I have recently received a ton of questions about the relationship between telomerase, telomere length, and cancer. From a great deal of research, it is correct that many cancers grow by expressing telomerase, and by increasing telomere length. The contrary assumption, that expressing telomerase to maintain telomeres may cause cancer, is dead wrong.
I have studied this science since the 1970s. I first wrote for the public about the HE-LA strain of immortal cancer cells in 1982.(1) Henrietta Lacks was a cancer patient who died in 1951 and bequeathed some of her cells for cancer research. Her cells proved to be immortal and live on today in laboratories worldwide. HE-LA are so persistent in expressing telomerase and increasing telomere length, that they are used as a standard to measure all other attempts to express telomerase in normal cells. Thus far, (August 2011) no non-toxic chemical or chemical combination has increased telomerase expression by more than about 10% of the expression found reliably in HE-LA.
Nevertheless, some folk still fear that there is a danger of causing cancer by deliberately expressing telomerase to maintain telomere length. Quite the contrary. There is extensive evidence from basic research, animal studies, and genome-wide association studies, indicating that short telomeres are the worst problem. Short telomeres cause chromosomal instability, fail to protect the DNA code, and promote both cancer growth and premature aging.(2-7)
Some folk persist that this research is not prospective. That is, in order to be sure that maintaining telomeres does not cause cancer, you have to do a controlled trial with human subjects. This trial has to follow a population-based random sample of human subjects, measuring their telomeres over a long period, and comparing the length of telomeres of those who develop cancer with those who remain cancer free.
The appropriate trial was begun in 1995, in the town of Bruneck, Italy by a multi-university collaboration. Researchers precisely measured the telomere length of 787 subjects who tested free of cancer, and followed them for 10 years. The initial results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on 7 July 2010. The full paper is available free for download.(8)
Here is a brief summary of the findings. Over 10 years, 92 subjects developed cancer. Short telomere length at baseline was strongly linked with cancer development, independent of standard cancer risk factors.
Compared with subjects with the longest telomere length (top 30%), the group with the shortest telomere length (bottom 30%) had 3.1 times the risk of developing cancer, and up to 10 times the risk of dying of cancer. Aggressive cancers with a high fatality rate (lung cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and brain cancer) were especially linked to short telomere length.
This prospective trial confirms the prior evidence that, as telomere expert Bill Andrews says, “Bad things happen when telomeres get short.”
All our cells replace themselves from stem cells. As telomere expert and head of the Spanish Cancer Institute, Maria Blasco wrote in 2010, “During the last years it has become evident that telomeres and telomerase are main components of the stem cell “ignition” mechanism, providing a way to restrain cancer and delay aging”.(9)
‘Nuff said.
1. Colgan M. Your Personal Vitamin Profile. New York: William Morrow, 1982.
2. Artandi SE, Chang S, Lee SL, et al. Telomere dysfunction promotes non-reciprocal translocations and epithelial cancers in mice. Nature. 2000;406(6796): 641-645.
3. Rudolph KL, Chang S, Lee HW, et al. Longevity, stress response, and cancer in aging telomerasedeficient mice. Cell. 1999;96(5):701-712.
4. Rudolph KL, Millard M, Bosenberg MW, DePinho RA. Telomere dysfunction and evolution of intestinal carcinoma in mice and humans. Nat Genet. 2001; 28(2):155-159.
5. Chin K, de Solorzano CO, Knowles D, et al. In situ analyses of genome instability in breast cancer. Nat Genet. 2004;36(9):984-988.
6. Rafnar T, Sulem P, Stacey SN, et al. Sequence variants at the TERT-CLPTM1L locus associate with many cancer types. Nat Genet. 2009;41(2):221-227.
7. Calado RT, Young NS. Telomere diseases. N Engl J Med. 2009;361(24):2353-2365.
8. http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/304/1/69.full.pdf+html
9. Flores I, Blasco M. The role of telomeres and telomerase in stem cell aging. FEBS Lett, 2010;584(17):3826-3830.
Telomere Length & Cancer
Parkinson’s Puzzle
Dr. Michael Colgan
English physician James Parkinson first described the symptoms of Parkinson’s in 1817.1 He called it the shaking palsy,” but had no idea of its cause or how to treat it. It took another 150 years to solve the mystery.
In 1913, Friedrich Lewy discovered pink taining, round globs in areas of dying nerve cells. Combined with four main physical symptoms, resting tremor, loss of balance, rigidity, and slowness of movement, these Lewy bodies used to be a definitive diagnosis for Parkinson’s disease.
Today, some researchers consider Lewy bodies a separate phenomenon, the underlying factor in what is termed Lewy Body disease.2 These globs of damaged cells also occur in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, Parkinson’s patients, in other dementias — and in some apparently healthy people. This increasing complexity of sub-categorization compromise in Parkinson’s is not a mark of great scholarship.
The rest of Parkinson’s has been split into grab-bag lots. There is idiopathic Parkinson’s with, supposedly, no known cause. Not very helpful. There is genetic Parkinson’s, mostly related to an autosomal dominant gene which codes for a protein called alpha-synuclein.3 Autosomal simply means that it occurs on a gene that does not determine sex. Dominant means that offspring have a 50% chance of inheriting it. This gene defect confers a tendency to develop Parkinson’s in about 5–10% of cases. But only about half of those showing the genetic markers ever develop the disease. Also, the rate of Parkinson’s in identical twins is no higher than among fraternal twins, so we are pretty sure that at least 90% of all cases of Parkinson’s are caused by life events or environmental trauma.4,11-15
Some folk are going to be annoyed with me for dismissing so much research in a single page. I acknowledge that it would take a whole book just to cover this one matter in detail. All else I can say here is that we have been watching this scene unfold for the last 30 years. It reminds me of the unworkable compromises of the Ptolemaic Universe, which, nevertheless, held sway for a thousand years. Ptolemy’s scheme fell immediately when subjected to the greater brainpower and much simpler model of Galileo and Newton, which, in turn, fell immediately with the genius of Einstein. We tend to forget that we are no smarter than all the medieval scholars who believed in Ptolemy.
I want to suggest an explanation of Parkinson’s that better fits the science. The structural damage and the symptomatology of the disease are simply a part of the multiple-system brain damage of usual aging, damage that affects almost all of us. As I explained in Chapter 1, the symptoms of this brain damage that become dominant, and trigger a particular diagnosis, denote merely the structures most affected. 5-10
In the medical fog surrounding Parkinson’s, however, the usual diagnosis follows the symptoms. The treatment advised is almost always diagnosis-specific, symptomatic relief of the shortage of dopamine using the drug levodopa (L-dopa). Unfortunately, unless you treat the whole brain, there is little hope of stopping or even slowing down its degeneration.
Substantia Nigra Damage
There is a smidgeon of logic behind levodopa. In 1919, a Russian neurologist, Tretiakoff, discovered that patients with symptoms of Parkinson’s had lost dark-colored neurons in an area of the midbrain now called the substantia nigra (black body), shown below. 15,16
This area is part of the ancient mammal brain, which mediates balance and control of voluntary movement. But it was not until the 1960s that researchers showed how Parkinson’s symptoms, especially tremor and loss of balance, are caused by progressive death of substantia nigra neurons which supply our brains with the essential neurotransmitter dopamine. The drug levodopa floods the brain with dopamine.
