Reckless Recommendation for WLS By Those Who Profit From it--And the ADA

During the holiday season another disturbing diabetes news story was released to the medical press without attracting much notice. That probably didn't bother those who planted it because their target audience isn't you, it's your family doctor.

The group releasing the news is an organization of surgeons who perform weight loss surgery (WLS) What they're promoting is the idea that WLS is a cure for diabetes. They did this by holding a convention filled with surgeons who earn a great deal of money every time they perform this particular surgery and representatives of the American Diabetes Association, a group that has never failed to endorse any product or service that has the potential to earn high profits for those who prey on people with diabetes. This convention released an impressive-sounding "Consensus Statement" designed to make busy family doctors think that world health authorities and experts have carefully analyzed bushels of research and concluded that WLS is a wonderful new cure for diabetes.

You can read about this convention and the Consensus Statement:

The Diabetes Surgery Summit Consensus Conference: Recommendations for the Evaluation and Use of Gastrointestinal Surgery to Treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
Rubino, Francesco. Annals of Surgery. 19 November 2009
doi: 10.1097/SLA.0b013e3181be34e7

You'll find a bit more detail here:

Diabetes In Control: World Summit on Bariatric Surgery Defines New Guidelines.

Soon you will be hearing from your family doctor that you could be "cured" of diabetes simply by undergoing a routine $20,000 operation. If you don't sign up, your diabetes is obviously your own fault. I have already heard from people who were given just that message by their doctors.

The most disturbing thing about the consensus statement is the horrifying suggestion, based on ZERO peer reviewed research--that WLS--obesity surgery--should be given to people with a BMI as low as 30, which is a much lower BMI than any used as a cutpoint in the recommendations of any experts in organizations who don't provide surgery. But this group of bariatric surgeons is obviously rubbing its hands in glee at the thought of the millions of new customers it's self-serving recommendation will bring in and their recommendations are very high on hype and almost entirely without grounding in hard science.

The position statement recommends weight loss surgery for women who are slightly overweight. For someone 5'3" the recommendation would kick in when they weigh only 170 lbs.

I happen to be 5'3" woman who once weighed that amount. I weigh 138 now, thanks entirely to cutting way down on the carbs in my diet and the addition of carefully chosen safe drugs to my daily regimen.

But the pitch these surgeons make is that WLS isn't just for weight loss. Oh, no. It "cures" diabetes. In fact, the science (what little there is, and there isn't much of good quality) shows WLSdoesn't do anything of the kind. What WLS does is lower A1c. It does that by severely limiting how much food you can eat and, more to the point, it makes people vomit violently when they eat a lot of carbohydrate so that it imposes a low carb diet on them, like it or not.

But before you get excited about the idea that WLS is a cure, it turns out, these surgeries don't even give people truly normal blood sugars. You can read about this in an earlier blog post HERE. The study cited in that post makes it clear that the dramatic claims that diabetes has been "cured" refer only to the blood sugars taken a month or two after surgery when people can barely eat. By five years later the average A1c is 6.58% and 17% of those who had the surgery see no improvement at all.

Almost twelve years after diagnosis my A1c is a lot better than the 6.58% that the loudest proponents of WLS claim as their 5 year surgery result. My highest A1c in the last 5 years was 6.0. My average is 5.7%. All from cutting back on carbs and finding the right, safe, drugs to control my blood sugar. No need for risky surgery.

Yes, my drugs do cost something: Metformin is a generic that is about $120 a year. My insulin cartridges cost $444. Total cost: $564. The cost of WLS runs about $20,000, assuming you don't have complications that will require more expensive surgery and hospitalization, as many people do. So the cost benefit to me of WLS would take 35 years to kick in--assuming WLS worked as well as meds and the low carb diet to prevent complications, which given how high the A1c is at five years in the patients whose surgeons are among the biggest boosters of WLS as a "Cure" for diabetes, is unlikely.

The tragedy is that it does NOT take dangerous surgery to achieve dramatic drops in blood sugar. You might have learned about this on the day you were diagnosed, had the ADA not put all its energy into terrifying doctors and the public about the "dangers" of the low carb diet and pushing a blood sugar boosting diet full of pasta, oatmeal, "healthy" whole grains, and high carb fruits like the banana.

Though a decade of research has come up with not a scintilla of evidence that that low carb diet does anything but improve blood sugar and cardiovascular markers and lower the incidence of diabetic complications, the ADA is now ready to recommend expensive life-threatening surgeries about which little is known though that little shows that the safety of WLS is far worse than the most extreme low carb diet.

In fact, there is very little high quality research about the long term effects of weight loss surgery. Most studies only involve a very few individuals followed for a short time, or, often in the case of diabetes "cures" of rodents. But what human research there is comes up with disturbing findings.

Weight loss surgery, it turns out, is dangerous. To know just how dangerous it is you have to remember that it is standard practice when evaluating the outcome of a surgery to report on the patient's status six weeks after the surgery. After that, most patients are "lost to follow up."

So when you read the statistics about deaths associated with WLS, the percentages given usually describe usually only those deaths that occurred during the first few weeks after the surgery. You do not hear about the complications--or deaths--that take place two, five and ten years after the surgery.

