NEWSLETTER VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2

by Dr. Deborah Baker-Racine 2004-2005

THOUGHT FOR THE LAST 30 YEARS OR SO THAT TAKING LARGE DOSES

OF VITAMIN C PER DAY WAS A GOOD HEALTH CHOICE......????

WELL, YOU WERE RIGHT!!!!!!

FACT - Flawed studies from the National Institute of Health (NIH) in 1996 led us to believe that taking vitamin C supplements resulted only in "expensive urine."

FACT - A news release from the NIH in April 1996 said "at 200 mg oral intake, blood plasma had more than 80 percent maximal concentration of vitamin C and tissues were completely saturated. Doses of 500 mg and higher are completely excreted in urine.”

FACT -NIH researchers said "the concentration of ascorbic acid (the technical name for vitamin C) in blood plasma never exceeds much more than 70-85 micromole per deciliter of blood regardless of the dosage of vitamin C consumed, so said NIH researchers. [Biofactors 15: 71-74, 2001]

In a new book "Ascorbate - The Science of Vitamin C" Drs. Steve Hickey and Hilary Roberts expose the very poor science
used by the NIH to ascertain the proper vitamin C levels for hundreds of millions of people!

Its a well known fact that if you leave vitamin C exposed to the air..it oxidizes..which is exactly what is supposed to do in
your body to protect you from elements such as free radicals. These researchers let the extracted blood plasma sit for over 12 hours before measuring the amount of vitamin C in the sample of supposedly "healthy" people and used that information to determine what the average person should take in a day!!! Ridiculous!

In two of the studies used to establish the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) the NIH only studied 7 and 15 people! That is supposed to represent the whole population?? And on top of that..they were "healthy" people. What about the smokers, diabetics, pregnant women, seniors and people taking steroids, birth control pills, estrogen or even aspirin..where it is known that their levels of vitamin C must be higher? Are they supposed to follow the same levels? Of course not..any sane person would tell you they are "different"..but no suggestions came from the NIH.

Oncology (medical cancer specialists) has not been able to significantly improve the survival rate of cancer patients. And yet as far back as 1976, Linus Pauling with simple injections of Vitamin C had been able to more than double the survivor rate!!

Ok, now here's the REAL BIGGY is that the NIH in the year 2000 showed that adults whose blood plasma concentrations exceeded 73.8 micromole level (that is just an ordinary level attained by taking 200 mg per day) experienced a 57 percent reduced risk of dying from any cause and a 62 percent reduced relative risk of dying of cancer when compared to adults who consumed low amounts of vitamin C (28 micromole). [Am J Clinical Nutrition 72: 139-45, 2000]

And then they contradicted themselves in saying people couldn't raise their blood levels above this 75-80 micromole level per day with oral supplementation. When 3000 milligrams was given orally every 4 hours, concentrations were nearly three times greater (220 micromole)

What happened to the claim that that body tightly controls blood plasma vitamin C concentrations with excesses dumped into urine? In the researchers own words, “single one gram supplement doses can produce transient plasma concentrations that are 2 to 3-fold higher than those from vitamin C-rich foods (200-300 milligrams daily)!” Ok..so...the NIH researchers should have retracted previously published papers, asking medical journal editors to publish erratum, and they should have called for a re-evaluation of the RDA for vitamin C. This didn’t happen, says Dr. Hickey.

Now..the bottom line..and the worst part of the NIH and orther researchers' ineptness. Had people been taking the Vitamin C that insightful doctors like Linus Pauling suggested personkind would have benefitted by:

-fewer colds and days off work..hence greater productivity
-less formation of cataracts
-next to no aortic aneurysms
-much less arthritic symptoms and pain
-more active sex life
-fewer viral eruptions including very low incidence or even avoidance of SARS
-increased life span

So how much per day? My recommendation is at least 2,000 mg in dvided doses..500 mg per meal and at bedtime. Many people who are under stress or are older, take the medications mentioned above will take up to 5,000 mg. per day and that would work well for them.