In a normal brain, levodopa would produce a frenzy of over-activity. By the time a Parkinson’s case has come to notice, however, there are not enough dopamine-producing cells left for the brain to over-react. The drug does help the remaining cells to function a bit longer, but does zero to prevent further cell death or slow the progress of the disease. Levodopa is always too little, too late.
Nigral neurons die off with age in almost every one of us. The most accurate predictor of Parkinson’s, by far, is simply how long you have lived. Between ages 55 and 65, the incidence triples. And by age 75, it increases almost nine-fold.3 Parkinson’s is simply part of the damage of the brain with age that would eventually get all of us, were we not to die of something else beforehand. To prevent it or inhibit its progress, you have to treat the whole brain.
Rate of Loss of Nigral Cells
You have roughly 400,000 nigral neurons at birth, and that is nearly your lot for life. You do get some more by neurogenesis, but as yet no one knows how many or how to stimulate their growth. The average healthy brain loses up to 20,000 nigral cells per decade after age 25. So, in 50 years, by age 75, you have lost up to 100,000 nigral cells, about 25% of your supply. By then you are getting shaky. Whether Parkinson’s symptoms become apparent before we die of something else depends on the rate of nigral cell loss. We can slow that rate right down.
At first, the victim may notice only slight symptoms, such as hand tremor on picking up a cup of tea, and dismiss them as stress or fatigue. By then about 15–20% of the nigral neurons are already dead, and it is time to treat the disease aggressively. Otherwise, it progresses inexorably to hand tremor at rest, shaking of the limbs, muscle wasting, loss of bone mass, loss of balance, rigidity and slowness of movement, difficulty in initiating voluntary movement, and finally loss of speech and movement altogether.
We know now that this silent, symptomless degeneration is happening to all of us. There are more than one million Parkinson’s patients in the US alone. Prevalence of the disease is increasing rapidly throughout the Westernized world. Our initial advice to patients with beginning Parkinson’s is to see their physician about a formula similar to the one given below.
There is one extra wrinkle. For about 20 years now, we have been collating reports that coffee inhibits Parkinson’s. We were interested because the caffeine in coffee belongs to a chemical group called xanthines. One important xanthine in the human brain is adenosine, which we have discussed in relation to adenosine triphosphate, the energy molecule. Caffeine inhibits some adenosine receptors, causing dopamine levels to increase.
Until the last five years, the research was spotty. Now we have some good data. Webster Ross and colleagues at the University of Hawaii analyzed the data from a 30-year follow-up of 8,000 Japanese Hawaiian men. Those who never drank coffee showed a massive five times the risk of developing Parkinson’s. 17
A large follow-up study by Alberto Ascherio and colleagues at Harvard analyzed the records of 135,000 people of mixed ethnicity.18 They found that men who drank coffee regularly cut their risk of Parkinson’s almost in half. The lowest risk occurred with moderate coffee intake of 1–3 cups per day. Beyond that level, risk rises again. We are now confident that coffee is protective against Parkinson’s.
Colgan Institute Formula against Parkinson’s. (Under the supervision of your physician only.)
Taken daily in the am with food
Rasageline 25 mg
Acetyl-L carnitine 1000 mg
R+ lipoic acid 600 mg
N-acetyl cysteine 600 mg
Cytidine–diphosphate choline 300 mg
Co-enzyme Q10 300 mg
Docosahexaenoic acid 1000 mg
To learn more click here to go to the Colgan Institute website.
1. Parkinson J. An essay on the shaking palsy. 1817. Reproduced in J. Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci, 2002; 14(2):223-236.
2. Parkinson Society Canada. www.parkinson.ca/research/research.html. Accessed 20 August 2006.
3. Veldman BA, et al. Genetic and environmental risk factors in Parkinson’s disease. Clin Neurol Neurosurg, 1998; 100(1):15-26.
4. Semchuk RM, et al. Parkinson’s disease and exposure to agricultural work and pesticide chemicals. Neurology, 1992; 42:1328-1335.
5. Czlonkowska A, Kurkowska-Jastrzebska I. Treatment of neurodegenerative diseases: new perspectives. Neurol Neurochir Pol, 2001; 35(4 Suppl):147-156.
6. Wu DC, et al. Blockade of microglial activation is neuroprotective in the l-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine mouse model of Parkinson disease. J Neurosci, 2002; 22(5):1763-1771.
7. Calabrese V, et al. Mitochondrial involvement in brain function and dysfunction: relevance to aging, neurodegenerative disorders and longevity. Neurochem Res, 2001; 26(6):739-764.
8. Forno LS. Neuropathology of Parkinson’s disease. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol, 1996; 55:259-272.
9. Lai BCL, et al. The prevalence of Parkinsons’s disease in British Columbia, Canada, estimated by using drug tracer methodology. Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, 2003; 9:233-241.
10. Natural Institute of Neurological Disorders. What is dementia with Lewy bodies? www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders. Accessed 20 August 2006.
11. Baldi I, et al. Neuropsychologic effects of long-term exposure to pesticides: results from the French Phytoner study. Environ Health Perspect, 2001; 109:839-844.
12. Thiruchelvam M, et al. Developmental exposure to the pesticides paraquat and maneb and the Parkinson’s disease phenotype. Neurotoxicology, 2002; 23:621-
13. Barlow BK, et al. Neurotoxicology, 2005; 26(1):63-75.
14. Ascharis A, et al. Pesticides exposure associated with Parkinson’s disease. www.sciencedaily.com. Accessed 21 August 2006.
15. Lee DW, Opanashuk LA. Polychlorinated biphenyl mixture aroclor 1254-induced oxidative stress plays a role in dopaminergic cell injury. Neurotoxicology, 2004; 25(6):925-939.
16. Lee DW, et al. Heme-oxygenase-1 promotes polychlorinated biphenyl mixture arochlor 1254-induced oxidative stress and dopaminergic cell injury. Toxicol Sci, 2006; 90(1):159-167.
17. Ross GW et al. Association of coffee and caffeine intake with the risk of Parkinson’s. JAMA, 2000; 283:2674-2679.
18. Ascherio A, et al. Prospective study of caffeine consumption and risk of Parkinson’s disease in men and women.
Dr. Michael Colgan
Our modern environment exposes us 24 hours a day to thousands of toxic chemicals in the air, the food the water, at the workplace, and in our homes. Because of this exposure, our bodies are now polluted with these chemicals. Very few people escape.
At the University of California, San Diego, we stuck sweat bags on the backs of apparently healthy athletes, including myself, while we were working out in the gym and on the track. All of us were living the very healthy lifestyle of competitive triathletes and runners in a relatively unpolluted area of the sea coast north of San Diego, and doing hours of exercise every day. We ate mostly organic produce and breathed ocean air.
Results were staggering. Every subject showed up to 24 toxins in their sweat, including mercury, lead, cadmium, and a variety of commercial chemicals, pesticides, plastics, and other contaminants. Looking at us, a bunch of healthy men in prime condition, you might come to the false conclusion that these toxins were doing us no harm. To believe that would be similar to the belief of previous generations that smoking is harmless. The only bright note was that when we compared results with similar studies in inland city universities, the bodies of the athletes there were up to ten times more polluted than ours.
We will see how these environmental chemicals damage every aspect of your health, especially your brain. In order to promote neurogenesis (the growth of new cells) in the brain, and thereby improve your intelligence, your memory, and your thought, the first job is to remove the chemical toxins from the structures of your mind.
