Category Archives: Health

Mixed Nuts: The facts about your favorite nuts – PEANUTS

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Mixed Nuts:  The facts about your favorite nuts – PEANUTS

Serving Size 1oz (about 28 peanuts) = 170 calories

Peanuts are technically a legume, they’re rich in folate (which helps produce and maintain new cells), oleic acid, and resveratrol, the heart-healthy antioxidant found in red wine and dark chocolate.  If you boil peanuts in the shell, cup for cup, you’ll get more resveratrol than in raw ones or peanut butter, in amounts comparable to a 5-ounce glass of red wine.

Nutty Ideas:  Drizzle a handful with melted dark chocolate and refrigerate until firm for a healthy dessert.  Add shelled nuts to stir-fries for an added crunch. 

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Complementing Cancer Treatment with Exercise

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Exercising can be a great addition and complement to anyone’s life, especially to those individuals who are battling cancer. Whether you have just reached the point of putting your cancer into remission or you were just diagnosed with a cancer like mesothelioma, exercising more regularly can be a great thing for you and your overall health. You will find that working out has benefits that you may not have known and that can truly give you some support while you are undergoing routine cancer treatment. Exercise should not be thought of as a cure for cancer, but it can complement your treatment quite well.

One thing that exercise can do for you is to improve your overall physical state. Many people who workout find that they become stronger and have more strength throughout the day. Exercise also boosts the immune system, making it easy for you to ward off illnesses and diseases. This is an especially vital benefit to anyone who is going for cancer treatment and has a weakened immune system because of the medications and therapies that they are going for.

Working out more regularly also has a number of mental benefits for you as well. When you workout, your body is going to be releasing endorphins that make you feel good. You will find that these endorphins help to give you a mood boost that lasts the rest of the day. When you enjoy working out, you will also find that it gives you something to look forward to and to enjoy when you feel like your whole life revolves around going for treatment for your cancer. The key is to find a good workout that you actually like doing so that you do not feel either bored or overwhelmed while doing it.

You need to first speak with your doctor before you actually begin making major changes to your lifestyle. Only your healthcare professional knows what is right for you and will be able to make smart decisions concerning your overall health. The best thing for you to do is to discuss different exercises that you can do when you are undergoing cancer treatment so that you know what you should be doing to improve your health and wellbeing. From there, it is up to you to find a good exercise that provides all of these benefits and that you will enjoy doing every few days of the week.

Post contributed by Melanie Bowen
Awareness Advocate for Natural Health
http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/melanie/bio.htm

The ONLY Protein Bar You Should Be Eating

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Many of you have asked me about protein bars.  So, I thought I would just send everyone an email with my thoughts and recommendations.

I personally look for a bar that meets the following criteria:

  1. Good source of protein (NO SOY)
  2. Low sugar (5 grams or less)
  3. Moderate total fat (less than 10 grams)
  4. Moderate “clean” carbohydrates (15 to 30 grams max)
  5. Gluten Free
  6. Low to moderate calories per bar (170 to 200 calories per bar)
  7. High Fiber 15 to 30 grams
  8. Taste Great

As you can imagine it is difficult to find a bar that meets all of the above.

Well it’s your lucky day, I have done all the research and sampling for you.  My bar of choice is the Quest Bar.  It meets all of the above criteria and most importantly it taste GREAT!

Quest Protein BarsMy favorite flavors are:

  • Chocolate Brownie
  • Vanilla Almond Crunch
  • Apple Pie

You can purchase these bars online or at your local Vitamin Shoppe.

If you have any question, feel free to ask.  I hope this helps

Health and Happiness,

Jay Nixon CNS, CFNC, CPT

www.nixonelite.com

Jay Nixon -Creator of the Body Fat Detox, Weight Loss Success Coach, Certified Nutrition and Fitness Specialist – devoted to helping you achieve your weight loss goals.  If you need to lose weight and have tried and failed with countless efforts, I am your solution.  I will guide you through your weight loss journey and give you all the tools you need to maintain your weight loss for the rest of your life.  To start your weight loss journey visit www.nixonelite.com to schedule a consultation

Modern wheat is a “perfect, chronic poison”

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STOP EATING WHEAT!  Yet another article supporting my stance that wheat is one of the root problems leading to poor health.  Please read and share!

