Make Food An Issue In The 2008 Election

Some opinions deserve a better stage. Ruby posted the following in comments. Ruby gets the stage:

"I, for one, would like our food supply to become an issue in the 2008 race for the presidency. I think there are several issues here:

1. The lack of inspections/standards when it comes to imported food.
   
2. The larger percentage of corn being grown for ethanol, not food (animal feed, more like).
   
3. Global warming and the effects the cattle/beef industry has on it.
   
4. The increased interest in getting food from organic and local sources. Personally, I would like to see us rethink how farm subsidies work and who should get them--this issue is being addressed in the House this year. Just imagine if the government subsidized farms to convert to organic and/or get started in a CSA. The way I see it, this is the way to save the family farms.
   
5. Contamination of our food supply in general--e coli in spinach, salmonella in peanut butter, etc. I realize that we're never going to be safe 100% of the time, but it seems like we can do better than this. (Fanatic, I'm kind of fascinated that I've never seen the connection between grain-fed beef and this particular strain of e coli anywhere but on your blog. I really think if people knew what factory farming really is there would be a backlash.)
   [Here's the post I believe Ruby is referring to: Cows' Stomachs Harbor E. coli O157:H7 ... But They Didn't Used To]

It seems like many Americans are realizing they have no idea where their food comes from, and that realization is really scary. We're so careful in so many other aspects of our lives--car safety, anti-bacterial everything, etc. It's crazy that we wouldn't put the same amount of thought into the food we eat. So, to the 2008 candidates, all 200 of you, I'm waiting!"

- Ruby

Update 1 on Melamine

It's now confirmed that some contaminated pigs went to market:

"Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the food supply for humans, the government said Thursday."
- Report: Tainted Hogs Enter Food Supply

Melamine is a plastic used in the manufacture of flooring, cabinets, and food containers. (See photo.) I looked around for toxicity effects of melamine on humans but didn't find much. Now I know why:

"There is no scientific data on the health effects of melamine combined with the other compounds, said David Elder, director of enforcement for the FDA."

Based on that lack of data:

"The FDA and Agriculture Department believe the likelihood of someone becoming ill after eating pork from hogs fed contaminated feed is very low."

Virtual seers.

The same thing was assumed about the health risks of melamine and related compounds on cats and dogs. No, wait. They did find melamine had a diuretic effect on dogs at a dose of 125 mg/kg (mg of melamine per kg of dog body weight) back in 1945.

To place that 125 mg/kg amount in perspective, about 3100 mg/kg will kill a rat that eats it, and about 1000mg/kg will kill a rabbit if it's applied to its skin. Even if we humans didn't consume melamine accidentally, or in a contaminated food product, we regularly take in about 0.01 mg/kg every day just because we live in a melamine-contaminated environment.¹

If melamine is truly as nontoxic as the USDA and FDA claim, why did cats and dogs die from eating it? How much melamine are we talking about here?

Here's a curious thing:

"Urine tests done on some of the 800 hogs now quarantined at a farm have tested positive for low levels of melamine." But... "According to the state veterinarian, none of the suspect feed was fed to the hogs. Federal tests on the feed have come up negative. The positive urine tests could not be immediately explained."

So, there's another source for this plastic in our livestock's feed? Other than imported Chinese "pet food" ingredients?

It makes me wonder what other potentially toxic chemicals we would find in our food supply if we chose to look.

You know that box on the federal income tax form 1040 where they ask you to check if you'd like $3 of your taxes to go to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund? Well, I propose a checklist be offered as a replacement, with a Food Safety Assurance Fund listed as one recipient. Check!
________¹ From International Programme on Chemical Safety: Melamine
Rat LD50_oral = 3161 mg/kg.
Rabbit LD50_dermal = 1000 mg/kg.
LD50 = Lethal Dose for 50% of animals tested.

Photo of melamine bowls from Cath Kidston, UK, who also sells them.

Beekeeping

The New Zealand-based global warming blog, Celsias posted a nice synopsis of possible causes for the current bee crisis - or what the author, Craig Mackintosh, claims is more accurately termed a pollination crisis.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) - a Moment for Reflection?

His list of CCD causes include the following. You can read a brief description of each on his post, linked above.