Toxins in the Environment Get Into Your Body
There are about 34,000 pesticides and herbicides registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), plus about 66,000 commercial chemicals. Of these 100,000 toxins, the United States uses about one-quarter of the volume of all of them that are used in the world each year. They are everywhere, all around us every day.1
The extensive report, Nowhere to Hide: Persistent Toxic Chemicals in the U.S. Food Supply, is just one example of the research on chemical residues collected by the US Dept of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It shows persistent chemical toxins in ALL food groups and household products.1 I should note that the report also details compelling evidence that certified organic foods are much less likely to contain toxins.
Most of the public, however do not eat organic foods, and are now in a state of toxic overload from environmental chemicals. Individually, each chemical is often below the level that authorities consider harmful. The cumulative effects, however are poisonous. These toxins occur in breakfast cereals, delicatessen meats, canned foods, non-organic produce, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, perfume, deodorant, hair dye, cleaning products, newspapers, magazines, exhaust fumes, carpets, wallboard, paint, furniture, even dry cleaning, Trace amounts accumulate in the body every day until they exceed its capacity to detoxify.1-3
Research shows that the average person now contains between 40 and 80 different chemical residues at toxic levels. These chemicals are stored defensively in our fat cells under the skin, and throughout the fats in our liver and kidneys, and in our thyroid and adrenal glands. They are especially toxic when they accumulate in the fatty tissue that comprises most of our brain and spinal cord.
As the volume of chemical residues increases, every tissue and organ loses function. As the volume grows to exceed the body’s ability to neutralize and excrete the toxins, it also defensively increases body fat to store the excess and keep it out of the circulation. Numerous people have the urge to overeat, because the added bodyfat makes them feel better as it pulls some of their toxic body burden out of their organs and into storage. Even so, the increased fat continuously leaches toxins into the bloodstream, keeping the individual in a state of chronic ill-health, which cycles from mild to severe depending on the daily and weekly levels of additional toxin exposure.1-3
Despite these clear findings from research in human toxicology, most people make little effort to avoid environmental chemicals. The stringently applied food regulations for “maximum tolerable exposure” for each individual chemical, confuses us that levels are kept within safe limits. The maximum allowable limit for a chemical, however, refers to that chemical alone, and gives no information about the toxic effects that occur when that chemical combines with the 40-80 other toxins in the average American.
Unless we make deliberate choices to avoid or minimize toxic exposures, and also detoxify the body on a regular basis, we are constantly adding to our body burden by eating foods with trace toxins, drinking water with trace toxins, using personal products with trace toxins and breathing toxic air. Research by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that, by the end of each day, the total toxic residues in just our diet alone can exceed 500% of the safe daily maximum.1-3
Eat an Alkaline Diet
The first step away from the body burden of toxins is to eat an alkaline diet. The following little scrap of chemistry is well worth knowing if you want to improve your brain. The abbreviation pH stands for power of hydrogen. It measures the concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution. The pH Scale runs from 0 -14. A solution with a pH of 7.0 is neutral. Pure water has a pH of 7.0. Above pH 7.0 is alkaline. Below pH 7.0 is acid. Like the Richter Scale for earthquakes, the pH Scale is logarithmic. That is, each number is 10 times higher or lower than the next. So a pH of 5.0 is ten times more acid than a pH of 6.0.4 Optimum human blood is alkaline, at a pH of 7.35-7.45. Your blood is designed to work best in this alkaline range, and tries to maintain it at all times.4
Our ancient diet before agriculture was alkaline. Evolution used the food we ate to design our blood to function best at an alkaline pH of 7.35-7.45. This design is built into your DNA. Blood can carry its full load of oxygen only at this range of pH. Once the blood drops below a pH of 7.0, it becomes acidic. Its oxygen-carrying capacity then declines. Along with the loss of oxygen, the blood’s capacity to detoxify declines.4-6
Humanity gradually lost the alkaline diet after agriculture began about 11,000 years ago. Farming led to production of cereal grains, dairy foods, and the multiple high-acid processed foods that occupy the bulk of supermarkets today. It is not possible to maintain an optimum blood pH on a diet of supermarket food.4-6
So it comes as no surprise that the blood of the average American and Canadian is acidic. They are constantly in a state of acidosis at a pH of 6.5-6.7.4-8 That is why antacids make $7 billion a year in the US, and rising. If you eat an alkaline diet, you will never need antacids.
Far worse than heartburn, chronic acidity also reduces the oxygen flow to the brain, muscles, and organs, and leaches calcium and magnesium from the bones. It also permanently inhibits the body’s detoxifying systems in the liver and kidneys, progressively promoting numerous degenerative diseases, including both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.7-10
All the top brands of sodas, including diet sodas, for example, have a pH of 2.5-3.5. They are very acidic. Remember the school chemistry class where you hung a steel nail in a coke and it gradually dissolved. No fish can live in a liquid as acid as a soda. No human can live with blood as acid as a soda.
The figure below gives the pH values of some common foods. The pH values given are for the net result of the food after digestion, essentially the ash it leaves behind. So they will not agree with scales giving direct measurements of the acid level in the food.
For an alkaline diet, we are concerned with the acidifying or alkalizing effect of the food. Does it produce acid ash after digestion, or alkaline ash? To maintain your resting blood at an optimum pH of 7.35-7.45, you need to eat about 80% of your food that produces alkaline ash.
If you use organic foods to do the job, then you will also get the great advantage of minimizing intake of additional toxins. I predict that within 30 days on an alkaline diet, you will feel better, move better, think better, and your body’s detoxifying systems will start to run healthy again.11,12
Remove the Toxins
There are numerous alternative medicine products and practices that claim to remove accumulated toxins from human body. But there are few convincing data for most of them. Here I will cover only those substances that have been shown to work in controlled trials.13 We want not only to remove toxins from the intestinal tract and reduce inflammation there, but we also to promote removal of toxins from the blood, organs, and brain for excretion through the liver and kidneys. To achieve this goal, we need to improve not only intestinal function but also liver and kidney function.
The first and most important substance is water. Basic biochemistry shows that we are mostly made of electrified water. Your bones are one-quarter water. Your muscles and brain are three-quarters water. Your blood is 80% water, and your lungs near 90% water.8 A 72.5 kg (160 lb) active man with low bodyfat, contains about 50 liters of water. He has to replace all of it about every ten days.14 That’s five liters a day from what he eats and drinks.
Your bodily structures operate optimally only within a narrow range of hydration. Dehydrate a muscle by only 3% and it loses about 10% of its contractile strength and 8% of its reaction speed.15 Performance literally dries up.
In a famous study in 1985, that is representative of the evidence, renowned sports scientist David Costill and team at Ball State University, Indiana, dehydrated trained runners by 2-3%, a weight loss of about 2 kilos. When tested at 1500 meters, 5K, and 10K, performance bombed at all distances. In the 10K, the runners were an average of 7% slower.16 For a 30-minute 10K, that adds over two minutes to your time, putting you from first in a club level race to dead last.
Don’t Drink Tap Water
Most people who celebrate health are careful about the food they put into their bodies. But they frequently neglect the water. We still see some of them drinking from public water fountains. Most faucet water in the US and Canada is badly polluted. We measure it as we travel around lecturing. Usually there are 300-500 ppm contaminants. The only faucet water we have found fit to drink is in Christchurch, New Zealand, where it comes from a deep aquifer.
Water authorities do what they can afford to clean faucet water. Nevertheless, when we test it at various places where we go to lecture, we routinely find pesticides, benzene, toluene, lead, and other industrial chemicals, at levels forbidden in food. Water authorities also add toxins to enable them to deal with the water. Notable are the chlorine used to kill bacteria, and aluminum used as a settling agent. You do not want these toxins in your body.