(CBS News) Modern wheat is a “perfect, chronic poison,” according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the world’s most popular grain.

Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn’t the wheat your grandma had: “It’s an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said on “CBS This Morning.” “This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not gluten. I’m not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I’m talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.”

Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat – and dropping substantial weight.

“If three people lost eight pounds, big deal,” he said. “But we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day.”

To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating “real food,” such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. “(It’s) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness,” he said. “Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it’s not barley… or flax. It’s going to be wheat.

“It’s really a wheat issue.”

Some health resources, such as the Mayo Clinic, advocate a more balanced diet that does include wheat. But Davis said on “CTM” they’re just offering a poor alternative.

“All that literature says is to replace something bad, white enriched products with something less bad, whole grains, and there’s an apparent health benefit – ‘Let’s eat a whole bunch of less bad things.’ So I take…unfiltered cigarettes and replace with Salem filtered cigarettes, you should smoke the Salems. That’s the logic of nutrition, it’s a deeply flawed logic. What if I take it to the next level, and we say, ‘Let’s eliminate all grains,’ what happens then?

“That’s when you see, not improvements in health, that’s when you see transformations in health.”

Click here to read the full article and watch the video

Health and Happiness,

Jay

P.S. The Body Fat Detox is the best way to get all the toxins from wheat out of your system!

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The 5 Digit Code that Could Save Your Life

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The little sticker on fruits and vegetables is more important than you think.  The number on that sticker will tell you whether it is safe to eat or not.  Knowing these codes just might save your life!

I know I am being a bit dramatic using a life and death scenario when talking about fruits and veggies, but I want you to understand the importance of knowing how your food is grown.  Over your lifespan the cumulative effect of ingesting genetically modified foods and foods covered in pesticides will have an impact on your health.

Know the Codes:

  • Organically Grown:  five digit code starting with the #9
  • Genetically Modified (NOT GOOD for YOU):  five digit code starting with the #8
  • Conventionally Grown (Contains Pesticides – Not Good):  four digits (any four digit #)

 

Health and Happiness,

Jay

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The Health Dangers of Soy

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Unfermented soy has the following 10 adverse effects on your body:

1. High Phytic Acid (Phytates): Reduces assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking, but only with long fermentation. High-phytate diets have caused growth problems in children. 

2. Trypsin inhibitors: Interferes with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders. In test animals, trypsin inhibitors in soy caused stunted growth. 

3. Goitrogens: Potent agents that block your synthesis of thyroid hormones and can cause hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked with autoimmune thyroid disease. Goitrogens interfere with iodine metabolism. 

4. Phytoestrogens/Isoflavones: Plant compounds resembling human estrogen can block your normal estrogen and disrupt endocrine function, cause infertility, and increase your risk for breast cancer.

5. Hemagglutinin: A clot-promoting substance that causes your red blood cells to clump, making them unable to properly absorb and distribute oxygen to your tissues. 

6. Synthetic Vitamin D: Soy foods increase your body’s vitamin D requirement, which is why companies add synthetic vitamin D2 to soymilk (a toxic form of vitamin D).

7. Vitamin B12: Soy contains a compound resembling vitamin B12 that cannot be used by your body, so soy foods can actually contribute to B12 deficiency, especially among vegans.

8. Protein Denaturing: Fragile proteins are denatured during high temperature processing to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein (TVP). Chemical processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.

9. MSG: Free glutamic acid, or MSG, is a potent neurotoxin. MSG is formed during soy food processing, plus additional MSG is often added to mask soy’s unpleasant taste.

10. Aluminum and Manganese: Soy foods contain high levels of aluminum, which is toxic to your nervous system and kidneys, and manganese, which wreaks havoc on your baby’s immature metabolic system.