• Lack of Diversity
  
• Pesticides and Herbicides
  
• Genetically Modified Crops
  
• Direct Stress
  
• Varroa Mites
  
• Artificial Insemination
  
• Weather
  
• Mechanistic Mindsets
  
• Navigational Hindrances

Much of this has been an education for me. Queen production through artificial insemination? Wing clipping? Pesticides sprayed directly into hives? The real eye-opener was the extent to which industrial methods are used to breed and transport bees.

Here's a photo and caption from Wikipedia on Beekeeping:

"US migratory beekeepers loading tractor-trailer load of bees
for transport from South Carolina to Maine to pollinate blueberries."________

Pet Food Contaminant Melamine Ascending Up The Food Chain

As of April 20, the FDA has recalled 5576 discrete dog and cat food products:

FDA Pet Food Recall Comprehensive List (Opens in Excel)

That's a lot of pet food. As unfortunate as this is for the thousands of dogs and cats that were fed the tainted food, for the owners of those sickened animals, and for the animals' secret in-species amours, I was breathing a sigh of tentative relief that Americans, well, most Americans, aren't in the habit of fattening their felines for future consumption. Food chain disconnect there. Whew.

It dawned on me that if one company could be responsible for supplying a contaminated ingredient to so many dog and cat food manufacturers, maybe they could be supplying it to poultry food manufacturers too, and cattle food manufacturers, and the pigs, and oh, the farmed salmon, not the salmon. People eat chicken in this country. If the toxic melamine is in the chicken, why wouldn't it be in my eggs-over-easy? I had to stop thinking about it.

Today I read...
It's in the pigs:

"Hogs were quarantined at farms in California, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and possibly Ohio after their urine tested positive for the chemical melamine. ... Food and Drug Administration officials are unsure if any entered the human food supply chain."
- Hogs Quarantined Following Pet Food Recall

It might be in the chickens:

"A poultry farm in Missouri also may have received tainted feed, officials added."
- US Examines If Pet Food Contaminant In Human Food

It might be in lots of other foods:

"FDA officials said they would inspect imports of six grain products used in foods [wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein, rice bran and rice protein] ranging from bread to baby formula for traces of melamine."
- US Examines If Pet Food Contaminant In Human Food

I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I've probably eaten melamine. As I'm still alive and blogging, I probably haven't eaten enough yet to impair my cognitive function. But the combined toxic load from acrylamide in bread and chips; mercury, PCB's, and flame retardants in fish, carrageenan in soymilk and buttermilk, and now melamine is surely going to jam the works at some point.
________
Photo of Dick Van Patten, National Spokesman for "Dine With Your Dog Day" by BestFriends.org

USDA's Online Nutrient Analysis

Jenny mentioned the USDA's MyPyramid site in the comments. I agree with her, it's clunky. But I like it. It's really not that different from more expensive programs. Inputting food intake is always cumbersome.

You can input the foods you consumed in a day (from a checklist) along with serving sizes (from a checklist), and it returns a nutrient analysis. I'm impressed with the size of the food database, especially for a program that's free. Well, not exactly free, you paid for it last Sunday.

If you'd like to see how your diet's nutrients stack up against recommendations, click the pyramid icon at the top of this post. It will take you to the MyPyramid Tracker site. Then select "Assess Your Food Intake". You'll need to register first.

Wherefore Art Thou, Bee?

As much as I love this quote:

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
- Albert Einstein

Some (here and here) are claiming it's a fabrication.

The attribution may be bogus, but the threat isn't. Bee populations throughout the world are disappearing. Why?

Ronald cites this article which claims it may be due to radiation from cell phones. The bees can't find their way back to the hive:
Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Our Bees?

Melinda cites this German article which claims it may be due to genetically modified crops:
Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

Not only are they leaving the hive, and the Queen, and never coming back, but no one else wants that honey:

"The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold. "This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling them." "

And this one:
Species Under Threat: Honey, Who Shrunk The Bee Population?

Which says that the few bees left are really, really diseased:

"... the few bees left inside the hive were carrying "a tremendous number of pathogens" - virtually every known bee virus could be detected in the insects, some bees were carrying five or six viruses at a time, as well as fungal infections. Because of this it was assumed that the bees' immune systems were being suppressed in some way."