Most people know the dangers of chlorine, although some are still unaware that it is routinely sprayed on non-organic produce to inhibit e coli and salmonella.19 I will just take aluminum as my example here. The first solid evidence of brain damage from aluminum in tap water came from the Camelford incident in England in1988, when too much aluminum was accidentally added, and immediately sickened over 100 people. Ten years later, detailed examination of the brains and cognition of 55 of them showed massive brain damage.17 Yet aluminum is still used in most water supplies, albeit better controlled today. Nevertheless, trace amounts remain in the tap water that most people use for drinking and cooking. You will find it in numerous brands of antacids, deodorants, and toothpaste too, not at prohibited levels, per individual dose, but certainly prohibited at the cumulative dose received over a month of everyday use. Aluminum in tap water is now strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease.18 If you value your brain function, avoid ingesting anything containing aluminum or putting it on your skin.
Aluminum is only one of the many toxins in tap water. Drawing on numerous sources, the New York Times published a series of well-researched articles in December 2009.20) They found that more than 20 percent of water treatment systems in the US, providing water to 49 million people, had violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the previous five years. Violations include arsenic, uranium, tetrachloroethylene, and bacteria. Violators are seldom even fined, as the cost falls on the taxpayer. Do not drink tap water.
Bottled Water: Smoke and Mirrors
Many brands of bottled water are not clean either. Consumers are deceived by the advertising and labelling to believe they are buying water at a purity way beyond what comes out of the garden hose. Despite all the gush about pristine mountain springs, over 90% of all bottled water is simply tap water put through a carbon filter to make it taste better. Comprehensive testing of ten of the largest national brands by the US Environmental Working Group in 2008, found a huge array of chemical contaminants in every brand analyzed. These bottled waters had an average of eight pollutants per brand, including disinfectants, chloroform, fertilizer, toluene, and man-made carcinogens.21
Neither faucet nor bottled water is likely to make you immediately or obviously ill. But it will damage your brain. Evolution designed you to operate on the water that existed before industrial pollution, water that contained only natural dissolved minerals. Any man-made toxin in your water will damage your body.
Cheap counter-top water filters do not clean faucet water. They simply remove obvious bad tastes. The optimum solution is a steam water distiller at home, the type with a vent that lets out organic solvents. If that is too much, then get a good reverse osmosis system with multiple filters in it, and have it plumbed into your undersink water line. It costs around $300, and produces water at less than 30 ppm pollutants. That twelve times cleaner than the average faucet water. It is the best health bargain you will ever get. After all, your brain is three-quarters water.8
Clay Extracts Toxins
Even if you eat the right organic foods, and use clean water, you cannot avoid toxins in the air and in numerous surfaces and materials of the modern environment.22, 23 Thus, to improve your body and brain for life, you need a little extra help to eliminate these toxins from your body. Calcium and magnesium ascorbates are potent natural chelators for lead, mercury, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, benzene, plus a variety of carcinogens and bacterial toxins. But you should already be getting at least 1,000 mg of these per day in your normal supplements, plus more from your fruits and vegetables. So I will not cover them here except to say that requirements rise steeply when you live in polluted urban centers.
Instead, I want to discuss one subtle and effective way to remove body toxins that had been practiced for thousands of years, but is coming back into favour only recently, because it is now backed by a ton of new molecular science. You can remove a great many toxins from body and brain by the medicinal use of clay.
No, I am not going to appeal to ancient practices, but will quote only recent research. The sad fact is that 20th century medicine arrogantly abandoned the use of medicinal clays, when man-made drugs seemed to have better answers, drugs that have since proven poorly effective. In the last decade or so of molecular science, clay has been again recognised as a source of medicinal compounds, and, practically unnoticed by the media, has developed into a considerable field of research.
But the history is worth noting, because clay was and is again becoming a major medicine. Ancient Greek physicians used red Lemnian clay mined on the island of Lemnos. Lemnian clay was shaped into little cakes, stamped with a seal of the goddess Diana, and called terra sigilata. Galen, the world’s best physician of his time used it widely. Lemnian clay continued worldwide to chelate poisons out of the body, right up to the end of the 19th century, and it was listed in medical pharmacopoeia until that time.
Because of the wide range of clay remedies, and a host of new medical clays today, the word “clay” now creates a lot of confusion. The most common clay used is bentonite, which is a compound composed primarily of montmorillonite, a very soft silicate grouping of minerals that form microscopic crystals. Lemnian clay was of this type. The structure gives it a vast surface area, which is essential to its medical function. Various bentonites and montmorillonites are named after the dominant elements in them, especially calcium, potassium, and sodium. They can have very fancy names for commercial purposes, but for medical purposes, all these clays have very similar effects.
The major advantage of clay, which all came from volcanoes, is adsorption. That is not absorption, which means that a chemical is dissolved into, another absorbing chemical. Adsorption means that atoms or molecules of a chemical cling to the surface of the adsorbate to form a film. Bentonite works so well because it carries a strong negative charge. Most toxins are strongly positively charged and are drawn to the clay molecules electromagnetically. Recent research shows that bentonite is better than any man-made substance at removing unwanted chemicals from all sorts of places.
Simple calcium bentonite is extremely efficient at removing pesticides, herbicides, fungi, yeasts, hormone residues, bacteria, viruses, and heavy metals from water, including the watery medium that makes up the human gut.24 So much so, that bentonite is now used in thousands of industrial processes, including the purification of water supplies.
This article is not a review of the benefits of bentonite, so the best I can do is to take an example of a well known potent toxin. The fungus aflatoxin, frequently found on peanuts, is one of the most carcinogenic substances out there. In a series of recent studies, bentonite fed to animals completely protected them from aflatoxin in their food, and removed it from their bodies.25 Stage 1 and Stage 2 trials with human patients showed similar efficacy, and no evidence of any toxicity from the clay.
Another important finding in the human trials is that bentonite does not chelate vitamins and essential minerals out of the body.26 Common chemical chelators used in medicine to remove toxic metals, such as edetate disodium, and EDTA, are notorious for chelating vitamin and minerals, especially calcium, out of the body. In some cases these chemicals have killed the patient from hypocalcemia, especially when used with young children.27,28
Bentonite has no detrimental effects, and appears to be completely harmless.26 It is on the FDA list as GRAS (Generally Recognised As Safe). Because of the epidemic of MRSA infections in American hospitals, bentonite is also now being used both internally and externally to successfully to treat MRSA sores that have failed to respond to antibiotics.29
Numerous other illnesses resistant to medication respond well to bentonite, including candidiasis and irritable bowel syndrome.30 It provides an inexpensive, non- toxic boon to your brain function. Combined with pure water, ascorbate supplements, and an alkaline diet, a gram or two of clay each day keeps the toxins away.
After much research the Colgan Institute and Dr. Colgan have joined with the international company Isagenix, as part of their Scientific Advisory Board and as a consultant to join with their team of well-known scientists to develop new anti-aging products. Isagenix and it’s scientists have developed an excellent cleansing product that we are very happy to recommend to all our customers and friends. It utilizes all the latest in science to bring you an easy to use 30-Day Cleansing and Fat-Burning System. We have tested the products ourselves and are very happy with the results. To learn more about their product and to try the use the system yourself click here.