Soy’s antinutrients are quite potent. Drinking just two glasses of soymilk daily provides enough of these compounds to alter a woman’s menstrual cycle. But if you feed soy to your infant or child, these effects are magnified a thousand-fold. Infants fed soy formula may have up to 20,000 times more estrogen circulating through their bodies as those fed other formulas. You should NEVER feed your infant a soy-based formula!

Health and Happiness,

Jay

P.S. In fact, infants fed soy formula take in an estimated five birth control pills’ worth of estrogen every day.

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3 Tips to Painless PMS

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3 Tips to Painless PMS — Jay Nixon Certified Nutrition and Fitness Specialist shares 3 tips to help alleviate to horrible symptoms of PMS.  Decrease cramping, bloating and pain associated with PMS.

 

Jay’s 4 Week Nutritional Coaching Program is available for sign-up now. The program starts August 5th, 2012. “It’s your chance to personally work with not just a “fitness and nutrition expert” or “coach” but a true mentor — one who has been recognized by his peers and clients as “one of the best fitness and nutrition experts in the business”. — CBS News

Click here for more information: http://nixonelite.com/coaching/

“Why would a sports drink designed for endurance athletes contain protein?”

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This is a very good question and one that has gained a lot of interest from the scientific community over the past ten years. Scientists have proven that consuming carbohydrates and protein after high intensity workouts reduces recovery time by replenishing glycogen stores and protein for muscle repair. This has led to the interest in studying whether or not carbohydrate and protein consumption during exercise increases performance by much of the same mechanisms found in post workout recovery.

Multiple studies have been conducted comparing ergogenic nutritional aids containing carbohydrates (CHO) against carbohydrate and protein (CHO:N) aids. Several of these studies demonstrated CHO:N drinks exhibit greater athletic performance or energy output than CHO drinks alone, while other studies concluded no significant difference between the two. More importantly, however, none of the studies conducted showed CHO drinks providing greater performance than CHO:N drinks over long periods of high intensity training. The mechanisms behind CHO:N drinks have been hypothesized and researched with limited conclusive information. To reach this conclusive information, several scientific challenges need to be addressed including how the studies are designed, measured, and statistically proven, which are sure to be focuses in the future of sports nutrition.

The science driving the interest in CHO:N drinks consumed during endurance training stems from information widely accepted by sports nutrition experts, biochemists, and food scientists around the world. This information focuses on five key concepts starting with protein consumption. As protein passes through the stomach partially digested and enters the intestinal tract, proteolytic enzymes cleave peptide bonds yielding short chain amino acids that increase fluid transport through epithelial cells carrying electrolytes and other key nutrients to their absorption sites. The end result is an efficient nutrient delivery system. Next, protein provides precursors through a series of reactions responsible for increasing Krebs cycle intermediates. These intermediates are critical for mitochondrial energy production, which often become depleted in the absence of protein. Another hypothesized benefit to consuming protein includes elevated branch chain amino acids (BCAAs) that compete for the same absorption site as L-tryptophan, a precursor to seratonin production. Without BCAAs, L-tryptophan can readily cross the blood brain barrier and cause exercise induced fatigue. The fourth benefit to consuming CHO:N drinks is the consistent increase in plasma insulin, which sustains blood glucose levels and prolongs the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and skeletal muscle. Finally, as you continue to exercise, your body will eventually resort to protein taken from muscle tissue to be used as energy. As an endurance athlete you want to maintain nitrogen balance through protein consumption, otherwise your body will have a negative nitrogen balance leading to muscle catabolism as opposed to muscle anabolism.

