI) under 18.5 were 30% more likely to go through menopause before age 45 than women with BMIs between 18.4 and 22.4 (defined as normal weight).

The study does not tell us why a low body weight increases the likelihood of early menopause. And to be clear, menopause is a natural phenomenon for all women, eventually. However, early menopause does have implications for family planning, and it is sometimes associated with other conditions such as osteoporosis later in life. Women who are concerned should consult their doctor.

Baby Sickened Because Mother Eats Placenta

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that a baby in Oregon was treated for Group B streptococcus infections - twice in a week! - apparently because its mother was ingesting improperly prepared placental pills.

Although the CDC does not recommend placenta consumption, it's a fad in some circles that just won't go away. According to CNN News, devotees include Kim Kardashian and Alicia Silverstone. There is even a group called the Association of Placenta Preparation Arts that claims to have "placenta preparation specialists" who know how to prepare the placenta properly for ingestion. As if there actually is a "proper" method for preparing the placenta for ingestion. Members of the group believe that placenta consumption has benefits including preventing postpartum depression and increasing milk production.

Pardon me, but there is no evidence that these people know what they are doing (see this blog July 19, 2007 and June 13, 2015). Feel free to check out their website, compare it to the CDC report and any available scientific evidence, and make up your own mind if you wish.

Gaining Ground on Clostridium difficile Infections

One of the most dangerous of all gut bacteria is a bacterium called Clostridium difficile.  C. difficile can cause diarrhea so severe that it can lead to death, especially in older patients in hospitals and nursing homes, in whom it is most common.  To make matters worse, it is difficult to treat because it is resistant to most antibiotics.  Although it is present in most people, its population is normally kept in check by the presence of other "good" bacteria, which tend to out-compete it.  But when nearly all of a person's gut bacteria are wiped out, for example when the person is given antibiotics, C. difficile can reproduce explosively, overwhelming the body's defenses.

Although C. difficile was first identified over 80 years ago, it wasn't until this century, when a strain of C. difficile developed resistance to most antibiotics, that the bacterium became a serious clinical problem.  In a 2015 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2011, C. difficile infections caused about 15,000 deaths directly and contributed indirectly to another 14,000 deaths.

But now health officials are seeing signs that C. difficile infections may be on the decline.  One of the key factors may be our more enlightened use of antibiotics; i.e., only when truly needed.  By reducing the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, especially in hospitals and nursing homes, there have been fewer opportunities for C. difficile to gain a foothold.  But there are other signs of hope, too.  Several vaccines are in the works, and Merck has a new (and expensive) drug called Zinplava that is at partially effective at reducing recurrent infections.  Even fecal transplants (to reintroduce competing bacteria; see this blog, Feb. 23, 2014) seem to help, though these are still just in the experimental stage.

Progress is being made, though sometimes it seems slow.  All we can do is keep trying.

I'm Confused: Which Foods are Best/Worst for My Health?

Will eating more blueberries or broccoli help prevent cancer? Does oatmeal really reduce the risk of heart disease? How can we separate truth from fiction when it comes to the constant barrage of claims about certain foods?

The short answer is that it's difficult. That's because there's no easy way to prove that a certain food has a certain specific effect, given that so many other variables are in play at the same time. Most studies of specific foods and health rely on self-reported food consumption data, which is notoriously unreliable since people have a tendency to report what they think is the "right" answer. And such studies can't co ntrol for all the other variables in a person's life. So we're left, usually, with just a report of an "association" between a certain food and a certain medical effect. And as you know, an association (or correlation) doesn't prove cause and effect.

Want further evidence of the difficulty in evaluating the health effects of specific foods? Researchers from Harvard and Stanford Universities examined the recipes of a published cookbook and came up with a list of 50 common food ingredients. Then they surveyed the scientific literature to find out what had been published about that ingredient and the risk of cancer. Astonishingly, they found that 72% of the ingredients had been associated with either an increase or a decrease in cancer risk; some of the ingredients were reported to either increase or decrease risk in different studies.

I've stopped listening to the hype about any one food. I just try to eat a variety of foods, while keeping an eye on my weight. I'd like to report that I eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and that I restrict my saturated fat intake, but that would be stretching it. You can do what you like; just don't believe that eating a lot of just one food is going to keep you from getting cancer, or prevent any other health problem for that matter.