So get this book! And find out the FACTS of how helpful and healthy Vitamin C is:

DID YOU KNOW????

Latest research removes the "bad reputations" of certain foods:

Nuts:

Although nuts are valued for protein, vitamins and minerals, they have been thought as being far to fatty and caloric to be considered "healthy".

Now, we know that nuts can help prevent heart disease. They are rich in unsaturated fats, including monounsaturated fats, as well as vitamin E, fibre, folic acid and other B vitamins. Obviously, one should not choose salted nuts..or eat huge amounts. Walnuts are especially rich in heart-healthy oil. Best when eaten out of the shell as the oils have not had a chance to go rancid.

Blueberries, Cherries, Beets, Red Peppers:

Good foods..but just as good as other fruit/vegetables..

Nope! Deeply coloured fruits and vegetables tend to have the most vitamins and minerals. Also, the plant pigments that give them such rich colour are very high in antioxidants which protects against aging and cancer.

Pesticides too harmful to use in any form, doctors warn

By ALANNA MITCHELL
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

The link between common household pesticides and fetal defects, neurological damage and the most deadly cancers is strong enough that family doctors in Ontario are urging citizens to avoid the chemicals in any form.

The frightening message came yesterday when the Ontario College of Family Physicians released the most comprehensive study ever done in Canada on the chronic effects of pesticide exposure at home, in the garden and at work.

"The review found consistent evidence of the health risks to patients with exposure to pesticides," the study said, naming brain cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and leukemia among many other acute illnesses.

As well, the college found consistent links between parents' exposure to certain agricultural pesticides at their jobs and effects on a growing fetus ranging from damage to death. The risks, they concluded, can come even from residue on food, ant spray and the tick collar on the family cat.

The researchers also found that children are far more vulnerable to the effects of pesticides than adults because their bodies are growing, they have a greater skin surface in proportion to their size than adults, they ingest more food for their size than adults and they often have less-developed systems to excrete chemicals.

Not only that, but after examining 12,000 studies conducted from 1990 to 2003 around the world, and winnowing that down to the most sound 250, the researchers said there is no evidence that some pesticides are less dangerous than others, just that they have different effects on health that take different periods to show up.

They said they are preparing brochures for patients and education material for family doctors to fill them in on the findings.

However, Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLife Canada, a trade association representing the large multinational companies that manufacture pesticides, said he questioned whether the college, a voluntary, not-for-profit association, really had the public's interest at heart in releasing the data:

"Pesticides used properly constitute no unacceptable risk to people's health or to the environment."

He added that pesticides are highly regulated in Canada by federal health staff and must go through a raft of tests, including some on animals to see if the products cause cancer, before they are approved for use.

Not only that, but the federal laws governing pesticides were tightened two years ago to make them protect children better and match more closely the tougher standards in the United States and in other countries, he said.

He pointed out that other studies have shown that pesticide use also provides a safe and abundant source of fruits and vegetables in Canada, and that consuming these can cut cancer risks.

Chris Krepski, a spokesman for the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, an
arm of Health Canada, added that a pesticide cannot be registered for use in Canada if it has the potential to cause birth defects.

"As long as they are used according to the label directions, they can be used safely," he said.

The massive scientific literature review comes as many cities across Canada are trying to ban the use of pesticides to make gardens and lawns pest-free and as efforts increase to get rid of mosquito larvae before West Nile season.

Toronto's law came into effect this month complete with posters showing a dandelion and the caption: "Relax. It's just a weed."

Quebec has already banned the most common lawn and garden pesticides across the province starting next year.

More than 66 communities have also moved to adopt bylaws that would limit pesticides, said Katrina Miller of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, a group seeking a reduction in the use of pesticides.

The Canadian Cancer Society, the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, the Registered Nurses Association of Canada and the Ontario Public Health Association have called for the bans as well.