Here's a good example of a study that has been interpreted to show that WLS is safe: Mortality After Bariatric Surgery: Analysis of 13,871 Morbidly Obese Patients From a National Registry
Morino, Mario. Annals of Surgery. December 2007, Volume 246, Issue 6, pp 1002-1009. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0b013e31815c404e

Like most, it only only tracks deaths that occurred within the first 60 days. Even then, in this group of patients, .25% died people within two months. That's 25 for each 10,000 people who had the surgery. Drugs that can be shown to have killed that many people are taken off the market--viz Rezulin, Bextra, etc.

But if you accept that it was worth killing 25 people so that thousands can lose weight and have their diabetes "cured", you might want to look at another very similar study that expanded the time horizon. You can read about it in my previous blog post HERE

This study analyzed registry statistics collected in Pennsylvania and it too found modest death rate. "Only" .9% of patients died within 30 days, slightly less than one in a hundred, though for the families of that one in a hundred, the death was a horrible, unexpected tragedy.

But there were a lot more families left to mourn because the death toll rose dramatically as the group was followed longer. One year after surgery, 2.1% of the group had died. (Twenty-one out of every thousand.) By two years, 2.9% (Twenty-nine out of a thousand). Then things got worse. Three years after they had had the surgery, 3.7% were dead. By four years, 4.8% and by five years, 6.4%. That's slightly more than one out of every seventeen dead.

And yet the ADA's leaders, who have railed about the "dangers" of the low carb diet, stand by when these surgeons suggest that people whose weight is only slightly above normal should be subjecting themselves to a surgery this dangerous to attain an A1c (if they live) of 6.7.

The reason that the death rate increases as time goes by is that people who have had these surgeries are prone to develop problems as the years go by that often require more surgery. The stomach stretches and incisions burst. Bands get embedded in tissue or infected. Some people develop so much scarring in their intestinal tract they can no longer absorb nutrients and starve to death. Some develop profound anorexia, due to the destruction of part of the gut that secretes the hormones that regulate brain hormone centers and they literally starve themselves to death--often blaming themselves for what they think are psychologicla problems because no one explains to them that the brain hunger regulatory system depends on gut hormones.

Would a drug that killed 6.4% of those who took it over five years ever get approved? Of course not. But surgeries don't have to be approved. The FDA does not examine surgeries. No one does. Surgeons are free to do any surgery they can get paid for and the only limit on them is how likely they are to get sued by unhappy survivors of their victims.

OTHER ALTERNATIVES TO WLS THAT GET BETTER RESULTS

If you are a person with diabetes with a BMI near 30, here is a list of safe alternatives to weight loss surgery.

1. Follow the technique described here: How to Get Your Blood Sugar Under Control. This simple, moderate approach works extremely well. I hear from people all over the world who have tried it and report that their A1cs have plummeted from as high as 13% down to the 5% range. Try it for two months before you let someone amputate portions of your stomach. This techniques will give most people much better results, over time, than the surgery.

2. Byetta. If you can't control your eating, Byetta may help a lot. One out of three people respond well to it, and when they do, they find that they can easily cut way back on their food and that their blood sugar improves greatly. I know two people who have lost over 100 lbs each on Byetta and several who have lost 30-50 lbs. All have seen better blood sugars. Best of all, if you don't do well on Byetta, all you have to do is stop taking it and any problems it has caused will reverse.

3. Insulin. If your blood sugars can't be controlled by cutting carbs, surgery probably won't fix it, because if your beta cells are dead, messing with your digestive tract won't do much. According to Dr. Ren, who is cited in the blog post linked above, about 17% of those who undergo gastric surgery for diabetes experience no improvement. And of course, that number excludes those who die of the surgery whose diabetes became tragically irrelevant. Insulin, prescribed by a doctor whose staff is willing to work with you to set the dose correctly, will normalize your blood sugar, especially if you cut way down on your carb intake so that the insulin doesn't have as much work to do.

None of thse is a "cure" but neither, according to the blood sugar statistics released by the most enthusiastic proponents of WLS, is the surgery.

 

U.S. Government Keeps Chemicals Secret

An article in the Washington Post (1.4.2010) reported that of 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States, nearly 20% are kept secret.  Why the big secret?  The Environmental Protection Agency, the government agency designed to protect us, the citizens, worked with industry to help them protect trade secrets.

Why does industry need protection?  Industry claimed it needed protection in order to protect trade secrets and their market share. I guess their market share is more important than the health of the U.S. citizens.  “Even acknowledging what chemical is used or what is made at what facility could convey important information to competitors…,” said the president of the American Chemical Society. 

Of the secret chemicals, 151 are made of quantities of more than 1 million tons a year and 10 are used specifically in children’s products according to the EPA.  Only a small number of EPA employees know the identities of the chemicals and they are legally barred from revealing that information. 

Folks, I can’t make this stuff up.  Truth is truly stranger than fiction. 

