The U.S. Senate gutted the latest attempt yesterday to legalize prescription drug imports from Canada and other countries.

    Despite a lot of support for the plan from both Democrats and Republicans, senators ultimately decided to require that the Food and Drug Administration first certify the imports are safe and effective.

    Federal officials have said for years they can’t do it. So the requirement, passed on a 49-40 vote, effectively quashed the imports effort.

    Even if the bid for expanding the drug trade had made it through without any caveats, the administration said it would have recommended a veto from President George W. Bush.

    The plan is also opposed by pharmaceutical companies with profit margins on the line.

    And its fate will be a relief for some Canadian industry groups that worried about supply problems north of the border.

    But the measure has long had broad popular support among Americans who pay among the highest prescription drug prices in the world because they aren’t controlled by government.

    Democrats who took control of Congress in last November’s midterm elections made the issue a priority, saying Americans had voted for change.

    A similar measure to import drugs was introduced in the House of Representatives.

    Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who sponsored the imports, said arguments that imports would open the door to dangerous counterfeits are “nonsense” perpetrated by big drug companies protecting their profits. He acknowledged the safety certification voided his bid to legalize drugs from Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan and New Zealand.

    Vermont’s Bernie Sanders argued that many Americans “are already supporting this legislation by getting in their cars and going over the Canadian border.” Drug companies, he said, are the “greediest, most powerful special interest” in the United States, spending $172 million U.S. on lobbying efforts in 2006.

    The AARP, a non-profit group for people over 50 years old, had vigorously campaigned for imports, calling it a “national embarrassment” that people in the world’s most advanced medical system can’t get affordable medicine at home.

     By Beth Gorham
    CP/The Gazette - Montreal

    Tuesday 08 May 2007

As the first group of baby boomers moves toward retirement age, an increasing amount of research data indicates that they may perhaps be the first generation to enter their golden years in worse health than their parents. While not yet definitive, the results draw a surprisingly different picture than the commonly accepted image of health-obsessed workout extremists who know their antioxidants from their trans fats and look many years younger than their actual age.

Notable is that these same baby boomers are more healthy in some important ways – for instance, they are significantly less likely to smoke. But large studies are steadily finding that they are inclined to describe themselves as less able-bodied and robust than the generations before them reported at the same age. They are more apt to report struggles climbing stairs, getting up from a chair and doing other everyday activities, as well as more recurring problems such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes.

“We’re seeing some very powerful evidence all pointing to parallel findings,” said Mark D. Hayward, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin. “The trend seems to be that people are not as healthy as they approach retirement as they were in older generations. It’s very disturbing.”

While they warn that the information on this is just starting to surface, researchers state the findings are steeped in quite a few unhealthy trends, most particularly the obesity epidemic. A whopping two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and those added pounds boost cholesterol and blood pressure, cause joints to wear out quicker, and increase the risk of a host of debilitating health problems. And despite all those boomers who have gym memberships, as a whole they are inclined to be less physically active than their parents and grandparents, their day-to-day routines frequently controlled by desk jobs and the drive to work and back.

“A lot of what we visualize about the baby boomers is the people who went to college - the highly educated group that gets all the attention. They’re the cultural icon,” said David R. Weir, an economist at the University of Michigan, observing that studies have revealed that better-educated people tend to have more healthy lifestyles and improved access to health care. “But not everyone went to college, and not everyone is engaging in these healthful activities.”

Yet even those who attempt to take care of themselves are not always completely successful. A good example is Larry Kirkland, a 57-year-old sculptor living in Northwest Washington. Kirkland walks and swims on a regular basis to stay in shape, is smart about what he eats, and fights to keep his weight down. Ask him about his health, and Kirkland will say to you that it’s good. Well, pretty good anyway.

First, he has had high blood pressure for years, and takes medication to manage it. Then his cholesterol shot up as well, requiring another pill to control that. After that his blood sugar started going up, at which point his doctor reminded him that he probably should drop a minimum of 10 pounds if he wishes to prevent diabetes.

“There are the creeping aches and pains. I dislocated my shoulder once, and that continues to bug me. I have knees that decide to be wobbly on occasion. I know that as you get older things tend to begin to fall apart,” Kirkland stated, adding that he gets fever blisters and that his psoriasis flares up when he is stressed. “I can get under quite a bit of pressure from my work,” Kirkland said.