Not all protein sources are created equally. The quality of whole food protein sources are critical when consuming a CHO:N drink. The more bioavailable, the better the protein source. Whey protein isolate (WPI) and egg albumen are by far the most readily absorbed proteins available. Ranking the highest among various protein scores including Protein Digestion Correct Amino Acid score (PDCAA), Biological Value (BV), and Protein Exchange Ration (PER), these proteins are preferable compared to other proteins or free form amino acids. It is important to use WPI versus whey protein concentrate (WPC) due to the filtration process used to isolate the protein and remove unwanted impurities such as lactose and fat. WPC can contain 10 to 30% lactose and up to 10% fat, whereas WPI contains <1% of both lactose and fat. WPI is rich in BCAAs and is quickly absorbed by the body. Egg albumen, like WPI, also contains high levels of BCAAs and has a long history of use by athletes. This purified protein is a complete protein with all of the essential amino acids and also contains sodium and potassium as beneficial nutrients. These proteins are efficiently broken down by proteolytic enzymes into highly absorbable di and tri peptides. Two thirds of all protein absorbed by the body are in di and tri peptide forms compared to free form amino acids. Free form amino acids, especially BCAAs are derived from chemical synthesis developed by scientists using chicken feathers and human hair. The body may not recognize these forms, decreasing their bioavailability compared to amino acids contained in whole food sources such as Whey Protein Isolate and Egg Albumen. Free-form amino acids increase the osmolality of a sports drink solution, which in turn results in reduced utilization and absorption of other key nutrients. The bottom line here is that whole proteins are preferable to free-form amino acids, and pure, highly filtered forms of whole proteins are the most optimal when used as components of a sports drink.

Taking these scientific facts into consideration along with multiple studies indicating CHO:N drinks provide higher energy output, do you want to continue believing protein is for recovery, or know this combination is on the horizon in sports nutrition? Let trial and error be the judge and what works for you, the athlete.

This article was written and submitted by the science team at UR.  To learn more about UR and all their products visit:  http://www.ur-theanswer.com/

“Why We Over Eat”

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What Happens When Your Brain Can’t Hear Leptin’s Signals …

Leptin is a hormone produced by fat tissue, which relays important messages such as whether you should:

  • Be hungry, eat and make more fat
  • Reproduce and make babies
  • “Hunker down” and work overtime to maintain and repair yourself

Although most think of their brain as being “top of the food chain” in terms of making decisions to keep your body functioning, your brain actually depends on your fat to “speak” to it and tell it how much energy your body has available, and then what to do with it.

Growing evidence shows that leptin may influence areas of your brain that control the intensity of your desire to eat. It has also been found that leptin not only changes brain chemistry, but can also “rewire” the very important areas of your brain that control hunger and metabolism. The way your body stores fat is a carefully regulated process that is controlled, primarily, by leptin. If you gain excess weight, the additional fat produces extra leptin that should alert your brain that your body should stop creating and storing more fat and start burning the accumulated excess.

To do this, signals are sent to your brain to stop being hungry and to stop eating. It is very important that your brain is able to accurately “hear” the messages leptin sends it, as otherwise your brain thinks you’re depleted and will continue to feel hungry, even starving. If your brain does not respond appropriately to leptin, you will likely continue to eat and store more fat.

So why then, if your body has an innate system, honed by eons of trial and error to regulate your fat stores to perfection, is the United States and many other countries facing an obesity epidemic of unprecedented scale?

Because many people have become “leptin resistant.”

Leptin resistance occurs when your body is unable to properly hear leptin’s signals. How does this happen? By overexposure to high levels of the hormone, caused by eating too much sugar.

You may be familiar with this process occurring with the hormone insulin. High blood sugar levels cause repeated surges in insulin and this causes your cells to become “insulin-resistant,” which leads to the production of even higher levels of insulin, eventually leading to type 2 diabetes. It is much the same as being in a room with a strong odor for a period of time. Eventually, you stop being able to smell it, because the signal no longer gets through.

The same process also occurs with leptin. It has been shown that as sugar gets metabolized and stored as triglycerides in fat cells, the fat cells release surges of leptin and those surges result in leptin-resistance, just as it results in insulin-resistance. When you become leptin-resistant, your body can no longer hear the messages telling it to stop eating and burn fat — so it remains hungry and stores more fat.