References:
1. Nowhere to Hide: Persistent Toxic Chemicals in the U.S. Food Supply, http://www.panna.org/
2. Baron P, Schweinsberg F. Concentrations of arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury in body fluids and tissues Defining normal values and detection of overload. 1. Description of analytical methods and arsenic. Zentralbl Bakteriol Mikrobiol Hyg B. 1988 Jul;186(4):289-310.
3. Ibrahim D, Froberg B, Wolf A, Rusyniak DE. Heavy metal poisoning: clinical presentations and pathophysiology. Clin Lab Med. 2006 Mar;26(1):67-97.
4. Colgan M. Nutrition for Champions. Vancouver: Science Books, 2007.
5. Sebastian A et al. Estimations of the net acid load of the diet of ancestral pre-agricultural Homo sapiens and their hominid ancestors. Am Soc Clin Nutr, 2002;76:1308-1316.
6. Frassetto LA, et al. Diet-evolution and aging. The pathophysiologic effects of the post-agricultural inversion of the potassium-to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the human diet. Eur J Nutr. 2001;40:200–213. doi: 10.1007/s394-001-8347-4.
7. Buschinsky DA. Metabolic alkalosis decreases bone calcium efflux by suppressing osteoclasts and stimulating osteoblasts. Am J Physiol, 1996;271:F216-F222.
8. Colgan M. Save Your Brain. Vancouver: Science Books, 2008.
9. Alpern RJ, Sakhee S. The clinical spectrum of metabolic acidosis: homeostatic mechanisms produce significant morbidity. Am J Kidney Dis, 1997;29:291-302.
10. Kurtz I, Maher T, Hulter HN, Schambelan M, Sebastian A. Effect of diet on plasma acid-base composition in normal humans. Kidney Int. 1983;24:670–680. doi: 10.1038/ki.1983.210.
11. Remer T. Influence of nutrition on acid-base balance – metabolic aspects. Eur J Nutr. 2001;40:214–220. doi: 10.1007/s394-001-8348-1.
12. Frassetto LA, et al. Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009 Aug;63(8):947-955.
13. Horne S. Colon cleansing: a popular, but misunderstood natural therapy. Herb Pharmacother. 2006;6(2):93-100.
14. Colgan M. Effects of multi-nutrient supplementation on athletic performance. In Katch FI, (Ed). Sport, Health and Nutrition, Vol 2, Illinois: Human Kinetics, 1986, 21-50.
15. Sawka MN, et al. Influence of hydration level and body fluids on exercise performance in the heat. J Amer Med Assoc. 1984;252:1169-1169.
16. Armstrong LE, Costill DL, Fink WJ. Influence of diuretic induced dehydration on competitive running performance. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 1985;17:456-461.
17. Altmann P, et al. Disturbance of cerebral function in people exposed to drinking water contaminated with aluminum sulphate: retrospective study of the Camelford water incident. BMJ. 1999 Sep 25;319(7213):807-11.
18. Frisardi V, et al. Aluminum in the diet and Alzheimer’s disease: from current epidemiology to possible disease-modifying treatment. J Alzheimers Dis. 2010;20(1):17-30.
19. Kim YJ, et al. Inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella typhimurium, and Listeria monocytogenes on stored iceberg lettuce by aqueous chlorine dioxide treatment. J Food Sci. 2008 Nov;73(9):M418-22.
20. Duhigg C. Millions in U.S. drink dirty water, records show. New York Times, 9 December 2009.
21. Environmental Working Group, Bottled water quality investigation: 10 major brands, 38 pollutants. October 2009. http://www.ewg.org/reports/
22. Curtis L, et al. Adverse health effects of outdoor air pollutants. Environment Intern, 2006 Aug;32(6):815-30.
23. Peretz J, et al. Bisphenol A impairs follicle growth, inhibits steroidogenesis, and downregulates rate-limiting enzymes in the estradiol biosynthesis pathway. Toxicol Sci. 2011 Jan;119(1):209-17.
24. Park Y, et al. Application of organoclays for the adsorption of recalcitrant organic molecules from aqueous media. J Colloid Interface Sci. 2011, Feb 1;354(1):292-305.
25. Thieu NQ, et al. Efficacy of bentonite clay in ameliorating aflatoxicosis in piglets fed aflatoxin contaminated diets. Trop Anim Health Prod. 2008 Dec;40(8):649-56.
26. Philips TD, et al. Reducing human exposure to aflatoxin through the use of clay: a review. Food Addit Contam Part A Chem Anal Control Expo Risk Assess. 2008 Feb;25(2):134-45.
27. Brown MJ, Willis T, Omalu B, Leiker R. Deaths resulting from hypocalcemia after administration of edetate disodium: 2003–2005. Pediatrics, 2006;118 (2): e534–6. doi:10.1542/peds.2006-0858. PMID 16882789.
28. Baxter AJ, Krenzelok EP. “Pediatric fatality secondary to EDTA chelation. Clin Toxicol (Phila) 2008;46 (10): 1083. doi:10.1080/15563650701261488. PMID 18949650.
29. Haydel SE, Remenih CM, Williams LB. Broad-spectrum in vitro antibacterial activities of clay minerals against antibiotic-susceptible and antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2008 Feb;61(2):353-61.
30. Ducrotte P, Dapoigny M, Bonaz B, Siproudhis L. Symptomatic efficacy of beidellitic montmorillonite in irritable bowel syndrome: a randomized, controlled trial. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2005 Feb 15;21(4):435-44.
Michael Colgan PhD, CCN
Master of the human genome, Craig Venter explains so eloquently how the environmental chemicals we now call nutrients, first acted as hormonal signals to regulate cell synthesis in primitive creatures over 500 million years ago.1 One of the earliest signals was the essential omega-3 fat, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) , found preformed only in marine life. By the time of the first cephalopods, (see ammonite picture below), DHA was already one of the major environmental signals. It regulated the expression of genes encoding for proteins that determined cell growth, cell differentiation, and energy metabolism of myriad creatures.
Conserved by evolution across cephalopods, fish, amphibians, mammals, primates, and humans, signals from DHA still regulate gene expression for hundreds of the proteins and lipids that compose us today. DHA is also the major fat that composes our brain. Most important for control of bodyfat, DHA is a major regulator of our energy metabolism.2 
The DHA signals that regulate numerous genes in us, came via the evolution of our genetic code, from this 300 million-year-old ammonite.