Cathy Vakil, of the Family Medicine Centre at Queen's University in Kingston and one of the authors of the report, noted that alternatives to pesticides are available in most cases and should be considered because the profoundly negative effects of some chemicals can be passed down through generations.

"People need to think long and hard if they want to take that risk for themselves, their children and their grandchildren for the sake of a golf-green lawn," she said.

She also noted that the pesticides used in Toronto's 200,000 storm sewers to kill mosquito larvae emit a product as they break down that is a retinoid, a family of chemicals known to cause limb deformities in fetuses.

That chemical then washes into Lake Ontario and in turn into the drinking water of the Greater Toronto Area.

However, Lorraine Van Haastrecht, spokeswoman for a lobby group representing companies that treat 100,000 lawns in Toronto, said Canada needs "healthy green spaces."

"What we see is parks reduced to massive weed infestations," she said.

And Gavin Dawson, technical manager of Greenspace Services, the largest company in Canada to treat lawns, said that while his company offers pesticide-free service, only about 10 per cent of customers want that. The rest want pesticides.

 

Cooking broccoli and its relatives, cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts is not going to make the house smell great. The reason for that is that heating causes the release of strong-smelling sulphur compounds made up of ammonia and hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg smell). And the more you cook them..the more these are released.

In the case of broccoli, though..long term cooking results also in the interaction of these compounds with the chlorophyll in the "green" of the vegetable and you wind up with a muddy brown vegetable. Cooking broccoli in a small amount of water slows this reaction down.

THINK I'M KIDDING ABOUT THE DANGERS OF FAST FOOD???

READ/LISTEN TO THESE THIS SUMMER...BEFORE...YOU HOLIDAY!!!!

There are two books and a soundtrack that I highly recommend to help you avoid fast food (aka TOTALLY unhealthy food). Once any thinking person knows the facts...I doubt very much they will have any problem steering clear of this "junk".

Fast Food Nation - On any given day, one out of four Americans opts for a quick and cheap meal at a fast-food restaurant, without giving either its speed or its thriftiness a second thought. Fast food is so ubiquitous that it now seems as American, and harmless, as apple pie. But the industry's drive for consolidation, homogenization, and speed has radically transformed America's diet, landscape, economy, and workforce, often in insidiously destructive ways. Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, opens his ambitious and ultimately devastating exposé with an introduction to the iconoclasts and high school dropouts, such as Harlan Sanders and the McDonald brothers, who first applied the principles of a factory assembly line to a commercial kitchen. Quickly, however, he moves behind the counter with the overworked and underpaid teenage workers, onto the factory farms where the potatoes and beef are grown, and into the slaughterhouses run by giant meatpacking corporations. Schlosser wants you to know why those French fries taste so good (with a visit to the world's largest flavor company) and "what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns." Eater beware: forget your concerns about cholesterol, there is--literally--feces in your meat.

Super Size Me follows filmmaker Morgan Spurlock as he unravels the American obesity epidemic by interviewing experts nationwide and by subjecting himself to a McDonald’s only diet for 30 days – with radical results.

Fatland - In this astonishing expose, journalist Greg Critser looks beyond the sensational headlines to reveal why nearly 60 percent of Americans are now overweight. Critser's sharp-eyed reportage and sharp-tongued analysis make for a disarmingly funny and truly alarming book. Critser investigates the many factors of American life -- from supersize to Super Mario, from high-fructose corn syrup to the high cost of physical education in schools -- that have converged and conspired to make us some of the fattest people on the planet. He also explains why pediatricians are treating conditions rarely before noticed in children, why Type 2 diabetes is on the rise, and how agribusiness has unwittingly altered the American diet.

For our American readers:

For our Canadian readers:

For our U.K. readers:

BIG NEWS...NOW FIND DR DEB AT AMAZON.COM!!!! CLICK HERE

Enjoy! Until the next issue!

Warmly,
Dr. Deb
July, 2004