In fact, boomers are reporting more stress than previous generations - from things like their jobs, their commutes, taking care of their parents and their kids - all of which can take a physical and mental toll, which is made worse by having less support from extended families and communities, experts assert.

“People are working two jobs. They are not sleeping as much. They’re experiencing more job insecurity. They have less time to take care of themselves. They are more socially isolated,” said Lisa Berkman of the Harvard School of Public Health. “This all could add up to a huge crisis and really calls for us to examine the things that perhaps we’re not doing so well.”

A number of researchers are unconvinced, saying that U.S. life expectancy has improved consistently for decades, complemented by a steady drop in disability rates. Increasing rates of chronic disease may merely indicate that such illnesses are being diagnosed earlier, which could translate into longer lives and less disability due to boomers getting their heart disease and diabetes under control sooner.

“This doesn’t cause me to despair,” said Kenneth Manton, a demographer at Duke University. “You have to take this data in the context of other data, such as life expectancy.”

Others concur that the data are unclear because the baby boomers are not really old enough yet to report major health problems in sizeable numbers, but they did add that the findings so far are ominous.

“We haven’t seen any enormous effects yet,” said David M. Cutler, an economist at Harvard. “But we may be starting to see some inklings of what’s coming.”

One of the most disturbing red flags was thrown up by the federally funded Health and Retirement Study, which is tracking more than 20,000 U.S. adults as they move through middle age toward retirement.

When researchers examined the first wave of baby boomers to enter the study - 5,030 adults born between 1948 and 1953 - they were stunned to learn that they appeared to report poorer health than groups born between 1936 and 1941, and between 1942 and 1947.

The baby boomers were much less prone than their predecessors to describe their health as “excellent” or “very good,” and were more likely to report having struggles with routine activities, such as walking several blocks or lifting 10 pounds. They were also more likely to report pain, drinking and psychiatric problems, and chronic problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

“It’s not what I expected,” said Beth J. Soldo of the Population Aging Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania, who headed up the analysis.

It is uncertain whether boomers are really sicker or are simply more health-conscious because of being better educated and having greater access to information. They may also have higher expectations, making them more likely to notice and complain about aches and pains which earlier generations would have accepted as just part of getting older.

“As they age, they may be less tolerant of the changes they see - minor pains, less stamina, muscle loss and strength,” Soldo said. “I don’t just think they are crybabies or whiners. I think there is a changing definition of what good health means.”

But self-reports of health tend to be powerful predictors of risk of death at any given age, Soldo and others say.

“We have been making progress with the elderly, who are doing better,” said Dana Goldman, who studies health issues at the Rand Corp. “But while we’ve been patting our backs about the older people, the younger generation has been ignored. Disability is rising fastest among the youngest age groups.”

The findings are consistent with a number of studies, including one last year that found American adults have poorer health than their British counterparts, and a preliminary analysis of data collected between 1972 and 2003 for the National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative survey of more than 100,000 Americans.

“Overall it looks like there’s been some recent declines in overall health among younger adults compared to the cohorts of previous decades,” said Robert Hummer, a sociologist at the University of Texas, who conducted that analysis. “It’s worrisome.”

One of Hummer’s colleagues produced similar findings in a survey of 2,500 adults between 1995 and 2001.

“It’s pretty scary,” said John Mirowsky, who conducted the survey. “Until now people have been living longer and living longer without the need for assistance - they can dress themselves and take care of themselves. But it looks like we may be on the verge of a change where we’ll have an increasing proportion of the elderly needing assistance, and possibly a decline in life expectancy.”

If the findings are further supported by additional analysis, the trend could compel policymakers to think again on a host of expectations and projections about the nation’s overall medical bill and the future of Social Security and other retirement programs.

“If people are entering early old age in worse health, it doesn’t bode well for society,” said Richard M. Suzman of the National Institute on Aging. “It’s quite worrying.”

Bottom line: So, back to what Mom and Grandma have been saying all along - eat right, exercise, take your supplements, relax and smell the roses as often as you can.

This editorial is based on a recent article by Rob Stein of The Washington Post.
   