This will not only contribute to weight gain, but also increase your risk of many chronic illnesses, as leptin plays a significant, if not primary, role in heart disease, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, reproductive disorders, and perhaps the rate of aging itself.

 

Too Much Sugar Overstimulates Your Brain’s Pleasure Center, Leading to Addiction

When you eat sugar it triggers the production of your brain’s natural opioids — a key initiator of the addiction process. Your brain essentially becomes addicted to stimulating the release of its own opioids. The intensity of this effect is experienced on the same level as morphine or heroin.

Researchers have speculated that the sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on your tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to the seemingly unlimited access to a cheap and omnipresent sugar supply in the modern diet. Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by our sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms, create tolerance and withdrawal symptoms, thus leading to addiction.

According to Dr. Lustig, it is virtually impossible to exert enough cognitive willpower to overcome this 24/7 biochemical drive! He states in The Atlantic:i

“The brain’s pleasure center, called the nucleus accumbens, is essential for our survival as a species… Turn off pleasure, and you turn off the will to live… But long-term stimulation of the pleasure center drives the process of addiction… When you consume any substance of abuse, including sugar, the nucleus accumbens receives a dopamine signal, from which you experience pleasure. And so you consume more. The problem is that with prolonged exposure, the signal attenuates, gets weaker. So you have to consume more to get the same effect — tolerance.

And if you pull back on the substance, you go into withdrawal. Tolerance and withdrawal constitute addiction. And make no mistake, sugar is addictive.”

Tolerance and withdrawal are the hallmarks of addiction – they occur with alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, morphine, cannabis and every drug of abuse … and also with sugar. Like many types of addictions, sugar addiction can in fact be deadly. Evidence is mounting that sugar is a primary contributing factor in obesity and diabetes, but other chronic and lethal diseases.

There’s really no doubt anymore that sugar is indeed toxic to your body, and it’s only a matter of time before it will be commonly accepted as a causative factor in most cancer, in the same way that now we accept without question that smoking and alcohol abuse are direct causes of lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, respectively.

The Average American Consumes 12 Teaspoons of Sugar a Day

… This amounts to about two TONS of sugar during a lifetime. While it may offer a fleeting feeling of pleasure when it passes through your lips, the more you eat the more you’ll crave – and ultimately the more you’ll need to eat to get those same pleasurable feelings. This sugar addiction can actually re-wire your brain, not to mention make you very sick …

Of all the molecules capable of inflicting damage in your body, sugar molecules are probably the most damaging.

Fructose, in particular, is an extremely potent pro-inflammatory agent that creates harmful advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and speeds up the aging process. It also promotes the kind of dangerous growth of fat cells around your vital organs (visceral fat) that are the hallmark of diabetes and heart disease. As mentioned, sugar/fructose also increases your insulin and leptin levels and decrease the receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones, and these hormonal abnormalities are a major factor in premature aging and age-related chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease.

Keep in mind that while it’s perfectly normal for your blood sugar levels to rise slightly after every meal,

However, it is not natural or healthy when your blood sugar levels become excessively elevated and stay that way — which is exactly what will happen if you’re eating like the typical American, who consumes on average a staggering 2.5 pounds of sugar a week! And when you add in other low-quality carbohydrate-rich foods such as white bread, sugar, pasta, pastries, cookies, and candy, which also break down to sugar (starch is broken down into glucose) in your body and often contain added sugar as well, it’s not so difficult to see why so many Americans are in such poor health.

To read the full article read click here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/05/26/sugar-affects-leptin-signals.aspx

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“1 in 5 US Young People will be Obese by 2020″

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In order for the nation to achieve goals set by the federal government for reducing obesity rates by 2020, children in the United States would need to eliminate an average of 64 excess calories per day, researchers calculated in a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. This reduction could be achieved by decreasing calorie intake, increasing physical activity, or both. Without this reduction, the authors predict that the average U.S. youth would be nearly four pounds heavier than a child or teen of the same age was in 2007-2008, and more than 20% of young people would be obese, up from 16.9% today.