CNN's article, Vanishing Honeybees Mystify Scientists wraps up with a disturbing fact:

"No technology has been invented that equals, much less surpasses, insect pollinators."

________Photo: Homegrown

Caloric Intake, Relatively

It's difficult to consume the recommended amounts of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients on a daily basis. It's even more challenging when few calories are consumed, whether by choice or necessity. The rule-of-thumb is 1200 ... go below 1200 calories/day (1500 for men) and there's a good chance that intake of essential nutrients will suffer.¹

Take potassium (K). The Adequate Intake for this mineral, for both men and women, is 4700 mg/day.

• 1 medium baked potato with skin gives you about 926 mg (161 calories). You'd have to eat 5 of them (805 calories) to get 4700 mg K. No butter.
  
• 8 oz. of 2% milk gives you about 366 mg (122 calories). You'd have to consume 12.8 cups of milk (1562 calories) to get 4700 mg K. There are 16 cups in a gallon.
  
• 1 medium banana (7-8 inches) gives you about 422 mg (105 calories). You'd have to eat 11 of them (1155 calories) to get 4700 mg K.
  
• 8 oz. tomato sauce gives you about 811 mg (59 calories). You'd have to eat (drink?) about 6 cups (354 calories) to get 4700 mg K.

That's just one nutrient. Add vitamins A, D, E, K (different K), C, Bs, all the minerals, the essential fats, fiber, and an increasing number of phytochemicals and you're juggling with the best of them. (I wasn't boosting my argument by listing foods that are poor sources of potassium. The above, along with dried fruits, are excellent sources.)

Potassium is one of those nutrients that help maintain a healthy blood pressure. Those at risk for high blood pressure include the overweight and obese, people for which it's not a bad idea to trim calories. Oh, the conundrum.

Of course you can meet the daily requirements for the basic nutrients. You just need to pay attention to what you eat. That task is easier when you're eating more food.
________
This led me to wonder just what an Average American consumes in a day, in calories, and how that compares to years previous.

Here's an average caloric intake for Americans, provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), for the years indicated:


Click for larger.
Ok, how about a few decades prior to that?

"During 1971- 2000, a statistically significant increase in average energy intake occurred. For men, average energy intake increased from 2,450 to 2,618 kcals, and for women, from 1,542 to 1,877 kcals."
Trends in Intake of Energy and Macronutrients - United States, 1971-2000

OK, how about a few centuries prior to that?

Here's a Figure I scanned from The Structures of Everyday Life, Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, by Fernand Braudel:


Click for larger.
It attempts to depict graphically a size and distribution of caloric intake for Europe during the 16th-18th Centuries. It shows an intake for Swedish nobility of between 5078 and 6406 calories, an intake for 17th century Pavia (Northern Italy/Switzerland/Southern France/Austria) of between 4446 to 7217 calories. And an average intake for Spanish seafarers of 3422 calories. Parisians in the late 18th century were eating about 2300 calories/day.

It's not a fair comparison, since America today is populated by a diverse group of not only Europeans but Asians, Africans, Native Americans, and others with unique historic eating patterns. Also, as the Figure states, the calculations were based on meals of the privileged (and at least in the case of the Spanish sailors, likely men). But in my reading, that 2300 for Parisians pops up in other places:

"In 1800, the English population consumed a little more than 2,000 calories per day..."

This particular author cites this as a risk for malnourishment:

" ... At this level, historians have estimated that roughly 20 percent of the adult population was too malnourished to work. Of the 80 percent available for work, most could not have worked at anything like the intensity of the modern [year 2001] workplace."
- John H. Coatsworth, What Food? Who Eats It? Why Does It Matter?

(Mr. Coatsworth's workplace is surely more hopping than mine.)

Are American women malnourished (1970-2000: 1524-1877 calories)? Perhaps not calorically, but as I discussed at the beginning of this post, maybe nutritionally.

Let's go back even further:

"Low serum cholesterol levels and the absence of obesity could be interpreted as signs of chronic starvation, yet hunter-gatherers had higher daily caloric intake than Americans do and with much higher energy output. The normal activity levels associated with this high-through-put status produce high levels of aerobic and muscular fitness and contribute to the low prevalence rates of chronic degenerative diseases that hunter-gatherers generally exhibited."
- Melvin Konner, Evolution and Our Environment. Will We Adapt?