(Editor’s Note: As you read through this article, please note: This is one of the many reasons for eating a healthy and well-balanced diet, exercising, and taking supplements intended to provide the body with vitamins, minerals and amino acids to replace the nutrients that can be depleted and used by disease and certain therapies.)

Physicians caring for children with cancer should be on the lookout for signs of bone fragility caused by disease and treatment, according to a new report. Published in the April 1, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the review reveals that the combination of sedentary behaviors caused by the chronic illness and inhibition of bone growth and mineralization as side effects of treatments put these children at real risk for bone problems during their lifetime, including bone necrosis and fractures related to osteoporosis. The review says the risk can be mitigated through early management, including exercise and the judicious use of bisphosphonates.

Bone development is a dynamic process. One set of specialized cells lay down the materials that give bone its strength; and another set breaks it down, a process called resorption. In equilibrium, individual, normal bone shape and strength is maintained. At times of systemic or local bone growth - e.g., adolescence, response to increased physical activity, fracture repair - the process of bone formation “outpaces” resorption.

Skeletal formation in general is regulated by a complex hormonal signaling network. Alter any one of the pathways and bone mineral density (BMD) may be changed. For example, osteoporosis is a complication among post-menopausal women for whom estrogen, a potent stimulator of bone formation, has decreased. External factors also impact those pathways and include drugs, diet, and physical exercise.

Studies have shown that children with cancers have multiple risk factors for osteoporosis and fractures. In this new report, Alessandra Sala, M.D., Ph.D. of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and Università di Milano Bicocca in Milan and Ronald D. Barr, M.B., Ch.B., M.D. also of McMaster University review the topic of pediatric cancer, bone loss and management.

According to the authors, there are two factors that negatively effect bone turnover in children with cancer. First, patients with cancer are less physically active. Second, chemotherapy and cranial radiotherapy are linked to decreased bone formation and abnormally low BMD.

This low BMD may persist for years after treatment and is associated with symptoms, which can be as benign as bone pain or as severe as fractures. The authors report that the risk of fractures in children with low BMD significantly increases several fold.

However, several treatments are available to stimulate mineralization and minimize the loss at such a critical bone development stage. These include physical exercise and dietary modification programs as well as drug treatment with a class of drugs used to treat osteoporosis in post-menopausal women called bisphosphonates.

Drs. Sala and Barr conclude that “loss of bone mineral is clearly a common consequence of the treatment of cancer in children and adolescents, fitting the paradigm of chronic disease often attended by therapy.” This requires, the authors add, “recognition that osteopenia in children with cancer is of multi-factorial origin requiring comprehensive strategies for amelioration and prevention.”

Based on the article “Osteopenia and Cancer in Children and Adolescents - The Fragility of Success,” Alessandra Sala, Ronald D. Barr, CANCER; Published Online: February 26, 2007 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.22546); Print Issue Date: April 1, 2007.

Swedish Study Shows More Cancer in People with Higher Blood Sugar, Regardless of Diabetes

By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Louise Chang

Feb. 27, 2007 — Women with high blood sugar may be more likely to develop cancer, even if they don’t have diabetes, a Swedish study shows.

High blood sugar (hyperglycemia) wasn’t tied to men’s overall cancer risk.

But when researchers looked at specific types of cancer, they found that both men and women with the highest blood sugar levels were more likely to have pancreatic cancer, urinary tract cancer, and malignant melanoma (the most deadly type of skin cancer) than those with the lowest blood sugar levels.

Keeping blood sugar levels within the normal range “may reduce cancer risk,” write the researchers, who included Par Stattin, MD, PhD, of Sweden’s Umea University Hospital.

For the study, Stattin’s team invited all residents of a county in northern Sweden to sign up for the study when they were 40, 50, or 60 years old.

Nearly 64,600 people accepted the offer. All were nonsmokers without diabetes or a history of cancer (except for 1,435 people who had had nonmelanoma skin cancer).

Upon enrolling in the study, participants took a blood test after fasting, and another after drinking a sugary drink.

Most participants had normal results in both tests. The data show normal blood sugar results for at least 85% of the group after fasting and at least 92% after the sugary drink.

Study’s Results

The researchers followed participants for eight years, on average.