If You're Healthy, You Don't Need Probiotics

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines probiotics as live bacteria that are "similar to beneficial organisms found in the gut." They're found in yogurt, fermented milk, soy products and some juices, as well as (these days) in probiotic capsules, pills, and powders. Many people make sure to get plenty of probiotics in the belief that a healthier population of gut bacteria makes for a healthier individual. It's a trend strongly encouraged by the rapidly growing probiotics dietary supplements industry.

The idea that probiotics may be good for you comes from the reports that patients with certain gastrointestinal conditions can benefit from taking probiotics. For example, patients with ulcerative colitis or who have diarrhea due either to antibiotics or to a particularly bad gut bacterium called Clostridium difficile may benefit from taking probiotics to more quickly restore their gut microbiota to normal.

What if you're healthy and just want to stay that way - should you spend your hard-earned money on probiotics? The answer, according to the latest research, is "no". The authors of the research reviewed the findings of seven studies that specifically identified the composition of gut bacteria in healthy people, before and after they took probiotics. They report that in healthy people, probiotics had essentially no effect on the final composition (in terms of both variety and number) of gut bacteria. In other words, healthy people develop and maintain a healthy steady-state population of gut bacteria naturally, on their own. Taking probiotics is only likely to be helpful when the gut's normal microbiota have been severely disrupted by antibiotics or disease.

Probiotics probably won't do you any harm, mind you; it's just that if you're healthy, they're unnecessary.

What Is an "All-Natural" Food Product?

What does the term "all natural" mean to you? Some people favor foods with a "natural" or "all-natural" label because they think it means that they are better for you. It's a feel-good term that influences consumers, for sure. But legally it means absolutely nothing.

More than a hundred class-action lawsuits have been filed against food manufacturers who have used the terms "natural" or "all-natural" on foods containing all sorts of things, including pesticides, hormones, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and artificial ingredients. All of the lawsuits have failed in court. The basic problem is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency charged with regulating our food industry, has never adequately defined the terms. And without a definition, judges have been reluctant to rule against food manufacturers who use the terms lightly.

That may change soon. For two years the FDA has been receiving comments from the public on what they think "natural" means. The agency is now reviewing the 7,600 comments it received and may issue a final definition of the term later this year. One possible definition might be "foods not made by humans and subjected to little or no processing", such as ground nuts, whole grain flours, and foods processed by traditional techniques such as roasting, drying, fermenting, and smoking.

Once the FDA has officially defined "natural", the makers of food products will either have to comply with the new definition or face lawsuits that they may actually lose.

Gut Bacteria Can Alter Energy Efficiency

Why do some people seem to stay thin no matter what they eat, whereas others struggle with obesity despite trying to limit their caloric intake? One factor is genetics; you're stuck with the genes and hence (at least in general terms), the same body type and energy metabolism that you inherited from your parents. Another factor, it seems, is the bacteria in your gut.

A key experiment showing the role of gut bacteria in nutrient absorption was published several years ago (see this blog, Sept. 11, 2013). The authors of the study wondered why twins sometimes were discordant for obesity (showed different tendencies toward obesity), and they suspected that gut bacteria were involved. To find out, they took samples of the gut bacteria from twins discordant for obesity, and gave those samples to mice. Lo and behold, the mice that received bacteria from an obese twin gained more weight than mice given bacteria from the non-obese twin.

Experiments published recently in Cell take the gut bacteria affect energy efficiency hypothesis one step further. In these experiments, researchers exposed mice to either a normal temperature environment (22 degrees Centigrade) or a cold environment (6 degrees C). Both groups were fed exactly the same number of calories per day. As expected, the mice in the cold environment initially lost weight as they burned fat to stay warm. But then something interesting happened; they began to gain weight again. When researchers examined the feces of both groups, they found that the cold mice had become 50% more efficient at absorbing nutrients from their food. Further examination revealed that the cold mice lacked a particular strain of gut bacteria. When mice in a normal temperature environment were given those bacteria, they gained weight.

Bottom line; it's possible that your ability to gain or lose weight may be influenced by gut bacteria. Although I pooh-poohed the idea back in 2013, there may just be the possibility that in the future, modifying your gut biome might actually become an effective dieting tool. We'll see; more research is needed.