The Savannah Theory of human evolution, popularized by Louis Leakey findings, is now untenable. Recent evidence supports Sir Alex Hardy’s 1972 hypothesis of “the aquatic ape,” explaining how humans evolved, not on the inland plains of Africa but on the seashore. More recently, Michael Crawford at London University has presented compelling evidence of the coastal origin of Homo sapiens.3,4
Here are just a couple of the points. During mammal evolution, despite abundant alpha linoleic acid (ALA), the form of omega-3 in plants, all savannah mammals, including primates, lost brain size. Chimps for example, lost about 40% of, brain weight relative to body weight. We know that the conversion of ALA to DHA is very poor, and was likely insufficient even for apes to develop their brains.4
The only exception is man. Over the last 200-250 thousand years, we evolved a massive cerebral cortex, composed mainly of DHA. To do so required access to abundant preformed DHA. The only source on Earth is marine life. Thus, it is likely we evolved on the coast. We know from the Klasies middens, and the Pinnacle Point, Blomberg, and other cave sites, that humans ate seafood and used tools at least 160,000 years ago. Anthropologists now believe that it would have taken 150-200 thousand years for the modern brain to evolve by using ancient DHA signals received from constant exposure to seafood. Otherwise, there is no known way our brain could have evolved. For a lot longer than 200,000 years, DHA has been abundant in the coastal marine environment of southern Africa, and still is today.4
Our bodies still cannot make DHA. We must obtain it from food in order to remain healthy. Conversion of its plant substrate ALA to DHA in humans is limited because of low levels of the rate-limiting enzymes, δ-5 and δ-4 desaturase, which convert eicosatetraenoic acid to EPA, then to DHA. Also, DHA of marine origin is absorbed into human system more than ten times more efficiently than omega-3 oil from ALA.3,5
The African savannah also lacked sufficient of the essential minerals iodine and selenium, which act with DHA to produce brain growth and maintenance, and also to produce energy metabolism. In Africa, iodine and selenium were, and still are, abundant only in coastal marine environments.3,5
We know now that dietary DHA is essential for normal development of the human brain and retina in utero and in infants. It is likely that this signal to our genetic code came from our ancient marine ancestors hundreds of millions of years ago, and has been conserved in our design ever since. Some scientists, including me, now suggest that only those hominids who occupied coastal environments, and ate marine foods, including fish, shellfish, and seaweed, for many thousands of years, received the necessary nutrients to develop into humans.3-6
We know that dietary DHA supplementation increases DHA levels in neonates and is essential for normal brain growth. Recent controlled studies show that infants supplemented with DHA in utero or at birth grow smarter than others, even before they are nine months old.7 We know DHA is essential throughout life for healthy organs, skin, joints, and brain. These are just a few of the reasons that you should use DHA as a daily part of your diet. I could cover 100 pages with others. Suffice to say here, if you don’t eat DHA, you will grow fatter, and dumber, and die sooner.
If you are already trying to lose fat, DHA will help. There are numerous animal studies showing fat loss with DHA, but I will ignore them because, as scientists seem reluctant to learn, humans are not rats. Use of DHA by the human body is different from its use by all other animals except marine mammals. So we need studies on us or on dolphins. All the relevant studies to date are on humans because we are a lot cheaper to use than dolphins.
One representative recent study was published in the International Journal of Obesity. Researchers in Reykjavik, Iceland tested the effects of fish, or fish oil equivalent to 1.5 grams of combined EPA/DHA on body weight and body composition as part of a calorie restricted diet. Subjects were 324 young, overweight men and women who followed one of four experimental protocols for 4 weeks. They were supplemented with sunflower oil (placebo), lean fish, fatty fish(salmon), or fish oil capsules. All three marine supplements resulted in weight loss of 1.0 kg (2.2 lbs) more than the placebo. The study concluded that fish or fish oil increases weight loss on a restricted diet.8
Another recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition included exercise in the mix. Seventy-five overweight subjects (BMI 25+) were randomly divided into four groups: sunflower oil (6 grams per day), fish oil (6 grams per day), sunflower oil plus three, 45 minute, walking sessions per week, and fish oil plus the walking. The fish oil contained 1.9 grams of omega-3 fats. The study lasted 12 weeks, and during that time there was no difference in the amounts of food eaten by the four groups.
Results showed that both the fish oil and the fish oil plus walking groups lost significantly more body fat than the sunflower oil groups. The fish oil plus walking group came out best, with a loss of 2.0 kg (4.4 lbs) of fat in 12 weeks, plus a significant improvement in cardiovascular risk factors.9 Adding exercise, even walking, makes a big difference.10
Good fish oil capsules come in a 1,250 mg size. The best contain about 250mg of DHA. If you take four capsules a day and eat about 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of wild ocean fish or shellfish, you will get around 2.0 grams of omega-3s. That is more than sufficient, because DHA is not a fat burner that works by bigger is better. It is an essential part of your structure. Increasing your intake to 2.0 grams per day helps you lose fat primarily because it helps to optimise the structures, including your brain, that are involved in energy metabolism. As a bonus, it will also optimize the structure of your cardiovascular system.11,12 To achieve optimal use of body fat for fuel lifelong, and also maintain a healthy heart and brain, make wild ocean fish and DHA supplements a permanent part of your nutrition.
1. Venter, J. C. A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life. New York: Viking Adult, 2007.
2. Lapillonne, A,Clarke, SD; Heird, WC Polyunsaturated fatty acids and gene expression. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, 2004;7 (2):151-156.
3. Crawford M, March D. Nutrition and Evolution. New Canaan CT: Keats Publishing, 1995.
4. Crawford, M A, et al. Evidence for the unique function of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) during the evolution of the modern hominid brain. Lipids, 2000;34:S39-S47.
5. Cunnane SC. Survival of the Fattest: The Key To Human Brain Evolution. Singapore: World Scientific, 2005.
6. Colgan M. Nutrition alters gene expression to influence brain aging. Proceedings of the Iberian Anti Aging Conference, Cascais, Portugal, May 2008.
7. Drover, JR, Hoffman, DR, Castañeda, YS, and Morale, SE. Three Randomized Controlled Trials of Early Long-Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Supplementation on Means-End Problem Solving in Nine-Month-Olds. Child Development, 2009;80 (5):1376-1384.
8. Thorsdottir I, et al. Randomized trial of weight-loss-diets for young adults varying in fish and fish oil content. International Journal of Obesity, 2007;31:1560-1566.
9. Hill AM. Combining fish-oil supplements with regular aerobic exercise improves body composition and cardiovascular disease risk factors. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2007;86(5):1267-1274.
10. Couet C. Effect of dietary fish oil on body fat mass and basal fat oxidation in healthy adults. International Journal of Obesity,1997;21:637-643.
11. Kris-Etherton PM, et al. Fish Consumption, Fish Oil, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and Cardiovascular Disease. Circulation, 2002;106:2747.
12. Breslow JL. Omega-3 Fatty acids and cardiovascular disease Amer. J. Clinical Nutrition, 2006; 83(6):S1477-1482S.
Time of Your Life
Dr Michael Colgan
It’s vital to guard your health, not because of the pain and suffering of illness. You just can’t afford the time.
Time is what life’s made of. An average American lifetime is 78 years, a mere 936 months. According to the World Health Organization, we spend one-third of that time sleeping and getting up. (We are slow at getting up.) That leaves 640 months. Wow! One-third of our life gone and we’re not having fun yet.
On average, we spend 15 years at school. It’s called the best time of your life. I would have given most of it a miss, but we spend all our youth at it. That’s 180 months. That leaves 460 months. Life’s half over. Where is all the fun?
We spend an average of 35 years working for a living, plus 2 weeks per year for vacations and another 10 days for public holidays which we will not count. Just the working is 420 months, and surveys say overwhelmingly that, given the choice, most folk wouldn’t. Wow! Most of us spend the biggest chunk of our lives doing stuff we would not do if given the choice.
That leaves only 40 months in a 78-year life, which includes all the vacations and days off you are ever going to get. When does the real fun start?
On average we spend 25 hours per month at ablutions, that is, bathing and toileting, which many folk would miss if they didn’t start to look funny and smell odd. Bathing and toileting are fairly recent phenomena. (I am not counting the time spent preening because most people do consider that fun. That’s part of the 40 months we had left above, and some folk seem to spend the whole time preening.) Basic toilette takes just over I day per month, every month for life. That totals 32 months. Now we are down to 8 months.