Overall, women with the highest blood sugar levels upon joining the study were more likely to be diagnosed with cancer before its end, compared with women with the lowest blood sugar levels.

Also, cancer of the lining of the uterus (endometrial cancer) was more common in women with the highest blood sugar levels, compared with those with the lowest blood sugar levels.

Breast cancer was more common for women younger than 49 with high blood sugar levels, compared with those with the lowest blood sugar levels, the study also shows.

The results held when researchers considered other factors, such as participants’ weight and age.

Their study appears in the March edition of Diabetes Care.

Study’s Limits

The study doesn’t prove that high blood sugar levels cause cancer or that normal blood sugar levels prevent it.

Doctors often can’t explain exactly why one person develops cancer and another doesn’t. A complex mix of genetic and lifestyle factors may affect cancer risk.

Also, the study didn’t track all possible cancer influences. For instance, researchers didn’t know the participants’ diet, exercise habits, or family history of cancer.

They also didn’t check participants’ blood sugar over time.

More research is needed, but meanwhile, there’s no reason not to get blood sugar under control.

Doing so may help prevent diabetes and heart disease, besides possibly making cancer less likely, Stattin’s team notes.

Don’t know your blood sugar level? Your doctor can run a quick blood test and — if necessary — provide pointers for getting blood sugar into the normal range.

SOURCES: Stattin, P. Diabetes Care, March 2007; vol 30: pp 561-567.

Commentary: The important thing is maintaining proper blood sugar and using healthy carbohydrates - especially staying away from refined sugars like corn syrup, sodas, juices and most prepackaged snacks. This is not only healthy in the short term but can and usually will have long-term benefits for your health, affecting things as simple as weight and energy to conditions like diabetes and cancer. So, make the right decisions not only for you but for your family. Choose to eat responsibly and read the labels.

by Christian Evans
NewsTarget

(emphasized text added by AMARC)

As you read through this article, we can not stress the main point enough to all parents and caregivers. When it comes to medications being prescribed for your child, ASK QUESTIONS! Be vigilant! Talk to your practitioner in-depth and research medications, treatments, short and long-term side effects yourself - be informed! Look into possible alternatives and or natural approaches that may be just as effective. Realize that the life you influence may be your loved one.

According to a new study published in the March issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, few medications are actually studied in children or specifically approved for that age group. Despite this, a continuing practice among the medical community allows these same adult medications to be prescribed to children off-label.

What you need to know - Conventional View

• Drug labeling is best defined as the guidance to doctors and other healthcare providers on how to use a drug.

• 78.7% of children hospitalized in the U.S. are given drugs which are off-label and approved only for adults.

• Off-label use accounted for $270 million (40.5%) of the total dollars spent on medications for hospitalized children, according to the FDA.

• The children most likely to receive drugs off-label have undergone surgery, are more than 28 days old, and suffer critical health conditions.

• In the absence of data, doctors use their medical judgment to decide on a particular drug and dose for children.

• A common practice among doctors is to use data from adults and adjust the dose according to a child’s weight.

• Only 20-30% of drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration are labeled for pediatric use.

• Medications approved for use on the central or autonomic nervous system, as well as nutrients and gastrointestinal medications, are most likely to be used off-label, according to the FDA.

• About 21% of total prescribed drug use is for conditions not indicated on the label, according to a 2001 U.S. government report.

• “We don’t want to understudy children and we don’t want to overstudy them. It’s our job to get information that will help them and protect them at the same time,” said Debbie Birenbaum, M.D., an FDA pediatric team leader.

What you need to know - Alternative View

• The fact that so many drugs never tested on children or approved for children are nonetheless being so widely prescribed for children is a glaring indictment of the so-called “evidence-based medicine” system defended by the FDA and drug companies.