“Sixty-four calories may not sound like much individually, but it’s quite a consequential number at the population level, and children at greatest risk for obesity face an even larger barrier,” says Y. Claire Wang, MD, ScD, assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and lead author of the study. “Closing this gap between how many calories young people are consuming and how many they are expending will take substantial, comprehensive efforts.”

The daily difference between how many calories young people consume and how many they expend through normal growth, body function and physical activity is known as the energy gap. The 64-calorie difference between consumption and expenditure is an average for the population. Dr. Wang and her colleagues note it is not intended to represent a change for any individual young person, and that many young people would need to see even greater reductions.

In particular, children and teens who currently have higher obesity rates would require larger energy gap reductions to reach the obesity rate goal. For instance, based on their current obesity rates, white youths would need a 46-calorie reduction, on average, in their energy gap to reach the goals. But given their higher obesity rates in 2008-2010, the average reduction needed to close the energy gap for Mexican-American youths is 91 calories and, for black youths, it is 138 calories. Youths in lower-income communities also need greater reductions than their peers in higher-income areas, again due to higher rates of obesity. Additionally, an earlier study by several of the same researchers found that the problem is especially acute for teens who are already overweight.

In order to project how many young people would be obese in 2020, Dr. Wang and her colleagues analyzed decades of data on obesity rates. Height and weight among U.S. youths ages 2-19 were taken from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 1971 to 2008. Based on the trends, the authors projected that the childhood obesity rate would be about 21% in 2020, up from 16.9% now.

Dr. Wang and her colleagues then compared the projected rate of 21% to the goal of 14.6% set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a 2010 report titled Healthy People 2020 and calculated how much of a daily energy gap the average youth would need to close in order to achieve that goal. A childhood obesity rate of 14.6% has not been seen since 2002.

“Reaching the 2020 goal will require significant changes to calories consumed and expended,” said C. Tracy Orleans, PhD, co-author of the study and senior scientist at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Because we know that children and teens who already are overweight or obese will need larger reductions, and that preventing obesity will be more effective than treating it, we must focus our attention on the policy and environmental changes likely to have early, broad, and sustainable impacts.”

The authors outline several policy strategies that could help to close the daily energy gap for American youths. For instance, they point to research showing that:

  • replacing all sugar-sweetened beverages in school with water and not consuming any additional sugary beverages outside of school could reduce the energy gap by 12 calories per day;
  • participating in a comprehensive physical education program could eliminate 19 calories per day among children ages 9-11; and
  • engaging in an after-school activity program for children in grades K-5 results in an additional 25 calories expended per day.

In a commentary accompanying the study, William H. Dietz, MD, PhD, director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, writes that the research “provides important data that highlight the promise of prevention and raise the challenge of treatment in children and adolescents.”

Steven L. Gortmaker, PhD, Professor of the Practice of Health Sociology at Harvard School of Public Health was senior author of the study. Funding for the study was provided by grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U48/DP00064-00S1) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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Lab tests find carcinogen in Coke and Pepsi!!!

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New chemical analyses have found that Coca-​Cola, Pepsi-​Cola, Diet Coke, and Diet Pepsi contain high levels of 4-​methylimidazole (4-​MI), a known animal carcinogen.

The carcinogen forms when ammonia or ammonia and sulfites are used to manufacture the caramel colouring that gives those sodas their distinctive brown colours, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the nonprofit watchdog group that commissioned the tests.

CSPI first petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban ammonia-​sulfite caramel colouring in February 2011. CSPI has reiterated its call to the FDA to revoke its authorisation for caramel colourings that contain 4-​MI, and in the interim to change the name of the additive to ammonia-​sulfite process caramel colouring or chemically modified caramel colouring for labelling purposes.

CSPI executive director, Michael Jacobson, said: “Coke and Pepsi, with the acquiescence of the FDA, are needlessly exposing millions of Americans to a chemical that causes cancer. The colouring is completely cosmetic, adding nothing to the flavour of the product.

