Protect Kids from Toxic Chemicals

Pediatricians To Feds: Protect Kids From Toxic Chemicals
by Nancy Shute
NPR - April 25, 2011

It seems like every week there's another scary-sounding chemical intruding into our lives: Bisphenol A in baby bottles, phthalates in plastic food containers, PBDE flame retardants in furniture and electronics, triclosan in soaps and shampoos.

But good luck trying to figure if those chemicals actually put your family at risk.

If you're tired of the lack of solid information on the health effects of chemicals — well, the nation's pediatricians are tired, too. They think the Environmental Protection Agency is doing a crummy job of protecting children and pregnant women from chemical health threats. And they're calling for a major redo of the nation's law regulating the 80,000 or so chemicals in use.


"I think there are many, many chemicals in many, many products on the market that are safe," says Jerome Paulson, a pediatrician and Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC. He's the lead author of a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, asking the federal government to redo the country's 35-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act. "But I say that as a leap of faith."

The problem, Paulson told Shots, is that none of us know which chemicals are safe and which are health threats, because chemicals don't have to be tested for safety before they're used in consumer products.

The pediatricians want chemicals to be tested for safety before they come on the market, the way prescription drugs are now. They also want to see a post-market surveillance system, like there is for medications, so that if health problems do start cropping up, there's a way to monitor them and respond. Most of all, they want the feds to recognize that chemicals may pose very different threats to children than they do to adults.

Kids' bodies are not like adult bodies. Children also live differently than adults. A 9-month-old spends her days on the floor, picking up things and chewing on them. And that child's physical response to chemicals in the environment changes as her body changes.

It won't be easy to figure out the interplay between children's development and thousands of chemicals. So the pediatricians are starting with a call for tighter regulation of chemicals that already spark "reasonable levels of concern."

That's different than the current system, which requires the government to prove that a chemical poses an "unreasonable risk" to limit its use. As a result, the EPA has required safety testing of only about 2,000 chemicals, and has restricted use of just five: PCBs, chlorofluorocarbon propellants for aerosol cans; dioxin; asbestos; and hexavalent chromium.

"The current level of proof is so high it's essentially been impossible to protect the public from chemicals that are clearly harmful," Paulson says.

A spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, an industry association, told Shots that the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, does need to be modernized. An ACC spokesman said that in the interim, "there are a whole host of regulations and programs in place to address the safe use of chemicals and protect public health."

Parents should push for changes in TSCA, Paulson says, so that safety information is routinely available for all products on the market. "It's the right of users to know what they're using and it's the responsibility of manufacturers to put safe products on the market."

A bill to reform TSCA, introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and four other Democratic senators earlier this month, would give the EPA the power to get safety information from manufacturers, and investigate high-risk chemicals first. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

The dangerous effects of Diet Soda, and other foods containing Aspartame.

This article really hit home for me. I've never been much of a soda drinker, let alone diet soda yet I find so, so many people are and it's starting to get scary what this additive does to your body. What concerns me the most is that so many families do not understand that this product is found EVERYWHERE in the grocery store, and the effects of it are devastating especially to young children. There are thousands of case studies over the last 15 years to the FDA of the effects of Aspartame, yet the FDA still deems it "safe" and usable for consumption. Now, you tell me is something that can cause DEATH be deemed "safe"?

Just some of the products containing Aspartame: Children's Mulit-Vitamin's (WHY)?; Sugar Free Kool-aid, fruit juice, cookies, ice cream, basically folks anything that say's SUGAR FREE has some sort of ARTIFICIAL sweetener in it and these sweetener's all containing chemicals that make up the sweetener's themselves. Do you know how Aspartame was found? Accidentally. Yes, accidentally.

"Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame in the course of producing an antiulcer drug candidate. He accidentally discovered its sweet taste when he licked his finger, which had become contaminated with aspartame.[16] Upon ingestion, aspartame breaks down into natural residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, methanol,[25] and further breakdown products including formaldehyde[26] and formic acid, accumulation of the latter being suspected as the major cause of injury in methanol poisoning. Human studies show that formic acid is excreted faster than it is formed after ingestion of aspartate. In some fruit juices, higher concentrations of methanol can be found than the amount produced from aspartame in beverages.[12]~Wikipedia

Now, you can go and do the research yourself, but the bottom line is if you're ingesting this even just a couple time's a week, I would recommend listening to your body, and the symptoms you may be having and not even realizing that you could be poisoning yourself, or your family.