• As this story demonstrates, drugs are routinely prescribed to children regardless of whether there has been any safety testing conducted at all. This means U.S. children are often essentially being used as human guinea pigs in large-scale uncontrolled medication experiments. (With that said, it has always been this way. Doctors are not perfect and should not be expected to be - they are only human like the rest of us. Most are simply attempting to use their personal experience and knowledge to help their patients. But they need to disclose all that they know on what they prescribe and its effects, and explain why they would be trying a particular medication or protocol, or something different. Again, we as parents and caregivers have the greater responsibility to our children to learn and understand all that we can. So, don’t panic! But knowledge is power - be sure to question “Why?”!)

by Mike Adams, et al

Ever wonder which foods should be strongly avoided by those at high risk for cancer? We can begin identifying foods once we know which ingredients in our food are not healthy. Some of those ingredients are food additives and chemicals used to enhance taste, while others are used strictly for appearance or to increase product shelf life. The key to avoiding cancer-causing foods is knowing which ingredients are carcinogens — or cancer promoters — and then reading food labels to permanently avoid consuming those ingredients.

Cancer tumors rely on sugar in the bloodstream. Although everything technically gets broken down into sugar, if you eat lots of sugary snacks loaded with simple carbs, you’re loading your bloodstream with the chemical energy and creating imbalances in your insulin levels that causes damage to the body. No biological system can live without fuel for its chemical processes, including cancer cells. Thus, one of the strategies to pursue for any healthy/anti-cancer diet is to eat a low-glycemic diet. That means no refined sugars… ever! No refined grains (white flour, for example), no heavy use of sweeteners and the lifetime avoidance of sugary soda pop. Eating foods low in sugar and avoiding simple carbs will also keep your weight in check while helping prevent blood sugar disorders such as type-2 diabetes.

What to avoid on the labels: high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, sucrose, enriched bleached flour, white rice, white pastas, white breads and other “white” foods.

The dangers of hydrogenated oils

Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils — another danger — are developed from otherwise harmless, natural elements. To make them hydrogenated, oils are heated in the presence of hydrogen and metal catalysts. This process helps prolong shelf life but simultaneously creates trans fats, which only have to be disclosed on the label if the food contains more than 0.5 grams per serving. To avoid listing trans fats, or to claim “trans fat free” on their label, food manufacturers simply adjust the serving size until the trans fat content falls under 0.5 grams per serving. This is how you get modern food labels with serving sizes that essentially equate to a single bite of food. Not exactly a “serving” of food, is it? Read and know your labels!

Besides being a cancer factor, trans fats promote heart disease, interrupt metabolic processes, and cause belly fat that crowd the organs and strain the cardiovascular system. The essential fatty acids that the hydrogenation process removes are responsible for a number of processes in your body. When trans fats replace these essential fatty acids, they occupy the same space without doing the same job. The “anchor” portion of the fatty acid is in place (which is how the body recognizes the fatty acid and puts it to work) but the chemically active part of the fatty acid is twisted, distorted, and missing vital parts.

After the hydrogenation process, the fatty acid can’t biochemically function in the same way. Things like brain cell function, hormones, gland function, oxygen transport, cell wall function (keeping things in or out of your cells) and digestive tract operation (putting together nutrients and blocking allergens) are adversely affected.

Food manufacturers don’t tell you this on the product label, of course. Your body needs essential fatty acids. Combine these factors of high blood sugar, low oxygen levels, excessive fat, low exercise and continuous diet of trans fat foods, simple sugars, and lack of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and necessary enzymes – and what you get is the ideal environment for the development of degenerative disease and cancer.

The acrylamide factor

Since trans fats can be formed during the frying process, we should also talk about acrylamides. Acrylamides are not added into food; they are created during the frying process. When starchy foods are subjected to high heat, acrylamides form. A Swedish study found that acrylamides can cause cancer in rats, and more studies are underway to confirm the understanding that acrylamides also cause cancer in humans. (Editor’s Note: The point is, when you cook foods, especially fried foods, use quality oils and just the right amount of heat. This is something we can control at home, but for restaurants costs are an important factor and therefore you may not be getting the most healthy oils and food preparation. Don’t rely on most of them to look out for your health primarily.)

Sodium nitrite (and nitrates)

Food companies add sodium nitrite into various foods. This carcinogen is added to processed meats, hot dogs, bacon, and any other meat that needs a reddish color to look “fresh.” Decades ago when meats were preserved, it was done with salt. But in the mid 20th century, food manufacturers started using sodium nitrite in commercial preservation. This chemical is responsible for the pinkish color in meat to which consumers have grown accustomed. Although today the use of refrigeration is largely what protects consumers from botulism and bacteria, manufacturers still add sodium nitrite to make the meat look pinkish and fresh.