“If companies can make brown food colouring that is carcinogen-​free, the industry should use that. And industry seems to be moving in that direction. Otherwise, the FDA needs to protect consumers from this risk by banning the colouring.”

CSPI collected samples of Coca-​Cola, Pepsi-​Cola, Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Diet Dr Pepper, and Whole Foods 365 Cola from Washington (US) stores. Pepsi’s products had 145–153 micrograms (mcg) of 4-​MI in two 12oz cans. Regular Coca-​Cola had 142 mcg per 12oz in one sample and 146mcg in another. Diet Coke had 103mcg per 12oz in one sample and 113mcg in another.

To put those levels into context, the state of California has a 29mcg benchmark for 4-​MI. Levels above that in a serving of food or beverage may be required to bear a warning notice. Based on California’s risk model, CSPI estimates that the 4-​MI in the Coke and Pepsi products tested is causing about 15,000 cancers in the US population.

While federal law bans food additives that cause any number of cancers, the FDA has an exception for contaminants of food additives, for which it tolerates a lifetime risk of one cancer in one million people.

Three of four samples of Dr Pepper or Diet Dr Pepper that CSPI tested had low levels of 4-​MI, with about 10mcg per 12oz. But even those levels pose a cancer risk of seven in one million-​seven times greater than what FDA allows. The lower levels in those three samples indicate that it is possible to lower, if not eliminate, the amount of 4-​MI.

Pepsi told CSPI that it has switched to a colouring in California that contains much less 4-​MI and plans to do the same in the rest of the country.

“When most people see ‘caramel colouring’ on food labels, they likely interpret that quite literally and assume the ingredient is similar to what you might get by gently melting sugar in a saucepan,” Jacobson said.

“The reality is quite different. Colourings made with the ammonia or ammonia-​sulfite process contain carcinogens and don’t belong in the food supply. In any event, they shouldn’t be obscured by such an innocuous-​sounding name as ‘caramel colouring.’”

As troubling as the new test results are, CSPI says soda drinkers should be much more concerned about the high-​fructose corn syrup or other sugars used in soft drinks. Soda drinkers are much more likely than non-​soda drinkers to develop weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and other health problems.

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Dangers of Diet Soda

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Individuals who drink diet soft drinks on a daily basis may be at increased risk of suffering vascular events such as stroke, heart attack, and vascular death. This is according to a new study by Hannah Gardener and her colleagues from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and at Columbia University Medical Center. However, in contrast, they found that regular soft drink consumption and a more moderate intake of diet soft drinks do not appear to be linked to a higher risk of vascular events. The research¹ appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer.

In the current climate of escalating obesity rates, artificially sweetened soft drinks are marketed as healthier alternatives to sugar-sweetened beverages, due to their lack of calories. However, the long-term health consequences of drinking diet soft drinks remain unclear.

Gardener and team examined the relationship between both diet and regular soft drink consumption and risk of stroke, myocardial infarction (or heart attack), and vascular death. Data were analyzed from 2,564 participants in the NIH-funded Northern Manhattan Study, which was designed to determine stroke incidence, risk factors and prognosis in a multi-ethnic urban population. The researchers looked at how often individuals drank soft drinks – diet and regular – and the number of vascular events that occurred over a ten-year period.

They found that those who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered a vascular event than those who drank none, after taking into account pre-existing vascular conditions such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes and high blood pressure. Light diet soft drink users, i.e. those who drank between one a month and six a week, and those who chose regular soft drinks were not more likely to suffer vascular events.

Gardener concludes: “Our results suggest a potential association between daily diet soft drink consumption and vascular outcomes. However, the mechanisms by which soft drinks may affect vascular events are unclear. There is a need for further research before any conclusions can be drawn regarding the potential health consequences of diet soft drink consumption.”

References:

1. Gardener H et al (2012). Diet soft drink consumption is associated with an increased risk of vascular events in the Northern Manhattan Study. Journal of General Internal Medicine. DOI 10.1007/s11606-011-1968-2

2. The Journal of General Internal Medicine is the official journal of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

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