How Did the FDA Determine the "Daily Value" for Added Sugars?

Last month I posted a blog about the FDA's new proposed changes to food labels on processed foods (see this blog Aug. 2, 2015). One of the most controversial changes was the one that defined for the first time what should be the maximum daily consumption of "added sugar" per day. Those are the so-called empty calories of sugars that food producers add to processed foods and soft drinks solely to get you to buy more of them. The FDA says that the maximum daily consumption of added sugars, which they call the "daily value" (DV), should be no more than 200 calories (50 grams) per day - the amount in just a single 16-oz soda.

Since then several people have asked me: How did the FDA come up with that number? The answer is that the FDA is relying on the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a governmental panel of scientists charged with reviewing the available scientific research and making recommendations regarding a healthy diet. The Committee found that high intakes of added sugars are associated with increased risks of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, and concluded that "strong evidence supports reducing added sugars intake to reduce health risks."

The FDA says that according to the available scientific evidence, "it is difficult to meet nutrient needs while staying within caloric requirements if one exceeds 10% of total calories from added sugar." The FDA already uses a figure of 2,000 calories per day as the standard daily caloric intake; multiplying by 10% yields a figure of no more than 200 calories should come from added sugar.

By the way, the FDA says that the government "has no specific recommendation for added sugars"; that it is only providing the information to help consumers make informed choices. Really? A maximum daily value of no more than 200 calories doesn't sound like a "recommendation" to you?

Updating Processed Food Labels

The FDA has proposed updating the labels that describe the content and nutritional values of processed foods. The new labels will require that serving sizes more realistically describe how much of the food a person actually eats or drinks. In the past, manufacturers could list total calories on the basis of serving sizes as small as 1/2 cup of ice cream or just 8 oz of a soft drink, for example. On the new labels, 12-, 16-, and even 20-oz bottles of soft drinks will all all be called single servings, reflecting the amount a person who purchases these sizes typically consumes at a single sitting.

The FDA proposes that the new labels list "added sugars" - sugars not part of the food naturally, but added during food processing - as a subset of total sugar. Added sugars such as refined sugar and corn syrup are sometimes called empty calories because they have no nutritional value other than calories. Food producers love them because they're cheap ingredients and because they tempt us to buy more of the product. According to the FDA, over-consumption of empty calories is contributing to the current epidemic of obesity and increases the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Controversially, the FDA recommends that no more than 10% of a person's daily caloric intake per day should come from added sugars. Based on a typical daily caloric intake of 2,000 calories, that means that a person's total daily consumption of added sugar should be less than 200 calories (50 grams) - the amount in a single 16-oz. soda. The new food labels would require that processed foods list the percent daily value (%DV) of added sugar in a single serving, based on a 2,000-calorie daily diet.

The food processing industry is not happy about the proposed changes, for it will probably mean that the consumer will become increasingly aware of just how much added sugar there is in processed foods. Whether it'll help us cut back is anybody's guess. We'll know the new labels are working when food processors begin producing and promoting some products as having "1/3 less added sugar", like they did with fat when fat was a bad thing.

Producing Omega-3 Oils in GM Plants

Aside from tasting good, oily fish such as salmon are good for you because they contain special types of fish oils - called omega-3 oils - that are known to reduce the risk of heart disease by reducing the risk of atherosclerosis. However, salmon do not actually make the oils. Omega-3 oils are made by single-celled algae, which are eaten by small herbivorous fish, which are in turn eaten by small carnivorous fish and so on up the food chain. Eventually the omega-3 oils end up in the salmon.

The demand for wild-caught salmon is leading to a depletion of salmon stocks worldwide. An alternative choice food choice would be farmed salmon, raised in enclosed bays or in pens in the oceans. Increased consumption of farmed salmon could reduce the demand for wild-caught salmon and thus prevent wild salmon from being overfished. Unfortunately, farmed salmon contain lesser quantities of omega-3 oils unless they are fed a steady diet of small fish such as wild-caught anchovies. That leads to a problem; feeding farmed fish wild-caught fish to boost their omega-3 content may just lead to overfishing of those other smaller species. And from the fish farmer's point of view, feeding farmed salmon a diet of wild-caught fish is expensive.