The nitrites themselves are not the problem. People get more nitrites from vegetables than they do from meat, according to research by the University of Minnesota. During the digestion process, however, sodium nitrite is converted to nitrosamine, and that’s where the concern is. Nitrosamine is a carcinogen, but since it is not technically an ingredient, its presence can be easily overlooked on the packaging. Nitrosamines are also found in food items that are pickled, fried, or smoked, and in things such as beer, cheese, fish by-products, and tobacco smoke. (Editor’s note: While these substances are cancer causing, and you should avoid them as much as possible, they are commonly found in many things. The effects can be combated with antioxidants, hence the reason for eating the fruits and vegetables, as well as utilizing all the currently available options for supplementation. For more information about nitrosamine and cancer, visit http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/nitrosamine.html.)

Knowing about these ingredients doesn’t mean there is simply a “short list” of foods that should be avoided. You have to be vigilant and read labels constantly. Here are the five worst offenders:

 Hot dogs: The Cancer Prevention Coalition recommends that children should not eat more than 12 hot dogs per month because of the risk of cancer. If you must have your hot dog fix, look for those without sodium nitrite listed among the ingredients.
 Processed meats and bacon: These meats almost always contain the same sodium nitrite found in hot dogs. You can find some without nitrites, but you’ll have to look for them in natural grocers or health food stores. Bacon is also high in saturated fat so keep this in check. Limiting your consumption of processed meats and saturated fats also benefits the heart.
 Doughnuts: Doughnuts contain hydrogenated oils, white flour, sugar, and acrylamides. Essentially, they’re one of the worst cancer foods you can possibly eat. Reader’s Digest calls doughnuts “disastrous” as a breakfast food, and many experts agree it’s probably one of the worst ways to start the day.
 Fast Food French fries/Fried Foods: Fries are made with hydrogenated oil and fried at high temperatures. Some chains even add sugar to their fry recipe to make them even more irresistible. Not only do they clog your arteries with saturated fat and trans fat, they also contain acrylamides.
 Chips/Crackers/Cookies: These generally contain white flour and sugar as well as trans fats, but it’s not enough to simply look for these ingredients on the label; you have to actually “decode” the ingredients list that food manufacturers use to deceive consumers. They do this by hiding ingredients (such as hiding MSG in yeast extract, or by fiddling with serving sizes so they can claim the food is trans fat free, even when it contains trans fats (the new Girl Scout cookies use this trick).

Besides avoiding these foods, what else can consumers do to reduce their risk of cancer? The main things are simple: eat unprocessed foods and base your diet largely on plants – fruits and vegetables (many common ones have known cancer-fighting properties), and nuts and berries. Consume foods that have omega-3 fats and other essential fatty acids. Get regular vigorous exercise, since tumors cannot thrive in highly-oxygenated environments. Keep your blood sugar stable to avoid being an all-you-can-eat buffet for cancer cells.

Also, include in your diet foods high in natural vitamin C, a nutrient that deters the conversion of nitrite into nitrosamine and promotes healthy immune function. Make sure you get adequate amounts of cancer-fighting vitamin D through exposure to sunlight — about 10 to 15 minutes each day if you have fair skin, or ten times as long if you have dark skin pigmentation. Stay well hydrated to ensure that your body rids itself of toxins. Avoid smoking and don’t use conventional fragrance, cosmetics and personal care products — virtually all of them contain chemicals, some which are known carcinogens (but at varying levels, so it is best to use natural non-synthetic ones).

Protecting yourself and being healthy and deterring cancer as much as possible is actually quite straightforward. Even the World Health Organization says that 70 percent of all cancers can be prevented with simple changes in diet and lifestyle. The truth is that most people give themselves cancer through the foods, drinks and products they choose to consume. In our opinion, most cancers are easily preventable.

By the way, don’t you find it interesting that the cancer industry seems to have no interest whatsoever in urging people to avoid eating things like sodium nitrite, or to stop using skin care products, or to get more sunlight on their skin so they can generate vitamin D? It is our belief that most in the medical industry in general have shown no significant interest in preventing cancer (though some within the community very much have), and is primarily interested in creating new drugs and focusing on treatments and procedures. Why not focus on health and spend money researching ways to stay and be healthy? Remove all known chemicals out of our food and water supply, and demand that the food and cosmetic industries disclose every ingredient and where they get each of them from and what they know about each. Many of these things by themselves are not like having mercury or lead in your blood, but you combine them all together and you have a recipe for disaster - the cancer rates and degenerative diseases our society is experiencing are living breathing and dying proof.