And...

"Archaeological evidence suggests:

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers appear to have enjoyed richer environments and to have been better nourished than most subsequent populations (primitive and civilized alike). ...

Whenever we can glimpse the remains of anatomically modern human beings who lived in early prehistoric environments still rich in large game, they are often relatively large people displaying comparatively few signs of qualitative malnutrition. ...

Archaeological evidence suggests that specific deficiencies - including that of iron (anemia), vitamin D (rickets), and, more controversially, vitamin C (scurvy), as well as such general signs of protein-calorie malnutrition as childhood growth retardation - have generally become more common in history rather than declining."
- Mark Nathan Cohen, Health and the Rise of Civilization

I'm hardly a historian. I can't offer perspective on whether the above accounts are romanticized. I'm sure prehistoric hunter-gatherers had their caloric down times. These examples are representative however of my returns from a cursory search on Google.

What this all tells me is that a healthy diet is one that keeps calories and nutrients plentiful, and the expenditure of those calories equally high.
________¹ This is not a minimum number of calories needed to sustain an individual's basal metabolic rate, which is different for each person. This is only a number likely to support intake of the DRIs (RDAs).

The Plumping of Women for Beauty

Lavender, this one's for you:

New Views In Desert Culture On Fat Women

Not that I envisioned you when I read it.
I was thinking about your comment a few weeks ago, in reference to women who didn't lose weight on a diet: "Maybe they have husbands that don't like skinny."

Below are a few excerpts from the article. They refer to the people of Mauritania, who have traditionally revered obesity in women.

"Mint was 4 when her family began to force her to drink 14 gallons of camel's milk a day. ... By the time Mint was 10, she could no longer run. Unconcerned, her proud mother delighted in measuring the loops of fat hanging under her daughter's arms."

"Many men say they prefer voluptuous women. ... Isselmou Ould Mohamed says he loves his wife's 200-pound body and was pleased when she began adding even more weight during pregnancy. When he learned she had started walking around the soccer stadium to try to shed the extra pounds, he was revolted."

"A man's goal is to marry a woman that fills his house."

The article states that this image of beauty, and subsequent obesity, is "popular across much of the Arab world," so that today:

25% of Mauritanian women over 15 years of age are obese, as are,
33% of women in Saudi Arabia,
33% of women in Bahrain,
46% of women in Egypt,
52% of women in Kuwait.

I'm going to wager that the pursuit of beauty isn't the only reason today why these women are large. I suspect something in their culture is similar to something in our culture that is making women (and men) here large too. I don't know what that something is. Or, at least, I'm not brave enough to express a hunch, not after years of tedious education. But the bright little girl in the PBS Documentary was brave enough to express hers. I admit, she's onto something.

These stories of how different cultures define beauty, and the methods they enlist to acquire it (Chinese foot binding, American surgical breast augmentation. Can anyone name another?) fascinate me.
________

Fennel Seeds

Flatulence? Bloating? Try fennel seeds. Chew 1/4 teaspoon. Or boil 1/2 teaspoon in 8 ounces of water for 5 minutes to make a tea.


"Fennel is a remedy for digestive problems, such as mild spasms in the stomach or intestines, a feeling of fullness, and intestinal gas."
- PDRHealth: Fennel
________Photo compliments of UCLA Biomedical Library: Spices

PBS Documentary on Obesity

Suzique from Waisted in the Wasteland posted this link yesterday to a PBS show that aired last night. (I thank her because I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.):

Fat: What No One Is Telling You


I missed it. In fact I was sleeping at the time. Did you know that lack of sleep increases the risk for weight problems?

Since I haven't seen the documentary, I can't speak to it. But I can speak to that title. No one is not telling you anything about fat. There isn't a conspiracy here. It's easy to find out what there is to know about overweight and obesity.

If you watch the preview for the show, you'll see a gentleman with glasses, a tie and buttoned-down shirt, in an office environment saying:¹

"I don't think we're at all appreciative of how complicated body weight regulation is. How hard the problem is to solve. How much the body works to prevent starvation."