A solution may be on the horizon, but not everyone is going to like it because it involves genetic engineering and the creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). A team of scientists in England has managed to genetically modify an oil-producing plant related to rape (the plant that produces canola oil) so that it produces high yields of omega-3 oils. The new GM plant contains genes from several other plant species, including a moss and an alga. It produces enough omega-3 oils that farmed salmon could be raised on a diet of GM fish chow.

So here's the dilemma; do we want to raise farmed salmon on GM chow, producing a healthy food alternative to wild salmon and reducing the fishing pressure on wild salmon populations? Or do we want to continue to shun GMOs and deplete the world's oceans of fish?

Sometimes our choices are not all that easy.

The FDA Bans Trans Fats

Last month the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a ruling that will effectively ban artificial trans fats from processed foods. The agency estimates that the move will reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease and reduce the number of heart attacks per year.

Artificial trans fats are created when vegetable oils are partially hydrogenated to create a butter-like solid. They became popular in the 1940s and '50s because they improve the texture, taste, and shelf life of processed foods and because they are cheaper than butter. However, we now know that trans fats contribute to the risk for coronary artery disease, just as the saturated fats in butter and animal fat do. The use of trans fats for deep-frying was banned some time ago, and most processed food products have already phased trans fats out. The current ruling will end the use of trans fats altogether in three years. The three-year phase-out period is to give processed foods manufacturers time to reformulate their recipes and modify their manufacturing processes accordingly.

There are small amounts of natural trans fats in beef, lamb, and full-fat dairy products such as butter and cream, but there's not much the FDA can do about that. The FDA ban only applies to trans fats added to processed foods, where the solution is to simply not use them as ingredients.

Type 2 Diabetes and Sweetened Drinks

We've all heard that type 2 diabetes is on the rise, and that one of the suspected reasons is the number of sweetened drinks we consume these days. But how many is too many, and would it do any good to cut back?

A new British study offers a tantalizing clue, although it's a bit of a "soft" study because it relies only on self-reports of dietary consumption. The study asked over 25,000 British adults about their consumption of sweetened and unsweetened drinks of all kinds, and then tracked their development of type 2 diabetes over 11 years. After adjusting for obesity, and the results showed that reducing consumption of sweetened drinks to less than 2% of total caloric intake could reduce the incidence of diabetes by 15%.

That's fine, but I certainly wouldn't know what 2% of my total caloric intake per day is, in terms of number of sweetened drinks. So how about this? Substituting just one serving/day of water or unsweetened tea/coffee for a sweetened drink was associated with a 14-25% reduction in the incidence of diabetes. Just one serving.

It's something to think about.

Bacon and Eggs are Back!

Since the 1960s we've known that high blood cholesterol is a risk factor for atherosclerosis, a disease in which coronary arteries become narrowed by sticky deposits of cholesterol. And so, in an effort to try to keep blood cholesterol within healthy limits, since 1961 the government's dietary guidelines have advised us to avoid high-cholesterol foods such as (bacon and eggs).

That's about to change. In February an influential federal panel of experts that advises the secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services announced that even though high cholesterol is indeed a risk for coronary artery disease, cholesterol derived from dietary sources is not really a significant health risk after all. The panel recommends that cholesterol no longer be called a "nutrient of concern" in the newest version of Dietary Guidelines for Americans, due out later this year.

How did such a complete switch come about? It turns out that the more nutritionists learned about cholesterol, the more they realized that cholesterol is actually an essential nutrient. It is a component of cell membranes, for example. Furthermore, approximately 80% of the cholesterol in your body is synthesized within the body, primarily by the liver. Because only about 20% comes from dietary intake, restricting dietary cholesterol intake is just not a very effective way to lower blood cholesterol levels.

Another significant change in the last fifty years has been the development of effective cholesterol-lowering drug such as Lipitor. Taking a cholesterol-lowering drug is a far more effective way to lower cholesterol than any change in diet.

Finally, experience has shown that when people are asked reduce their intake of one energy-rich food (saturated fats and cholesterol-rich foods, for example), they naturally tend to substitute something else, and oftentimes that something else is sugar. After all, the only three basic choices are fats, sugars, and proteins! And too much sugar isn't good for us, either.