Do everything possible to guard your health as your most precious possession. You don’t have the time to be ill. In a whole healthy lifetime, most of us get only 8 months for the real fun, including love, vacations, hanging out, hobbies, sport, travel, yakking, and shopping. No wonder we never have time to catch the monster trout, not to mention the Jimmy Choo sales.
The best way is to do a job (average 420 months of life) that’s real fun to do. If you don’t do that now, look in the mirror for the person to tell that it’s time for a change. Maybe you should join us - it’s time for Isagenix.
Melatonin for Healthy Eggs
Dr Michael Colgan
One in every 10 women in couples of reproductive-age in the United States has difficulty getting pregnant. About 30 percent of cases are due to problems in the woman, 30 percent to problems in the man, and the rest to unexplained causes or multiple factors involving both partners
Despite the numerous fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization techniques, poor egg (oocyte) quality is a large and increasing part of the problem. Egg quality also declines more sharply with age over 30 than in previous generations. The reason for the increasing problems is unknown, but is thought to be linked with the decline in quality, and increasing toxins, in the American food, water, and air supply.
Research presented at the World Congress of Fertility in Munich on 11 September 2010, and published in the Journal of Pineal Research, shows that women with poor egg quality may double their chance of becoming pregnant if given melatonin.
High levels of oxidising chemicals in the follicular fluids surrounding the egg indicate if a woman has low quality oocytes. These chemicals create oxidative stress and damage the oocyte. One prominent toxin used to measure the oxidative stress is called 8-OHdG. The researchers found that, as melatonin concentration increased in follicular fluids, the level of 8-OHdG decreased, indicating that melatonin was likely reducing oxidative stress. They confirmed this finding in mice, and discovered that adding melatonin reduced damage to the egg.
Next, they set up a trial with women coming for fertility treatments to see if melatonin would help those who had failed to become pregnant because of poor oocyte quality. 56 women were given their fertility treatment plus three milligrams of melatonin per night before the next fertility cycle, and 59 received the fertility treatment without melatonin.
Melatonin treatment significantly increased melatonin concentration in the women’s follicles and significantly reduced concentrations of the damaging 8-OhdG. Results showed that 50 per cent of the eggs from women who took melatonin could be successfully fertilised, as opposed to 23 per cent in the control group. 11 of the women given melatonin became pregnant, as opposed to 6 in the control group.
The eggs of all US women are now subjected to oxidative stress from our environment. From the above and related research, It seems likely that melatonin could protect egg quality in all women bearing children after age 30 even if they have no difficulty conceiving.
The importance of melatonin for women, and its multiple roles in the body, are examined in Michael and Lesley Colgan’s book, The Perimenopause Solution (2009). Melatonin is not simply a sleep aid as many people think, but has multiple physiological functions One of these functions is to act as an important antioxidant inside the cells of the brain and organs where most nutrient antioxidants cannot reach.
Melatonin is released by the pineal gland in the night phase of the circadian cycle. But production of melatonin declines rapidly with age, as shown in the graph, so that the amount made by the body is no longer sufficient after about age 35. The Colgan Institute has utilized melatonin to combat oxidative stress in people over age 35 since 1983.
Click here to see the melatonin we use.
Dr Michael Colgan
The old myth that soy lecithin causes allergic reactions in soy-sensitive people keeps resurfacing, as the internet keeps re-playing, but usually not dating, obsolete information from the 1950s.
Basic science; soy lecithin consists of three phospholipids. Specialists in allergies know well that the allergens in soybeans are not in the phospholipids but are all in the protein of the bean.
The ingredient soy lecithin is used in many thousands of food and supplements, including deli meats, cocoa, chocolate, candy, and the majority of baked goods. It is extracted from soybean oil that has been processed using hot-solvent extraction techniques. This process eliminates effectively all, (99.99%) of the protein in soy.
Numerous controlled studies since the 1980s have tested soybean-sensitive individuals for immunoglobulin reactions (the accurate measure of allergy) to soybean oil and soy lecithin. This research shows almost zero allergic reactions.1-3 A representative allergy expert, Dr Steve Taylor, head of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska and co-director of the Food Allergy Research Resources Program, states that avoiding soy bean oil and lecithin is unnecessary for soy-sensitive individuals7.”
People who avoid lecithin, may in fact be harming their health. Since the 1970s, the Colgan Institute has included choline as an essential nutrient in all its recommendations, because it is an essential component of cell membranes. In 1998, the US National Academy of Sciences finally agreed, and pronounced choline as essential and awarded it a Dietary Reference Intake. A potent source of choline in the average diet is lecithin.
1. Bush, Taylor, Nordlee, Busse. Soybean oil is not allergenic to soybean-sensitive individuals. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 1985; 76: 242-245.
2. Awazuhara H, Kawai H, Baba M., Matsui T , Kamiyama A. Antigenicity of the proteins in soy lecithin and soy oil in soybean allergy. Clin Exp Allergy. 1998; Vol. 28, Issue 12: 1559-1564.
3. Taylor, SL, Kabourek, JL. Soyfoods and allergies: separating fact from fiction. The Soy Connection. 2003; Vol. 11, No. 2.
4.Institute of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences USA: ‘Dietary Reference Intakes for Folate, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B12, Panthothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline.’ Washington DC: National Academy Press, 1998.
5. University of Illinois Functional Foods for Health Program, Regulatory Update: “Best Food Sources for Choline – FDA Authorizes New Content Claim for This Essential Nutrient.” Http://www.ag.uiuc.edu/~ffh/Best_Food_Sources_of_Choline.html
Co Q10 and Exercise Recovery
Runners on CoQ10 Suffer Less Muscle Damage and Recover Faster
Study finds coQ10 minimizes oxidative stress and muscle damage during strenuous exercise
Despite the physical and mental benefits associated with ultra-endurance exercises, such as marathons or triathlons, these exercises do promote inflammation and oxidative stress in the body. There are, however, ways to protect yourself. Supplements of coenzyme Q10 (coQ10) may offset the oxidative stress related to strenuous exercise and reduce later muscle damage, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Granada of Spain wrote, “The present findings provide evidence that oral supplementation of coQ10 during high-intensity exercise is efficient reducing the degree of oxidative stress… [and] muscle damage during physical performance.”
The researchers, who published their results in the European Journal of Nutrition, supplemented 20 highly trained male athletes with either a placebo or coQ10 prior to a 50-kilometer run across one of the most difficult terrains in Europe.
To test the effects of coQ10 on exercise-induced inflammation and oxidative stress, the researchers supplied 150 mg coQ10 in divided doses prior to race time. Post-race analysis included measures of oxidative stress, antioxidant levels and expression of pro-inflammatory genes, such as TNFa and ILs (interleukins).
The results of the study found a significantly greater increase in oxidative stress in the placebo group compared to the coQ10 group. Similarly, the athletes consuming the coQ10 supplement also had evidence of increased antioxidant defenses and reduction in overexpression of pro-inflammatory genes. Finally, coQ10 reduced levels of creatinine, an indicator of muscle breakdown, compared to the placebo group.
Although a degree of muscle breakdown during exercise stimulates muscle remodeling and growth, the damage must be repaired before remodeling and growth is able to occur. Minimizing muscle damage during exercise can allow athletes to recover faster and train more often.
While most of us are likely little more than “weekend warriors” it is good to know that a high quality supplement containing bioavailable coQ10, such as Ageless Actives™ included in the Ageless Essentials Daily Pack, may be just the ticket for those aspiring to push more or run farther.