The scary thing is what the FDA is allowing, despite all of the case studies! If you or any of your family are having any of the symptoms as stated in the article, then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE detox yourself and take everything back to the store you bought it from and tell them that this product is making you SICK. They will have to send the product back to the manufacture stating what you told them and they will get a refund for it, and in turn sending a message to the manufactures of this POISON that WE will NOT be purchasing things with ASPARTAME in it for ourselves or our families!!

The Gout Diet!

I have a very dear friend, and family member who was diagnosed with Gout earlier this year. He is living with it, and so can you!!

Gout Diet / Low Purine Diet:
Limit High Purine Foods
Written by Gloria Tsang, RD of HealthCastle.com
Published in December 2005




(HealthCastle.com) High levels of uric acid can cause gout. High purine foods in a diet can increase uric acid levels in the body. Therefore, the gout diet usually limits food with high purine.

Gout Diet / Low Purine Diet

Alcohol, especially beer, should be avoided. Limit alcohol consumption to 1 drink 3 times a week.
Drink 2 to 3 L of fluid daily. Adequate fluid intake helps dilute urinary uric acid. Avoid High-Purine foods (see below)
Consume a moderate amount of protein. Limit meat, fish and poultry to 4 - 6 oz per day. Try other low-purine good protein foods such as low fat dairy products, tofu and eggs.
Limit fat intake by choosing leaner meats, foods prepared with less oils and lower fat dairy products.

Avoid High-Purine foods

Sweetbreads
Anchovies
Sardines
Liver
Beef kidneys
Brains
Meat extracts (e.g Oxo, Bovril)
Herring
Mackerel
Scallops
Game meats
Gravy

Use in Moderation

Vegetables: asparagus, cauliflower, spinach, mushrooms and green peas
Lentils, dried peas and beans
Beef, pork, poultry, fish and seafood
Oatmeal, wheat bran and wheat germ
Aside from avoiding high purine foods, maintaining a healthy body weight is important for gout patients as well. Obesity can result in increased uric acid production by the body. Follow a well-balanced diet to lose excess body weight. Do not follow a high-protein low-carb diet as this can worsen gout conditions.




Research Update: A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Mar 11, 2004 revealed that high intake of low-fat dairy products indeed reduces the risk of gout by 50%. It is unknown why low-fat dairy products offer a protective effect.

Unfortunately, no natural supplements are proven effective to prevent or alleviate onset of acute gout attacks. The most effective treatment for gout attack is medication.

Western diets turn on fat genes: Energy-dense foods may activate genes that ultimately make us obese

ScienceDaily (2009-12-01) -- Those extra helpings of gravy and dessert at the holiday table are even less of a help to your waistline than previously thought. These foods hit you with a double-whammy as the already difficult task of converting high-fat and high-sugar foods to energy is made even harder because these foods also turn our bodies into "supersized fat-storing" machines.

Superfood Smoothie!

Are you having some problems getting you little ones to eat their veggies? Here's a little recipe trick that you can work in at breakfast or snack!

1/2 banana
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 tbsp. natural organic peanut butter/almond butter
small handful washed baby spinach
1 cup vanilla soy/rice milk
6-7 ice cubes

*If you want, you can also add 1/2 cup yogurt and or 1/2 cup of lightly steamed beets for fun color and nutrient value for Vitamin A, and Betaine.

Enjoy!

To Stevia, or not to Stevia? That is the question

Stevia: Sweet, But Is It Safe?

Nutrition Action Health Letter April 2000

Stevia (STEE-vee-uh) is a South American shrub whose leaves have been used for centuries by native peoples in Paraguay and Brazil to sweeten their yerba mate and other stimulant beverages.