The man has a point. But, whatever it is we understand or don't yet understand, it's all out there for the world to see. It isn't as if someone is keeping it from us.

Did you get the feeling he was making the problem of obesity sound like a purely biochemical issue? It's probably more a complex interplay of psychological, social, political, economic, as well as biochemical factors, much like ______.

There are a few more videos about this documentary on YouTube...
One expands on The Treadmill Lady's interview. She describes an epiphany in a park.
- Fat: What No One Is Telling You, PBS Excerpt #1

Another looks like a re-edited version of the piece PBS posted on their promo site. It's a shame this one didn't make it because it includes an interview with a young girl, maybe 2 or 3 years old. That interview reveals an essential factor in the fight against obesity:

Interviewer: "Why did you pick the cake?"
Girl: "Because ... I like cake!"
Interviewer: "What do you like about the cake?"
Girl: "Um, well, (she looks around the room), I like the cake, because, um, ah, um, it's so good and I like the icing a lot!"
- Fat: What No One Is Telling You, PBS Excerpt #2

There's another person in the original preview I'd like to draw attention to ... the young man (who does not appear to have a weight problem) responding to the young man (who does appear to have a weight problem). When the second man states that the solution to his weight problem is surgery, the first man implies that the second man is:

" ... someone who hasn't tried losing weight, physically."

I'm curious to know what people think of this.
________
Some Numbers

When you're involved with diabetes as I am, you're involved with weight problems. In 2004, the CDC found:

" ... the prevalence of overweight or obesity was 85.2% [among people with diabetes]."²

That 85.2% is higher than the prevalence of overweight or obesity in the general population, which is around 66%.³ That in itself is astounding.

So ... What's different about the last 20 years that has caused so many people to put on so many pounds? Haven't we always liked cake? Is there something someone isn't telling me?
________¹ Although the trailer didn't identify him, I think the speaker here is Dr. Lee Kaplan. From PBS's site: "Meet Dr. Lee Kaplan of Harvard University Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, who is a clinician, researcher and above all an empathetic warrior in the battle against obesity."
If I'm to believe the empathetic part, then, by the looks of him, it appears Mr. Kaplan has won his personal battle against obesity.
² Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Adults with Diagnosed Diabetes
³ Statistics Related to Overweight and Obesity, NIDDK

Chocolate and Blood Pressure

Chocolate lowers blood pressure,
If you eat a whole bar (500 calories),
Every day,
For the rest of your life.

Oh Heather. I was excited to see this article. It was going to be my best justification for letting a few chunks melt in my mouth ... numerous times a day. It just wasn't meant to be.

Here's the article that Heather posted in comments:
Cocoa, Not Tea, Calms Blood Pressure, Study Says

Here's the study behind the article:
Effect of Cocoa and Tea Intake on Blood Pressure

The above is a meta-analysis, a study of studies, that appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday. It pooled 5 studies that investigated the effect of chocolate on blood pressure, and 5 that investigated the effect of tea (mostly black tea). The authors concluded that cocoa can reduce blood pressure, but tea cannot.

But is eating chocolate, daily (since the effects are transient), a practical way to reduce blood pressure?

Here's a run-down of the 5 chocolate studies included in the meta-analysis:


Click for larger.
First, note that the second study of 21 participants didn't change blood pressure. Note also that it used only half the amount of chocolate per day as the other 4 studies. If chocolate is going to have an effect, it looks more likely to do so at intakes of 100g or more per day:

" ... it appears that the amount of the ingested cocoa phenols is essential for the magnitude of the blood pressure reduction, since in the study by Engler et al [second in the above table] administration of about half of the cocoa phenols over the same 2-week period did not affect blood pressure."

How much is 100g of chocolate?

I happen to have my favorite chocolate bar just lying around. How about that. (I have admiration anew for food photographers. In most of the photos I took, the chocolate came out looking like one brown unsegmented blob.)

The whole bar is 100g (550 calories). According to Green&Black's label, there are 2.5 servings per bar:
The piece in the middle is one serving or 40g (220 calories).
The piece to the far right is 2 servings or 80g (440 calories).
(I guess you have to buy another bar to get another full serving. Either that or, heavens, eat more than one serving.)



