New warning: dangerous antibacterial soap chemical found in fish

(NaturalNews) The current mania over putting anti-bacterial chemicals in everything from cleaning wipes and hand soap to detergent and toothpaste has resulted in the widespread contamination of the environment with two related toxins often found in these products — triclocarban (TCC) and triclosan. Never mind that in lab studies these chemicals have been found to disrupt hormones, probably cause cancer and spur the growth of drug-resistant superbugs. The FDA seems to think it’s fine and dandy that humans keep pumping these substances into our bodies through contact with skin, and flushing these toxins down the drain into the water table. At the recent national meeting of the American Chemical Society held in Anaheim, California, scientists sounded yet another warning about the clear and present danger of the antibacterial ingredient TCC — at least in the aquatic ecosystem. For the first time, scientists have evidence that this endocrine system disruptor is accumulating in fish. The animals encounter TCC as they swim in water that washes down drains and flows out of sewage treatment facilities into lakes and streams. And, no, this isn’t some minor finding. The researchers found TCC has a “strong” tendency to bioaccumulate in fish — that means the fish take in the substance far faster than their bodies can break it down and eliminate it. Because TCC so strongly bioaccumulates in fish, even minute and seemingly harmless amounts in the water can build up to toxic amounts inside the animals’ bodies. “Due to its widespread usage, TCC is present in small amounts in 60 percent of all rivers and streams in the United States,” study leader Ida Flores of the University of California-Davis said in a press statement. “Fish are commonly exposed to TCC, even though much of it is eliminated by wastewater treatment plants.” Dr. Flores soft-pedaled the idea that fish becoming loaded with TCC has much to do directly with human health — because TCC supposedly doesn’t bioaccumulate in humans and certain other mammals. Instead, the human body quickly breaks down, or metabolizes, TCC. That changes it into other substances that are excreted in urine and feces. However, this skips over several important possibilities. First of all, because TCC is an endocrine disruptor, will fish contaminated with the chemical lose the ability to reproduce, thereby reducing the availability of fish as food? And if fish contaminated with TCC are eaten, what does that mean for the human body? If TCC is “changed into other substances” by the human body, where is the proof those metabolites are safe for human health? Dr. Flores noted that unmetabolized compounds, such as dioxins, can’t be excreted from the human body — unlike TCC — and so they are particularly dangerous to humans. People are exposed to dioxins through the environment and the food chain, including dairy products, meat, fish and shellfish. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned this exposure can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system and may cause cancer. Unfortunately, although this was not covered by Dr. Flores, other investigators have uncovered a critical connection between an anti-bacterial soap chemical and dioxins. As previously covered in NaturalNews , University of Minnesota civil engineering professor William Arnold and his colleague Kristopher McNeill have published their findings that TCC-related triclosan, when exposed to sunlight, generates dioxins . And other researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology, Pace Analytical (Minneapolis), the Science Museum of Minnesota and Virginia Tech, have documented that triclosan is transformed into dioxins that are accumulating in the environment. Bottom line: any line of reasoning that downplays the seriousness of environmental contamination with anti-bacterial chemicals is just plain fishy — and probably dangerous to human as well as animal health. For more information: http://www.naturalnews.com/029006_antibacterial_soap_dioxins.html http://www.naturalnews.com/022178_triclosan_toothpaste_bacteria.html http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es1001105

Beet juice lowers blood pressure

(NaturalNews) The vegetable known as the beetroot in Great Britain (and usually called the table beet, garden beet, red beet or just plain beet in the U.S.) has been studied in recent years for its health-building properties. For example, scientists have found it is rich in the nutrient betaine, which reduces the blood concentration of homocycsteine, a substance linked to heart disease and stroke. Now a study just published in the American Heart Association’s Hypertension journal concludes drinking beet juice lowers high blood pressure quickly and effectively — and could be a natural approach to helping prevent cardiovascular problems. British scientists at the Queen Mary University of London found that drinking beet juice lowered blood pressure to healthy levels within 24 hours. In fact, it was just as effective as prescription nitrate tables in treating hypertension. In a previous study two years ago, the same research team had first observed that drinking beetroot juice lowered blood pressure — now they’ve figured out exactly why. It turns out that the organic form of nitrate found in beet juice is the key to its blood pressure lowering benefits. Study author Amrita Ahluwalia, Professor of Vascular Biology at Queen Mary’s William Harvey Research Institute, said the investigators were able to prove the nitrate was the cause of beet juice’s beneficial effects on cardiovascular health because they showed beet nitrate increased levels of the gas nitric oxide in the circulation. Nitric oxide is a type of biological messenger in the body. It signals smooth muscle tissue to relax, induces vasodilation and increases blood flow, leading to a lower blood pressure. “We gave inorganic nitrate capsules or beetroot juice to healthy volunteers and compared their blood pressure responses and the biochemical changes occurring in the circulation,” Professor Ahluwalia said in a statement to the press. “We showed that beetroot and nitrate capsules are equally effective in lowering blood pressure indicating that it is the nitrate content of beetroot juice that underlies its potential to reduce blood pressure. We also found that only a small amount of juice is needed — just 250ml — to have this effect, and that the higher the blood pressure at the start of the study the greater the decrease caused by the nitrate.” “The research will be welcome news to people with high blood pressure who might now be able to use a new ‘natural’ approach to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease (including stroke and heart attacks) — the world’s biggest killer,” the researchers added in the media statement. For more information: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20585108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19887114