By Michael Pollan
The New York Times
Sunday 22 April 2007
 
    A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person’s wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?
 
    Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend, using it to purchase as many calories as he possibly could. He discovered that he could buy the most calories per dollar in the middle aisles of the supermarket, among the towering canyons of processed food and soft drink. (In the typical American supermarket, the fresh foods - dairy, meat, fish and produce - line the perimeter walls, while the imperishable packaged goods dominate the center.) Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.

    As a rule, processed foods are more “energy dense” than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them “junk.” Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly - and get fat.

    This perverse state of affairs is not, as you might think, the inevitable result of the free market. Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?

    For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system - indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat - three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades - indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning - U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

    That’s because the current farm bill helps commodity farmers by cutting them a check based on how many bushels they can grow, rather than, say, by supporting prices and limiting production, as farm bills once did. The result? A food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow.
 
    A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called “an epidemic” of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation’s agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

    To speak of the farm bill’s influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact - on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities - or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico’s eaters as well as its farmers.) You can’t fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico.

    And though we don’t ordinarily think of the farm bill in these terms, few pieces of legislation have as profound an impact on the American landscape and environment. Americans may tell themselves they don’t have a national land-use policy, that the market by and large decides what happens on private property in America, but that’s not exactly true. The smorgasbord of incentives and disincentives built into the farm bill helps decide what happens on nearly half of the private land in America: whether it will be farmed or left wild, whether it will be managed to maximize productivity (and therefore doused with chemicals) or to promote environmental stewardship. The health of the American soil, the purity of its water, the biodiversity and the very look of its landscape owe in no small part to impenetrable titles, programs and formulae buried deep in the farm bill.

    Given all this, you would think the farm-bill debate would engage the nation’s political passions every five years, but that hasn’t been the case. If the quintennial antidrama of the “farm bill debate” holds true to form this year, a handful of farm-state legislators will thrash out the mind-numbing details behind closed doors, with virtually nobody else, either in Congress or in the media, paying much attention. Why? Because most of us assume that, true to its name, the farm bill is about “farming,” an increasingly quaint activity that involves no one we know and in which few of us think we have a stake. This leaves our own representatives free to ignore the farm bill, to treat it as a parochial piece of legislation affecting a handful of their Midwestern colleagues. Since we aren’t paying attention, they pay no political price for trading, or even selling, their farm-bill votes. The fact that the bill is deeply encrusted with incomprehensible jargon and prehensile programs dating back to the 1930s makes it almost impossible for the average legislator to understand the bill should he or she try to, much less the average citizen. It’s doubtful this is an accident.

    But there are signs this year will be different. The public-health community has come to recognize it can’t hope to address obesity and diabetes without addressing the farm bill. The environmental community recognizes that as long as we have a farm bill that promotes chemical and feedlot agriculture, clean water will remain a pipe dream. The development community has woken up to the fact that global poverty can’t be fought without confronting the ways the farm bill depresses world crop prices. They got a boost from a 2004 ruling by the World Trade Organization that U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal; most observers think that challenges to similar subsidies for corn, soy, wheat or rice would also prevail.

    And then there are the eaters, people like you and me, increasingly concerned, if not restive, about the quality of the food on offer in America. A grass-roots social movement is gathering around food issues today, and while it is still somewhat inchoate, the manifestations are everywhere: in local efforts to get vending machines out of the schools and to improve school lunch; in local campaigns to fight feedlots and to force food companies to better the lives of animals in agriculture; in the spectacular growth of the market for organic food and the revival of local food systems. In great and growing numbers, people are voting with their forks for a different sort of food system. But as powerful as the food consumer is - it was that consumer, after all, who built a $15 billion organic-food industry and more than doubled the number of farmer’s markets in the last few years - voting with our forks can advance reform only so far. It can’t, for example, change the fact that the system is rigged to make the most unhealthful calories in the marketplace the only ones the poor can afford. To change that, people will have to vote with their votes as well - which is to say, they will have to wade into the muddy political waters of agricultural policy.

