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Mold Toxins in Cereals, Herbs, Spices, and Wine

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Most crops are contaminated with fungal mycotoxins, but some foods are worse than others. Oats can be thought of as “uniquely nutritious.” One route by which they improve human health is by providing prebiotics that “increase the growth of beneficial gut microbiota.” There are all manner of oats, ranging from steel-cut oats to, even better, intact oat groats (their form before being cut), all the way down to highly processed cereals, like Honey Nut Cheerios. “Rolling crushes the grain, which may disrupt cell walls and damage starch granules, making them more available for digestion.” This is bad because we want the starch to make it all the way down to our colon to feed our good gut bacteria. Grinding oats into oat flour to make breakfast cereals is even worse. When you compare blood sugar and insulin responses, you can see significantly lower spikes with the more intact steel-cut oats, as shown below and at 0:54 in my video Ochratoxin in Certain Herbs, Spices, and Wine . What ab...
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The Effects of Fasting on Cancer

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Ever since the days of Hippocrates, 2,400 years ago, fasting has been offered as a treatment for acute and chronic diseases, based on the observation that when people get sick they frequently lose their appetite. Along with fever, decreased food consumption is one of the most common signs of infection. Often regarded as an undesirable manifestation of sickness, it’s actually an active, beneficial defense mechanism. As I discuss in my video Fasting for Cancer: What about Cachexia , chronic under-nutrition can impair our defenses, but data suggest that, in the short-term, immune function can be enhanced by lowering food intake. Researchers have shown that the blood from starved mice was nearly eight times better at killing off the invading bacteria in a petri dish, dramatically boosting the capacity of their white blood cells to kill off the pathogens. What about people? And what about cancer?   Does Fasting Help Our Natural Killer Cells Fight Cancer Cells? When study ...
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Fungal Toxins for Breakfast?

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One of the few food contaminants found at higher levels in those eating plant-based diets are mycotoxins, fungal toxins in moldy food ingredients, such as oats. In France, exposure to dietary contaminants was compared between vegetarians and meat-eaters, and the results showed that exposures to persistent organic pollutants like PCBs and dioxins were dramatically lower among those eating more plant-based foods. This was due to their avoidance of foods of animal origin, though they did have higher estimated exposure to some mycotoxins, fungal toxins present in moldy food. There are many types of mold on the planet, possibly millions, and the vast majority are harmless. However, over the last several years, certain mold toxins, such as aflatoxin and ochratoxin, have been popping up in breakfast cereals. Hundreds of samples were taken off store shelves, and about half were found to be contaminated with ochratoxin, but those store shelves were in Pakistan, which has a sub-tropical cli...
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Heavy Metal, Headbanging, and Our Health

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How might we moderate the rare but very real risk of headbanging? If you search for heavy metal in the National Library of Medicine database, most of what you find is on heavy metal contamination in fish, which “makes it difficult to establish clearly the role of fish consumption on a healthy diet” and perhaps helps to explain the quintupling of odds of autoimmune diseases, such as juvenile arthritis. But searching for the hazards of heavy metal also pops up entries on the “risks from heavy metal music.” In this study, researchers were talking about traumatic injuries from slamming around “during a moshing session,” but you’re more likely to get injured at an alternative rock concert. (Check out some of the artists below and at 0:50 in my video The Dangerous Effects of Heavy Metal Music .) Certainly, music-induced hearing loss is a serious problem, but that can result from any loud music. Clinical recommendations include the “80–90 rule”—no more than 80% of the maximum volum...
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Prostate Cancer and Mushrooms

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What can reishi mushrooms, shiitake mushroom extracts, and whole, powdered white mushrooms do for cancer patients? “A regular intake of mushrooms can make us healthier, fitter, and happier, and help us live longer,” but what is the evidence for all that? “Mushrooms are widely cited for their medicinal qualities, yet very few human intervention studies have been done using contemporary guidelines.” There is a compound called lentinan, extracted from shiitake mushrooms. To get about an ounce, you have to distill around 400 pounds of shiitakes, about 2,000 cups of mushrooms. Researchers injected the compound into cancer patients to see what happens. The pooled response from a dozen small clinical trials found that the objective response rate was significantly improved when lentinan was added to chemotherapy regimens for lung cancer. “Objective response rate” means, for example, tumor shrinkage, but what we really care about is survival and quality of life. Does it actually make canc...
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Cancer Survival and Medicinal Mushrooms

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Did the five randomized controlled trials of reishi mushrooms in cancer patients show benefits in terms of tumor response rate, survival time, or quality of life? Can mushrooms be medicinal? Mushroom-based products make up a sizable chunk of the $50 billion supplement market. “This profitable trade provides a powerful incentive for companies to test the credulity of their customers and unsupported assertions have come to define the medical mushroom business.” For example, companies marketing herbal medicines “exploit references to studies on mice in their promotion of mushroom capsules and throat sprays for treating all kinds of ailments”—but we aren’t mice. It wouldn’t be surprising if mushrooms had some potent properties. After all, fungi are where we’ve gotten a number of drugs, not the least of which is penicillin, as well as the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin and the powerful immunosuppressant drug cyclosporin. Still don’t think a little mushroom can have pharmacological ef...
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Celebrating Native American Heritage Month with Chef Lois Ellen Frank, Ph.D.

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In honor of National American Heritage Month, we are thrilled to share Chef Lois Ellen Frank’s Navajo Minestrone Soup with you. For more about Chef Lois, check out this interview . “Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and First Lady Phefelia Nez have been vocal proponents of healthy eating. President Nez found that plant-based eating shortened his recovery time after long-distance runs and helps him to maintain his weight loss. First Lady Nez provided us with one of her family-favorite soup recipes that we modified. We used the modified version for a course called Native Food for Life Online, offered through the American Indian Institute (AII) and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). Minestrone  is its Italian name, but the ingredients in this soup originated in the Americas. Chef Walter Whitewater said that growing up on the Navajo Nation, he used to harvest wild onions, carrots, garlic, and spinach. With the addition of frozen corn, canned beans, an...
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