Stevioside, the main ingredient in stevia (the two terms are often used interchangeably), is virtually calorie-free and hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar. “So it appeals to many people as a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners,” says Mark Blumenthal of the pro-herb American Botanical Council in Austin, Texas.

While Japanese manufacturers have used stevia since the early 1970s to sweeten pickles and other foods, the FDA has turned down three industry requests to use stevia in foods in the U.S.

That’s why you don’t see stevia on supermarket shelves next to the Sweet’N Low or Equal. But you can buy it in health food stores as a dietary supplement. The FDA has little control over supplements.

Why hasn’t the FDA approved stevia? “We don’t have enough data to conclude that the use [in food] would be safe,” the agency stated in 1994.

The U.S. isn’t alone. Canada doesn’t allow food companies to add stevia to their products. Nor does the European Union.

Last year, the scientific panel that reviews the safety of food ingredients for the EU concluded that stevioside is “not acceptable” as a sweetener because of unresolved concerns about its toxicity. In 1998, a United Nations expert panel came to essentially the same conclusion.

The Problem with Stevia

To stevia’s boosters, there’s no debate. The herb has been consumed without apparent harm in different parts of the world for many years, they argue. No reports of any adverse reactions have surfaced after 30 years of use in Japan, for instance.

“But the Japanese don’t consume large amounts of stevia,” notes Douglas Kinghorn, professor of pharmacognosy (the study of drugs from plants) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“In the U.S., we like to go to extremes,” adds toxicologist Ryan Huxtable of the University of Arizona in Tucson. “So a significant number of people here might consume much greater amounts.”

Here’s what troubles toxicologists:

Reproductive problems. Stevioside “seems to affect the male reproductive organ system,” European scientists concluded last year. When male rats were fed high doses of stevioside for 22 months, sperm production was reduced, the weight of seminal vesicles (which produce seminal fluid) declined, and there was an increase in cell proliferation in their testicles, which could cause infertility or other problems.1 And when female hamsters were fed large amounts of a derivative of stevioside called steviol, they had fewer and smaller offspring.2 Would small amounts of stevia also cause reproductive problems? No one knows.

Cancer. In the laboratory, steviol can be converted into a mutagenic compound, which may promote cancer by causing mutations in the cells’ genetic material (DNA). “We don’t know if the conversion of stevioside to steviol to a mutagen happens in humans,” says Huxtable. “It’s probably a minor issue, but it clearly needs to be resolved.”

Energy metabolism. Very large amounts of stevioside can interfere with the absorption of carbohydrates in animals and disrupt the conversion of food into energy within cells. “This may be of particular concern for children,” says Huxtable.

The bottom line: If you use stevia sparingly (once or twice a day in a cup of tea, for example), it isn’t a great threat to you. But if stevia were marketed widely and used in diet sodas, it would be consumed by millions of people. And that might pose a public health threat.

“The take-home message is simply that we don’t know enough,” says Huxtable.

That’s why the government needs to require companies to do more—and better—testing.

1 J. Food Hyg. Soc. Japan 26: 169, 1985. 2 Drug Chem. Toxicol. 21: 207, 1998.

Obesity, Economics and Choices

A recent article, “Getting the best nutrition for your buck” on msnbc.com gave a rather interesting argument about how the current economy is encouraging obesity in our country. I got pretty fired up, so here it goes.

At The Healthy Edge, we work with people EVERYDAY who are ready to shift in to a healthy lifestyle. The reason they choose to do this varies, but for many individuals and families, it’s with a desire to live a higher quality of life and to help prevent diseases.

A report done by the USDA shows that The United States spends less that 10% of our household income on our family food budget. This is the lowest amount compared to 141 countries surveyed. This is a HUGE indicator of where the problem lies with our health and our obesity issue. We also spend the most amount of money on health care, yet we are among the unhealthiest in the world.

If we are spending 10% of our income on food, where does the other 90% go? Much of it is to necessities including our home, clothes, transportation, etc. But how much of it is a reflection of what really matters in our life. People who are struggling in this economy are still smoking, drinking, buying name brand clothes (sunglasses, purses, shoes, etc), driving high end cars and taking expensive vacations. These are the same people who will turn around and complain about the price of produce or organic products and opt for the cheaper alternatives in boxes, bags or drive thrus . By the way, these are not only filled with sugar, preservatives, fat and enriched flours, but they are less filling because of the lack of nutrients. This consequently leads to eating MORE!

