Think, Eat, Be Healthy

Follow-Up On 3 Health News Stories

whole foods

When there is any doubt about safety, stick to organic whole foods that do not need an ingredients list.

Three stories featured in previous health news round-ups have been back in the headlines lately. The new information coming out about statin drugs and a probable “better” replacement for them, glyphosphate-based herbicides and trans-fats is important enough to warrant this up-date post about them. The news on trans-fats is encouraging, the news on statins and a new replacement is very disappointing and the news on glyphosphate is a little of both.

Trans-fats will be phased out of our food supply

Let’s start with trans-fats and the good news. The US government seems to genuinely be moving in the right direction on the dietary front recently. A few weeks ago I reported that the USDA, in its regular update for dietary guidelines, was easing restrictions on fats. This policy about-face is because of the total lack of evidence linking dietary fats to heart disease, high cholesterol levels or other health problems. There is plenty of evidence linking diets low in fat and high in processed foods to those same diseases, obesity and diabetes. Now the FDA plans to force food manufacturers to cut all use of trans-fats over the next few years. Eating trans-fats has proven connections to heart disease. These are only two small steps, but they are in the right direction and there will hopefully be more to follow.

Fat not the focus of new diet guidelines

FDA orders trans-fats phased out of food

Pharmaceutical companies want to replace statins with a new cholesterol-lowering drug

Statins are a class of drugs that block the liver from producing cholesterol. These drugs have become wildly popular during the past twenty years because of their ability to lower cholesterol levels without major changes in diet. The problem with statins is the growing list of serious side effects that occur with long-term use. Some cannot take these drugs even for short periods because of muscle and joint pain. Serious heart issues and many other problems plague these popular drugs. And they only treat one of the symptoms of poor diet without addressing the underlying cause of the problem.

Now a new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs is about to be introduced. The new drugs work by keeping the body’s natural system of scavenging cholesterol from the blood turned up to a high setting all the time. They are even more effective at lowering blood cholesterol levels than the current statin drugs. Researchers think these drugs could actually bring cholesterol down to zero. The researchers admit they do not know what the health consequences of such low cholesterol levels might be. But this lack of knowledge of the possible consequences isn’t keeping them from excitedly pushing for the drugs use as a statin replacement or for those who cannot take statins.

There are a couple of additional problems with these new cholesterol lowering drugs. They must be injected under the skin. Because of their make-up and the way they act in the body, it not possible to make them in pill or capsule form. This is being advanced as a plus, however, because they only need to be injected once per week instead of taken daily like statins. The second problem is cost. The new drugs will cost up to $12,000 per year. It is likely many insurance companies would not want to cover these drugs, claiming cheaper drugs already exist(statins) that are much cheaper.

These early known problems are certainly a good thing. Statins were hailed as miracle drugs when they were introduced. They were going to rid the world of high cholesterol and heart disease with almost no side effects. They did indeed lower cholesterol levels, but did nothing about reducing heart disease and were eventually found responsible for causing several other serious heart problems. The longer statins have been on the market, the more side effects, many serious, have come to light. Now we hear the same promises for this new class of drugs.

The medical researchers seem to be forgetting that the body makes cholesterol because it needs cholesterol to maintain good health. The body only makes too much cholesterol in response to health problems caused by poor diet. High cholesterol levels, especially LDL(bad) cholesterol, is a repair mechanism for arteries damaged by high levels of inflammation. It leads to plaque build-up and clogged arteries when the inflammation is chronic. Diets high in processed foods lead directly to this kind of chronic systemic inflammation. Nobody knows the health consequences of forcing the body to live with high levels of systemic inflammation but little or no cholesterol to deal with it. But everybody knows the health consequences of eliminating processed foods from the diet: inflammation rapidly decreases and cholesterol levels go down to naturally healthy levels.

Summary: No lessons were learned by all of the problems with statin drugs. Drug companies continue to try to find new drugs to treat symptoms when there is a very simple and cheap cure for the problem – diet.

Can US healthcare afford the new cholesterol drugs?

Statin drugs causing heart problems

A new class of cholesterol lowering drugs

More evidence keeps appearing about just how dangerous glyphosphate herbicides really are

Glyphosphate herbicides have been around for quite some time. During this time the public has been repeatedly assured that this is a safe product for humans and animals. Studies are cited that show the safety of groups ingesting glyphosphate compared to control groups, but then it is discovered that the control group’s food was also contaminated with the chemical. Industry executives, scientists and spokesmen all swear that this product is safe enough to drink, but then refuse to drink it themselves.

But cracks are beginning to appear in the solid industry facade as more information makes its way from company files into the public domain. It now seems obvious the manufacturer of glyphosphate had evidence it was a carcinogen since the 1970’s. Other safety claims are in doubt because the manufacturer tested glyphosphate by itself. When the complete solution as applied to agricultural fields is tested, the toxicity is almost 125X greater.

This is what happens when the company that makes a product is also responsible for safety testing that product. And they are allowed to cherry-pick the results from multiple tests if they don’t like some of the results. Or if all of the results are bad, the company can just file them away, act like the tests were never done and claim the product is safe because no-one else has proof that it is not safe. This is no way to run our food supply system!

The good news is that many foreign countries are now banning the sales and use of glyphosphate-based herbicides. It will not be long before the US is forced to ban this nasty chemical also. It will come down to a choice of guaranteeing agricultural products are glyphosphate-free or not being able to export them. And this chemical is so prevalent in the US now that the FDA even allows “trace” amounts on organic produce because there is no practical way to avoid it.

Glyphosphate a known carcinogen for over 40 years

France bans sale of Roundup herbicide

Netherlands bans glyphosphate

Control animals in glypgosphate studies also ate contaminated food

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