Reference: Diaz-Castro J, Guisado R, Kajarabille N et al. Coenzyme Q10 supplementation ameliorates inflammatory signaling and oxidative stress associated with strenuous exercise. Eur J Nutr 2011. doi: 10.1007/s00394-011-0257-5
Belly Fat, Telomeres & Stress
Less Belly Fat and Healthier Telomeres by Reducing Stress and Eating Mindfully
Stress reduction techniques and mindful eating reduce belly fat, according to new study
If getting in shape and losing that belly are New Year’s resolutions—as they should be—then why not add reducing stress to the list? Unfortunately, eating sweet and fatty foods appears to be one of the preferred choices of Americans for managing chronic stress.
Aside from the mental strain caused by chronic stress, it results in higher concentrations of stress hormones such as cortisol and poor eating habits that are associated with increases in belly (visceral) fat. Belly fat is not just unsightly, but is also linked to oxidative stress, inflammation, shorter telomeres, and greater risk of chronic disease.
Take heed: new findings published in the Journal of Obesity (1) suggest that combining an easy technique called mindful eating with stress management can help reduce cortisol levels and the resulting belly fat. Interestingly, a substudy (2) also found that the reduction in cortisol was associated with increased activity of the enzyme telomerase needed to restore telomere length.
In the parent study, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, randomized 47 women categorized as chronically stressed, overweight, and obese to either a mindful eating training group or a control group. They found that the women who received the training had greater body awareness and reduced cortisol secretion, chronic stress, and abdominal fat. The researchers also found that the women with the greatest reductions in cortisol or stress had the greatest decreases in abdominal fat.
The mindful eating training group also showed significant drops in cortisol after wakening, generally when the hormone reaches peak levels in people suffering from chronic stress. The group’s subjects maintained their body weight while those in the control group did not have a drop in cortisol and continued gaining weight.
Mindful Eating
Instead of prescribing any diet, all of the women attended one session on the basics of a healthy diet and exercise. The training group consisted of teaching the women mindful eating practices such as paying attention to the physical feelings of hunger, cravings, fullness, and taste satisfaction as well as stress-reduction techniques.
The women in the training group attended classes once a week for nine weeks and a seven-hour intensive silent meditation retreat during the sixth week. Throughout the trial, the women were asked to do daily meditation exercises for 30 minutes and to apply mindful eating at meals.
The researchers gauged psychological stress before and after the study by using established survey methods combined with cortisol and fat measurements. What the researchers were looking for was a change in the amount of overall weight and deep abdominal fat as well as a change in cortisol secretion shortly after wakening.
Cortisol Causes Belly Fat, Shortens Telomeres
For the substudy, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, some of the same researchers took the same women and trial, but just measured their telomerase activity before and after the mindfulness training treatment. Women who received the training and who decreased their stress and belly fat also showed a greater increase in telomerase activity. A link between improved telomere function and reduced fasting blood glucose was also found.
“Improvements in stress, eating, and metabolic regulation may increase telomerase activity over time,” the study authors concluded.
The culprit in the deleterious effects that chronic stress has on the body looks to be the hormone cortisol, which increases as levels of stress increase. Though shorter bouts of cortisol secretion are normal and can have a stimulating effect on the body—as when the ability to run from danger is needed—the opposite is true of having continuously elevated levels of cortisol. This results in a chain reaction where fatty acids from outlying areas move into the abdominal regions and build up belly fat. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol also suppress telomerase, which can lead to shortened telomeres and accelerated cellular aging.
Isagenix and Stress
An Isagenix system is demonstrated as an effective way of reducing harmful belly fat through its application of Cleanse Days and Shake Days. The few calories eaten on Cleanse Days along with Cleanse for Life helps to stimulate fat burning and detoxification while Shake Days combine high-protein meal replacement shakes with healthy eating to maximize nutrition and muscle maintenance.
Additionally, Ionix Supreme, a unique tonic with adaptogens, increases the body’s ability to deal with stress and come out on top. Adaptogens are botanicals that mitigate the stress response, lessening the harmful effects of stress hormones like cortisol on several body systems like the nervous and immune systems.
Lastly, Isagenix products including SlimCakes and FiberSnacks! assist people with healthy snacking—helping them avoid high-calorie junk foods when stressed—and obtaining soluble fiber, which is strongly associated with reduced belly fat.
This year, don’t let stress take over and unleash its havoc on the body. Instead, learn about mindful eating techniques and other stress-beaters—exercise, plenty of sleep, and a diet rich in nutrient-dense foods such as fruits and vegetables, as well as Isagenix products—to help stay calm and cool.
References:
1) Daubenmier J, Kristeller J, Hecht FM et al. Mindfulness Intervention for Stress Eating to Reduce Cortisol and Abdominal Fat among Overweight and Obese Women: An Exploratory Randomized Controlled Study. J Obes 2011;2011:651936. doi: 10.1155/2011/651936
2) Daubenmier J, Lin J, Blackburn E et al. Changes in stress, eating, and metabolic factors are related to changes in telomerase activity in a randomized mindfulness intervention pilot study. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2011. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.10.008
During Weight Loss, More Dairy Protein and Calcium Helps Strengthen Women’s Bones
Study shows exercise combined with more dairy protein and calcium strengthens women’s bones during weight loss
Young women hoping to lose weight with typical dieting may unknowingly wreak havoc on their bones in a way that could affect them for a lifetime. But new research shows eating more dairy foods rich in protein, calcium, and vitamin D can keep bones stronger while shedding pounds and inches.
Researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario found that young women on a weight-loss plan who ate higher amounts of dairy-based protein (whey and casein), calcium, and vitamin D improved markers of bone turnover.
“Our data provide a good rationale to recommend consumption of dairy foods to aid in high quality weight loss, which we define as loss of fat as opposed to muscle, and the promotion of bone health in young women who are at the age when achieving and maintaining peak bone mass is of great importance,” said Stuart Phillips, PhD, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and senior author of the study, in a press release.
The controlled trial, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, randomized 90 women (ages 19 to 45) considered overweight or obese to one of three groups: high-protein and high-dairy, adequate protein and medium dairy, and adequate protein and low dairy. For 16 weeks, the women consumed a diet restricted in calories (about 500 calories less than needed to maintain their weight) and took part in daily exercise either in the form of aerobic or resistance training.
At the end of the trial, the women consuming higher amounts of dairy foods had greater increases in markers of bone formation (including adiponectin), greater reduction markers of bone degradation (including leptin), greater increases in levels of circulating vitamin D, and greater decreases levels of circulating parathyroid hormone (associated with bone degradation when present in greater concentrations).
“To avoid deleterious consequences to their bone health, women who are attempting weight loss through dieting should practice consumption of more protein from dairy sources,” Phillips said.
IsaLean Shake
How can women make the most of the findings in this study? Isagenix IsaLean Shake is available as a handy, nutritious meal replacement containing high amounts of protein from dairy, as whey and casein, along with calcium and vitamin D. The shake is also low in lactose (milk sugar) and contains the digestive enzyme lactase for its easy digestion.
Enjoying one or two servings of IsaLean Shake daily, in combination with daily exercise, can promote healthy weight loss while strengthening muscles and bones.
Reference: Josse AR, Atkinson SA, Tarnopolsky MA, Phillips SM. Diets Higher in Dairy Foods and Dietary Protein Support Bone Health during Diet- and Exercise-Induced Weight Loss in Overweight and Obese Premenopausal Women. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2011. doi: 10.1210/jc.2011-2165
