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NDMA: A Cancer-Causing Contaminant in Meds and Meat

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Billion-dollar drugs have been pulled from the market for less carcinogenic contamination than is found in a single serving of grilled chicken. In 2018, one of the bestselling blood pressure drugs, valsartan—sold as Diovan—was found to be contaminated by the “probably carcinogenic” nitrosamine known as N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). It’s believed that about 20 million people worldwide were prescribed the drug tainted with this contaminant, which has a cancer risk shown to exceed that of many known potent carcinogens, such as asbestos, PCBs, and benzo[a]pyrene. As I discuss in my video Cancer-Causing NDMA in Medications (Zantac, Metformin) and Meat , the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimated that taking the drug for a few years could cause cancer in as many as 1 in 8,000 people, whereas the European equivalent of the FDA estimated the cancer risk could be as high as 1 in 5,000. It is unlikely, researchers wrote in this 2019 paper, that drugs like valsartan are “a uniq...
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Peeling Back the Onion Claims

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What did randomized, controlled human trials find about the ways we may—or may not—benefit from eating onions? Onions are potentially a good source of antioxidants, which, interestingly, are concentrated in the outer layers just beneath the papery peel. White onions, for example, contain more than ten times the antioxidants in the outer layer compared to the inner core. Unfortunately, most people discard the most nutrient-rich outermost layers, “thus losing a valuable part of the antioxidant-rich material.” In general, yellow onions have more antioxidants than white onions. Red onions beat them both, based on three different antioxidant testing methods, as seen at 0:39 in my video Are Onions Beneficial for Testosterone, Osteoporosis, Allergies, and Cancer? Though red onions are indeed slightly better, yellow and white onions are no slouches, containing considerable levels of antioxidant activity. We know they’re nutritious, but are there any particular clinical benefits to eating...
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How to Boost Your Life Expectancy by 12 to 14 Years

What can physicians do to promote healthy, life-extending lifestyle changes? A pivotal paper published in Europe more than a decade ago entitled “Healthy Living Is the Best Revenge” found that practicing just four simple, healthy lifestyle factors compared to none could potentially have a strong impact on preventing chronic diseases. We’re talking nearly 80% less chronic disease risk, slashing diabetes risk by 93%, dropping heart attack risk by 81%, and cutting stroke risk in half and cancer risk by 36%. Think about what that means. The potential for preventing disease and death is enormous. In the United States alone every year, there are a half million first heart attacks, a half million first strokes, a million new cases of diabetes, and a million new cancer diagnoses. The message is clear: Practicing a few healthy behaviors can have a huge impact. What are those four fabled factors? never smoking not being obese averaging about a half hour of exercise a day following healt...
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Do Vitamin C Supplements Help Reduce Anxiety?

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What are the risks and benefits of using vitamin C for depression and anxiety? “In adults, emerging evidence suggests that higher daily intake of fiber-rich fruit and vegetable servings is associated with lower incidences of anxiety, greater happiness, higher life satisfaction, and greater social-emotional well-being,” says a review in the journal Nutrients . So, “ persuading people to consume more fruits and vegetables may not only benefit their physical health in the long-run, but also their mental well-being in the short-run,” concluded a study in Social Science & Medicine . Fruit consumption, for example, has a protective association with leading killers like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer, as well as depression. The question is why? Several mechanisms have been proposed. For example, one posits it’s the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of produce, which scavenge the free radicals that are involved in some of the inflammation associated with depress...
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Which Potato Is the Most Nutritious?

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Are yellow-fleshed potatoes healthier than white? And what about the glycoalkaloid toxins? The high glycemic impact of potatoes may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, perhaps by chronically overstimulating the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. In my last two blogs, I explained how you can decrease the glycemic impact of white potatoes by eating them cold, chilling then reheating them, or adding broccoli, lemon juice, or vinegar. What else can we do? Well, the pigments in brightly colored berries can act as starch blockers, as you can see below and at 0:38 in my video The Healthiest Type of Potato . So, if you’re going to eat a high glycemic food, you may be able to moderate its impact by, for example, spreading raspberries on your toast, adding strawberries to your cornflakes, or sprinkling blueberries into your pancake batter. I’m not saying you have to put blackberries in your baked potato, but given that the natural color compounds in fruits can slow down starch di...
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How to Tame Blood Sugar Spikes after Eating Potatoes

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Broccoli, vinegar, and lemon juice are put to the test to blunt the glycemic index of white potatoes. White potatoes have a high glycemic index, and consumption of high glycemic impact foods may increase the risk of diabetes. Normally, after a meal, we’d like our blood sugars to rise and fall gently and naturally. But with high glycemic foods like potatoes, we get an exaggerated blood sugar spike. This leads our body to over-compensate with insulin, forcing our blood sugars lower than when we started, which results in negative metabolic consequences, such as a rise in triglyceride fats in the blood, as you can see below and at 0:34 in my video How to Reduce the Glycemic Impact of Potatoes . However, potatoes are a good source of vitamin C, potassium, and polyphenols, which may counterbalance their glycemic impact. This may explain why potatoes appear to have a neutral effect when it comes to lifespan, unlike other whole plant foods that have been associated with actively living ...
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Why Cooling Potatoes Lowers Their Glycemic Load

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If you eat potatoes when they’re cold, as in potato salad, or chilled and reheated, you can get a nearly 40% lower glycemic impact. If you systematically pull together all the best studies on potato consumption and chronic disease risk, an association is found for the risk of type 2 diabetes and hypertension—but that’s for French fries. Consumption of boiled, baked, or mashed potatoes was not associated with the risk of high blood pressure, but there was still a pesky link with diabetes. Overall, eating potatoes is not related to risk for many chronic diseases, but boiled potatoes could potentially pose a small increase in risk for diabetes. That’s one of the reasons some question whether they should be counted as vegetables when you’re trying to reach your recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. If you look at other whole plant foods—nuts, vegetables, fruits, and legumes (which are beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils)—they’re associated with living a longer life...
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