    Doing so starts with the recognition that the “farm bill” is a misnomer; in truth, it is a food bill and so needs to be rewritten with the interests of eaters placed first. Yes, there are eaters who think it in their interest that food just be as cheap as possible, no matter how poor the quality. But there are many more who recognize the real cost of artificially cheap food - to their health, to the land, to the animals, to the public purse. At a minimum, these eaters want a bill that aligns agricultural policy with our public-health and environmental values, one with incentives to produce food cleanly, sustainably and humanely. Eaters want a bill that makes the most healthful calories in the supermarket competitive with the least healthful ones. Eaters want a bill that feeds schoolchildren fresh food from local farms rather than processed surplus commodities from far away. Enlightened eaters also recognize their dependence on farmers, which is why they would support a bill that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices. Why? Because they prefer to live in a country that can still produce its own food and doesn’t hurt the world’s farmers by dumping its surplus crops on their markets.

    The devil is in the details, no doubt. Simply eliminating support for farmers won’t solve these problems; overproduction has afflicted agriculture since long before modern subsidies. It will take some imaginative policy making to figure out how to encourage farmers to focus on taking care of the land rather than all-out production, on growing real food for eaters rather than industrial raw materials for food processors and on rebuilding local food economies, which the current farm bill hobbles. But the guiding principle behind an eater’s farm bill could not be more straightforward: it’s one that changes the rules of the game so as to promote the quality of our food (and farming) over and above its quantity.

    Such changes are radical only by the standards of past farm bills, which have faithfully reflected the priorities of the agribusiness interests that wrote them. One of these years, the eaters of America are going to demand a place at the table, and we will have the political debate over food policy we need and deserve. This could prove to be that year: the year when the farm bill became a food bill, and the eaters at last had their say.
 
    Michael Pollan is the Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book is The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Feeling like the absent-minded professor lately? Here are some memory-improving strategies to keep your brain sharp.

Ginkgo to Think

Ginkgo, the oldest surviving species of tree, has been traced back 300 million years and is one of the most widely studied plants. The leaf of the ginkgo tree is shaped like a human brain, and some believe this is why, in Asia, it has always had a reputation of benefiting the mental processes.
 
A dwindling memory and decreased concentration is largely caused by decreased blood flow to the brain and loss of brain cells; ginkgo has been confirmed to boost circulation to the brain and other organs, improving memory and cognitive functions. Additionally, ginkgo is used far and wide as a longevity tonic in Asia and Europe.

The best-known and most commonly available form of ginkgo is as teas and herbal extracts, but ginkgo nut, used in the culinary traditions of Asian cultures, also has therapeutic properties and is also said to strengthen lung function.

Mental Gymnastics Keep Your Mind Nimble

It is normal to become more absent-minded as we age, and in fact, most people over the age of 40 experience some memory loss. The most likely causes of a forgetful memory include poor concentration due to brain-chemical imbalance, tiredness, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders.

If you find you are more forgetful than usual, try these steps and see if there isn’t some improvement in your cognitive clarity:

1. Get an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep each night.
2. Do a half an hour of cardiovascular exercise every day, such as brisk walking, slow jogging, biking, or swimming. This will improve circulation and increase blood flow to the brain.
3. Turn yourself upside down for a couple of minutes daily.
4. Mental fitness activities are imperative to prevent age-related cognitive decline. Read and learn new things, find new hobbies, do crossword puzzles, add up your bill in your head while shopping, memorize a set of phone numbers forward and backwards; all these can stimulate brain cell activities and in some cases even grow new brain pathways.
5. Work with your physician to find a supplemental regimen that helps improve your cognitive capabilities. Memory-enhancing supplements and herbs include B-complex vitamins, magnesium, CoQ10, alpha-lipoic acid, fish oil, flax seed oil, Chinese club moss, ginkgo, and ginseng. A supplement that has been well-documented in Europe for reversing age-related dementia and memory loss is phosphatidylserine (PS), a compound made by the body from the amino acid serine. Taken in supplement form, PS lowers stress response and promotes the release of neurotransmitters in the brain that facilitate thought, reasoning, and concentration.