Back To The Drawing Board

The small number of participants (from 13 to 28) and short durations (about 2 weeks) of these studies, combined with the almost across-the-board lack of blinding (how do you hide the fact that you're feeding someone chocolate?), make this particular set of analyses, for me, unpersuasive. Add that to the number of calories one would have to consume daily (~500), not to mention the cost,¹ all for a modest decrease in BP, and it just about eradicates the pro-chocolate take home message for me.

If I was a media outlet, I'd be embarrassed for promoting chocolate based on this analysis. When you consider that Mars, Inc., who recently debuted their high-phenolic chocolate called CocoaVia, partially funded that last study, and a few others, it isn't a stretch to view these media stories as advertisements.

Note: This won't bench the chocolate for me. It may not have a practical effect on blood pressure, but its abundance of polyphenolic compounds are thought to lower cardiovascular disease risk in ways other than via BP. More importantly, it makes me a nicer person to be around.


Update, July 6, 2007: A new study does indeed find that eating a small amount of dark chocolate daily reduces BP. See here.
________¹ The price of my Green&Black's chocolate bar was $3.19. That would come to, not considering a bulk discount, about $90/month. Although I'd probably be switching brands if I intended to eat so much chocolate. Maybe buy up all Wal-Mart's leftover chocolate Easter bunnies.

Kitchen Utensil Appreciation Post

Walk into your kitchen. Look around.
Question: What's one item you couldn't live without?

For me, it's this:


For people in the Middle Ages¹ it was this:

"An illustration of the cook from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Note the long meat hook in his left hand, one of the most common cook's tools during the Middle Ages."
- Wikipedia: Medieval Cuisine

I would never have guessed. I don't even own something that could substitute for a meat hook. This sure points to my lack of participation in the sourcing of my food. (Since, according to this same article, most Europeans couldn't afford meat during the Middle Ages, I suspect this more accurately applied to nobility.)

I can't say whether meat hooks were more prevalent than knives in the early 1400s, but apparently knives were in short supply:

"Knives were used at the table*, but most people were expected to bring their own, and only highly favored guests would be given a personal knife. A knife was usually shared with at least one other dinner guest, unless one was of very high rank or well-acquainted with the host."

* "... the medieval meal was a communal affair, like every other part of life. The entire household, including servants, would ideally dine together."

And forget forks:

"Forks for eating were not in widespread usage in Europe until the early modern period, and early on were limited to Italy."

At least they had plates:

"... diners would take their share from the [stew pots] and place it on trenchers of stale bread."

Well, some had plates:

"In lower-class households it was common to eat food straight off the table."

Besides acting as a plate, bread performed other functions:

"... bread was used to wipe off knives when passing them to the next diner."

They also used bread as pot holders. I guess it's understandable when you consider how much bread there was:

"Estimates of bread consumption all over Europe are fairly similar: around 1-1.5 kg (2-3 lb) of bread per person per day."

Another food eaten aplenty:

"The importance of vegetables to the common people is illustrated by accounts from 16th-century Germany stating that many peasants ate sauerkraut three to four times a day."


Illustration: "Harvesting cabbage. Tacuinum Sanitatis [a medieval handbook on health], 15th century."
- Wikipedia: Medieval Cuisine

On this day, I am giving thanks.

________¹ The Middle Ages were "a period roughly dating from the 5th to the 16th century," something I couldn't have told you off the top of my head. Thank you, Sans Fromage, for sending this fascinating article on Medieval Cuisine. I love it.
Another great site on medieval cooking, sent in by Melinda, is Gode Cookery. Lots of recipes and illustrations. Thank you, Melinda.

Photo: Homegrown. My trusty 8" pseudochef's knife - forged, full tang, riveted and dry-rotting handle, perfectly balanced in my 6-year-old-sized hands ... I can't tell you how much I love this knife. It's just about 20 years old, and not a day goes by that it isn't slicing, dicing, skinning , or smashing (garlic). I didn't pay a lot, but I sure did get a lot.

Zelnorm No More

On March 28, the FDA requested that Novartis voluntarily discontinue sales of its drug Zelnorm. On March 30, Novartis said they would comply.