The reality of these decisions may not really sink in until you receive a medical bill that is a consequence of poor lifestyle choices such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, etc. Every choice has an effect and choices compound. If you decide to not spend the money or effort keeping yourself healthy, then you run a high risk of paying the price later. If you decide to spend money on luxury items, then you will enjoy the benefits (whatever that looks like for you) but you fail to address the one component that makes EVERYTHING you have possible to have and enjoy: Your Health!!! Without your health these material things mean nothing.

For anyone who has ever had a sick child or a dying spouse or parent, the reality of what it means to have your health is pretty obvious. After watching my mom go from a vibrant, healthy woman to someone who was confined to a hospital room, I know that my money is well spent on keeping my body and mind healthy. My husband and I buy fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and meats and use the tips from The Healthy Edge to buy economical! I still have luxuries in my life, but NOT at the cost of the food and supplements that go into my body and keep me healthy to enjoy them!

There IS a difference between spinach and iceburg lettuce, although the article from msnbc might convince you otherwise! You can also choose healthy foods that don’t break the bank and prepare them in less than the 16 hours suggested. It takes education and practice and that is why we offer the lifestyle program of The Healthy Edge! It’s all about education and choices!

Here are some tips:

1.Save money by not buying a gym membership, especially if you are not using it! Exercise can look a LOT of different ways and can be done in your house or outside. An exercise video series can be economical (try craig’s list or Ebay) and provide the support and instruction you need!

2.Check out local farmer’s markets and co-ops. Check out www.eatwellguide.org for support!

3.Cut up fresh fruits and vegetables as soon as you get home! Get the family involved in the preparation that is going to encourage that you use the produce! It is much easier to use these for salads, wraps and recipes if it is already cut!

4.Use The Healthy Edge recipes for quick and simple ideas for cooking healthy! Make the recipes in bulk so you can eat throughout the week!

5.Grow your own garden. I didn’t believe it until I did it! We have a small area in our backyard with spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, squash and zucchini. It takes minimal time and effort! We also grow our own herbs!

6.Buy the fruits and vegetables that are in season, these are usually more economical than those out of season! A simple internet search on seasonal fruits and vegetables will bring up a lot of great information!

7.Use the crockpot to make fabulous dishes with all of your produce at the end of the week! It is amazing the great concoctions that can be made by throwing in all of the vegetables that are almost ready to be tossed, adding low sodium chicken broth, some herbs such as rosemary, bay leaves or sage and some meat such as organic chicken or beef! Start in the morning on low and cook all day! It’s delicious and fun!

Black Bean Salad

I'm finally getting around to putting a recipe up on here! Yikes, It's been on my to do list now for over two weeks! If you love salads, and even better love yummy, healthy and QUICK salads, then this one is for you!! Thanks Brian for the recipe! www.getthehealthyedge.com

Black Bean Salad

(Serves 6)

Two 15 oz cans of black beans, drained and rinsed

Two cupw frozen forn, cooked

10-15 cherry tomatoes, quartered

One large Avacado

2 Tbsp lime juice

2 fresh garlic cloves, diced

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1. On a cutting board, add salt to diced garlic. Use the flat side of a butter knife to grind /mash salt into diced garlic until blend resembles a paste. Set paste aside.

2. Add 2 cups of frozen corn to small pan. Add 1 cup of water and heat on medium high until corn is thawed and hot. Remove from heat and drain excess water.

3. Add black beans, cooked corn, tomatoes , and avacado to medium or large bowl or serving dish.

4. Stir in lime juice and garlic paste until all ingredients are throughly combined.

Brians Tips

Best if placed in refrigerator to allow to chill prior to serving. I prefer to use fresh squeezed lime juice. Great side dish for many different entrees or a delicious and nutritious mean by itself. Black beans are very high in dietary fiber.