And so once again we can include bacon and eggs in our diet, guilt-free. All things in moderation, of course.

Bone Broth: The Latest Trendy Drink

Are you a believer in the health benefits of bone broth? Do you make it from scratch in your own home, or sip it in a trendy boutique? Seriously? You need to read two articles: A feature article in the New York Times, and a rebuttal article in the Huffington Post. Together, they'll give you a pretty good sense of the breadth of opinions about bone broth.

Who is right, do you think?

Another Artificial Sweetener

There's a new artificial sweetener about to hit the market that's more than 30 times sweeter than saccharine (Sweet-n-Low), aspartame (Nutrasweet and Equal), or sucralose (Splenda). The new sweetener, called advantame (it does not have a catchy brand name yet), is made by Ajinomoto, a Japanese company.

Although it's entering a crowded and competitive field, Advantame will probably find a niche in the marketplace because it doesn't break down as readily as other sweeteners under heat. That means that it'll probably become the artificial sweetener of choice in baked goods.

The FDA approved the new sweetener in May. It's not clear how long it'll be before it's found in the products you buy.

Organic Foods Contain More Antioxidants

Back in 2012, a comprehensive meta-analysis of many previous studies concluded that in terms of nutrition, organic foods are generally no better for you than non-organic foods (this blog Sept. 6, 2012). Of course, that didn’t sit too well with supporters of the organic food movement. Well finally, proponents of organic foods have something to talk about, too. Another comprehensive meta-analysis, this one by primarily European researchers, concludes that organic foods have fewer pesticides and more antioxidants than non-organic foods.

The finding of fewer pesticides is to be expected, of course, since the pesticides they’re talking about aren’t supposed to be used on organically grown crops in the first place. The same was found in the previous nutritional study. The finding that organic foods contain more antioxidants will be welcomed by supporters of organic foods. As you may know, antioxidants are thought to be protective against cell damage, and hence could (in theory) assist in delaying cellular aging and possibly reducing the risk of cancer.

Unfortunately, “in theory” does not always coincide with “in reality”. Neither group of authors is claiming that eating organic foods actually leads to better health, because at the moment there is no evidence to support such a claim. If its better health we want, we should concentrate on eating more fruits and vegetables of either kind (organic or non-organic) according to our preference, and less refined sugar and fat.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids Don’t Protect Against Heart Disease?

Do an Internet search on “omega-3 fatty acids” and you’ll find that omega-3s, as they are called, are a type of polyunsaturated fat. They’re a minor component of cell membranes and they have effects in blood clotting. And since your body doesn’t make them, some omega-3s in your diet are considered essential to good health. Eating fatty fish (such as sardines or salmon), nuts, or certain plant oils (canola or soybean oil) occasionally should be sufficient.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll undoubtedly read that omega-3s protect against heart disease and stroke. That claim has spawned a huge omega-3 supplements industry, which encourages you to take an omega-3 supplement pill every day to ward off heart disease. This claim is often backed by at least one research study to support the claim. But is it true?

A recent meta-analysis* of the role of various fats in cardiovascular disease questions the cardiovascular protective effect of omega-3s. To understand why this particular analysis is so important, you need to know what a “meta-analysis” is. Basically, a meta-analysis is a study of many previous studies. In a meta-analysis, each previous study is a single data point. That makes meta-analysis an exceedingly powerful tool to tease out small effects, when one paper may say one thing and another says something quite different.

This particular meta-analysis examined 72 previous research studies, involving over 500,000 people overall. Some of the studies were observational, meaning that they examined the relationship between measured specific fatty acid biomarkers and heart disease risk. Others studies were randomized, controlled experiments of fatty acid supplementation. Overall, there was not a statistically lower risk of cardiovascular disease among participants in the high omega-3 groups, in either kind of study.

Bottom line: You probably get enough of the minimum amounts of omega-3s required for good health in your normal diet. I, for one, won’t be taking an omega-3 pill every day just to avoid heart disease. (For those of you will still choose to take omega-3s “just to be sure”, rest easy; there was no evidence presented in this meta-study that they harm you, either.)

* The complete manuscript is only available by subscription.