Zelnorm treats constipation. Most studies were done on women. (To the right is one of Zelnorm's ads. Does that look like a woman?)

I notice that Novartis did not take this initiative themselves. I wonder if they would have. This is how federal regulatory agencies like the FDA earn their pay, and why I'm not put off by keeping them in business through my taxes.¹

Were the FDA not to intervene with big drug companies on our behalf, we'd be left to do it ourselves:

"[Ring! Ring!] Novartis? Great. How you all doing? Wonderful. Listen, guys, I'd like you to stop selling Zelnorm. Yes, I realize it's one of your top-selling drugs. $560 million in sales last year? Get out! Well, see, I was reading the paper this morning and I saw a study ... hey, a study you guys made in house too, check that out. (Was it leaked?) Anyway, you found an increase in heart attack, stroke, and chest pain in women using it for constipation. That's some pretty serious stuff, no? Looks to me like the risks outweigh the benefits here, know what I'm saying? So if you could stop with the belly commercials and the drug rep visits, and take back all the stuff on pharmacy shelves, that would be great. Oh, and once this news gets out I'm sure lots of women will want their money back. That $200 tab every 60 days is a real wallet drainer, know what I mean? Zelnorm, the drug that drains you ... ha ha. Ok, sorry. But it might not be a bad idea to set up a little give-back fund. Great idea, huh? Hey, no problem. When you get it all organized, you can make a public statement, like this:

Novartis Suspends US Marketing and Sales of Zelnorm in Response to Request from FDA a Concerned Citizen

Nice speaking with you. Good luck with that new diabetes drug!"

________
If you're coping with constipation or other symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, keep in mind the benefit of:

The Four Fs:

• Fitness
  
• Fiber
  
• Fluid
  
• Flora

(I used to call it The Three Fs until information about the benefits of certain intestinal flora or microorganisms, also known as probiotics, came to light.)
________¹ On the other hand, my tax dollars have been paying for some real lemons in other areas of government. Wouldn't it be nice to have a money back guarantee? An April 15th Give Back Day?

Hey, Bud

________
Photo: Homegrown

Selenium Facts

RDA
RDA for selenium is 55 micrograms/day for men and women.
The Upper Intake Level (UL) is 400 mcg/d. Intakes above the UL may cause adverse effects.

Food Sources
Selenium Content of Selected Foods, USDA National Nutrient Database.

Selenium content of plant foods depends on the selenium content of the soil in which the plants were grown. Selenium content of animal foods depends on the selenium content of the plants the animals were fed, and on the form provided. (See "Forms" below.)

The US Geological Survey provides a nice map of selenium concentrations across the US. If you're interested in a local area, you can click the map to visit their site where they display selenium concentration by county.



Some areas of the country contain such high levels of selenium they're toxic to wildlife. Selenium accumulates in soil through both natural and man-made processes. (The poisoning deaths of wild birds at a California Wildlife Refuge in the early 1980s were attributed to selenium in drainage from irrigation water.)

Nomenclature
µg is the same as mcg (micrograms). "µ" is the Greek symbol for "micro". I like to spell things out because I'm fanatical.

Absorption
Absorption rates vary, as they do for many nutrients. Usually there's a feedback mechanism, which is true in this case. That is, if you already get plenty of selenium in your diet (food or supplement) you will absorb less of any new incoming selenium.

Animal sources may be better absorbed that plant sources since plant phytates can interfere with absorption. Although seafood is an excellent source of selenium, mercury and other heavy metals in some fish species decrease absorption.

Forms

• Selenium is found in 2 forms: organic and inorganic.
  
• Organic selenium (selenomethionine, selenocysteine) is better absorbed than inorganic selenium (sodium selenate or sodium selenite).
  
• Selenium in foods is mostly organic. Supplements often contain inorganic selenium, although that's changing. Be sure to check the label.
  
• Inorganic forms may act as pro-oxidants, the opposite of antioxidants. They may deplete glutathione peroxidase (GP, an antioxidant enzyme) instead of replenishing it.
  
• Vitamin C is thought to enhance absorption of organic selenium but interfere with absorption of inorganic selenium.

Possible Risks Associated with Marginally High Intake
Weight gain and increases in body fat.
Insulin resistence and diabetes.
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