Fructose results in more belly fat and less insulin-sensitive fat

(NaturalNews) High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is hard to avoid if you eat processed foods — it’s used to sweeten soft drinks, candy bars, bread, salad dressings, fruit drinks and thousands of other items. But it’s worth the effort to read labels and avoid the stuff. The reason? Research has mounted over the past couple of years that HFCS may be just plain dangerous to health. For example, researchers from Loyola University Health System have found women who drink at least two cans of HFCS-sweetened soda pop daily are twice as likely to show signs of kidney disease as those who don’t drink that many sodas (http://www.naturalnews.com/025582_soda_health_pop.html). And although HFCS has been linked previously to the widespread rise in obesity, a new study has produced evidence showing exactly why fructose could be making people fatter than ever, starting in childhood. It turns out that when the sugary stuff is present as children’s fat cells mature, fructose turns more of these cells into belly fat. Defined by a large waistline often dubbed a “spare tire”, abdominal obesity ups the risk of both heart disease and type 2 diabetes. What’s more, cells in both belly fat (visceral fat) and subcutaneous fat located below the skin were found to be less able to respond to insulin if they had been exposed to fructose. That means fructose could up the risk for metabolic syndrome, a precursor of type 2 diabetes, while spurring weight gain. This research was just presented by lead author Georgina Coade, a PhD student at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, at the Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting held in San Diego. “Our results suggest that high levels of fructose, which may result from eating a diet high in fructose, throughout childhood may lead to an increase in visceral (abdominal) obesity, which is associated with increased cardiometabolic risk,” Coade said in a statement to the media. Coade and her research team studied biopsy specimens of both subcutaneous and visceral fat from 32 healthy-weight children who had not gone through puberty yet. Then they took preadipocytes (precursors to fat cells that have the potential to differentiate, or mature, into fat-containing cells called adipocytes) from the specimens and allowed these precursor cells to mature for 14 days in culture media containing normal glucose (the main sugar found in the bloodstream), high glucose or high fructose. Next the investigators measured the activity of an enzyme dubbed GPDH and the abundance of the adipocyte fatty acid binding protein — both of which are found only in mature fat cells. The results showed that fructose caused fat cells to form more mature, visceral fat cells. In addition, the cells that matured in the fructose solution all showed a decrease in insulin sensitivity (the ability to successfully take up glucose from the bloodstream into fat and muscles) — and decreased insulin sensitivity is a characteristic of type 2 diabetes. “Fructose alters the behavior of human fat cells if it is present as the fat cells mature,” Coade concluded. “We can maybe compare this (timing) to periods in children when they are making their fat.” As if you need another reason to avoid fructose, consider this: NaturalNews revealed last year that research published in the journal Environmental Health showed HFCS is contaminated with the toxic heavy metal mercury. (http://www.naturalnews.com/025442_HFCS_Corn_Refiners_Association.html). For more information: http://www.naturalnews.com/fructose.html

Low vitamin D levels linked to poor blood sugar control in type 2 diabetes

(NaturalNews) According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), almost 11 percent of Americans age 20 or older have diabetes. And the most common form of this disease, type 2 diabetes, has reached epidemic proportions. Now scientists have found a link between vitamin D deficiency and the inability of many patients with this kind of diabetes to keep their blood sugar under control. What’s more, this raises the strong possibility that, along with being overweight and sedentary, a lack of vitamin D could be a major factor in triggering type 2 diabetes in the first place. Esther Krug, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an endocrinologist at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, just presented this research in San Diego at the Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting. “This finding supports an active role of vitamin D in the development of Type 2 diabetes,” Dr. Krug said in a statement to the media. Krug and her research team reviewed the medical charts of 124 people between the ages of 36 and 89 years old who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and treated at an endocrine outpatient clinic between 2003 and 2008. As part of their health evaluations, all of these patients had their serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels measured at the clinic. So the researchers looked to see how many of the patients had normal levels of the so-called “sunshine” vitamin. The answer? Almost none. In fact, an astonishing 91 percent of the patients studied had either vitamin D deficiency (defined as a level below 15 nanograms per deciliter, or ng/dL) or vitamin D insufficiency (15 to 31 ng/dL), the authors reported. When the investigators looked at the patients’ levels of hemoglobin A1c (a measure of blood sugar control over the past several months), they came up with another startling fact. There was a clear relationship between uncontrolled blood sugar and low levels of vitamin D. African-Americans were found to have the highest A1c levels and were most deficient in vitamin D, when compared to Caucasians. “Since primary care providers diagnose and treat most patients with type 2 diabetes, screening and vitamin D supplementation as part of routine primary care may improve health outcomes of this highly prevalent condition,” Dr. Krug concluded. NaturalNews has previously reported on other natural ways to treat and even prevent type 2 diabetes — including eating Mediterranean style by consuming a diet rich in “good” fats (like Omega-3s and olive oil), veggies, fruit and whole grains. A study published last fall in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded the Mediterranean diet dramatically improved type 2 diabetes and even eliminated the need for many people to take blood glucose regulating medication (http://www.naturalnews.com/027140_diabetes_Type_2_diabetes_NaturalNews.html). For more information: http://www.naturalnews.com/Type_2_diabetes.html http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/statistics/#people http://www.endo-society.org/