What can you do?  You can make sure your detoxification pathways are optimally functioning by eating a good diet (free of refined food), drinking adequate amounts of water (generally two liters per day for adults) and ensuring you have adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals on board.  One vitamin that is particularly important is vitamin C.  Vitamin C aids in many detoxification pathways and can help neutralize toxins in the body.  I would suggest taking 3-5,000mg/day of vitamin C (assuming you don’t get diarrhea).  When you are ill, you may need to increase your dose.  

News You Didn't See About New Dangers with Supplements and Drugs

More Bad New About Vitamin C

I already blogged about the evidence that Vitamin C supplementation may make us more insulin resistant and render exercise useless, but the bad news about vitamin supplementation just keeps pouring in.

Vitamin C supplementation, it turns out, is also associated with a higher rate of cataracts. This finding emerged in a long study of 24,593 women 49–83 years old from the Swedish Mammography Cohort who were followed from September 1997 to October 2005. Data about their supplement use was collected by questionnaire, and cataract extraction cases were identified by linkage to the cataract extraction registers in the geographical study area (where there is a public health system).

The study found that

Among women aged 65 years or more, vitamin C supplement use increased the risk of cataract by 38% (95% CI: 12%, 69%). Vitamin C use among hormone replacement therapy users compared with that among nonusers of supplements or of hormone replacement therapy was associated with a 56% increased risk of cataract (95% CI: 20%, 102%)

Vitamin C supplements and the risk of age-related cataract: a population-based prospective cohort study in women Susanne Rautiainen et al. Am J Clin Nutr (November 18, 2009). doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.28528

Since cataracts are something that are already more prevalent in people with diabetes, this is another reason to limit your Vitamin C intake to what you get in lower carb fruits and vegetables.

Bad News About Niacin

Niacin is heavily promoted as a heart disease fighter but it turns out people with diabetes appear to have less ability to rid the body of niacin and that high levels may promotes insulin resistance.

You can read about this finding here:

Diabetes In Control: Nicotinamide Overload a Trigger for Type 2 Diabetes.

The study discussed in the Science Daily article is:

Nicotinamide overload may play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes. Shi-Sheng Zhou, et al. World J Gastroenterol 2009 December 7; 15(45): 5674-5684

The authors speculate that the commercial addition of B vitamins to foods like cereal and bread may be harmful. In addition, they note that niacin is eliminated from they body by sweating, which casts an interesting light on why exercise might be helpful to people with diabetes.

Lots of Bad News About Statins

Moving on, hidden in a press release describing a study published in the journal, Ophthalmology, a study conducted to learn whether statins might decrease Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the news that statins not only don't prevent Age Related Macular Degeneration, a major cause of blindness, but

Statin users were at slightly higher risk than non-users for developing advanced AMD,

The study is discussed here:

Science Daily: Can Heart Disease Treatments Combat Age-Related Macular Degeneration?

The answer to the question posted in the title of the Science Daily article, turns out to be a resounding "No!" But it takes awhile to figure that out. As is so distressingly common, you will read several paragraphs which make it sound as if low dose aspirin had a protective effect on AMD, only to run up to this phrase,

"Though not statistically significant, the WHS risk reduction is similar to the result of the only other large randomized trial on this question..."

Why do people who are supposed to be reputable scientists get away with making statements like this? Not statistically significant means, "Even after we played all the games we could with these statistics we had to admit our results could easily be attributed to chance."

When reporting the association between statin use and an increased risk of AMD the chief researcher struggles to ignore her finding:

Dr. Maguire said several factors may be masking a protective effect for statins, the most important being that most patients who take statins for CVD are also at high risk for AMD. Only a randomized controlled trial could reveal statins' impact on AMD in the wider population, but since so many elderly people take statins it could be difficult to recruit a control group

She then suggests that maybe a longer study would find the protective effect she couldn't find.

But her whole comment reeks of the religious belief that statins must be good for people. In view of this, the last sentence is particularly disturbing as it tells us that despite the publication of study after study that fails to find benefits for most older people in taking statins, so many older people are now taking them that it is impossible to find a control group who do not.

This also means we will have a tough time linking any rise in "Age Related" blindness to these drugs if in fact statins are contributing to the rise.

And if that doesn't depress you enough, another study found that two different statins have a disturbing impact on several proteins associated with dementia.

Science Daily: Show Statins Show Dramatic Drug And Cell Dependent Effects In The Brain

Which discusses:

Differential effects of simvastatin and pravastatin on expression of Alzheimer's disease-related genes in human astrocytes and neuronal cells. Weijiang Dong et al. The Journal of Lipid Research, 2009; 50 (10): 2095 DOI: 10.1194/jlr.M900236-JLR200

You rarely hear about the finding that statins can cause dementia, sometimes irreversibly, because of the saturation marketing for these drugs that has doctors and patients alike completely brainwashed, but it is well documented. You can find the citations to that documentation HERE.

Antidepressants Don't Work Better Than Placebo for Most Of Those Who Get Them

Tragic news for those of you who are reading this blog because you became insulin resistant after taking an SSRI antidepressant is the convincing finding that for people with mild and moderate depression, these antidepressants are no more effective than a placebo--i.e. a sugar pill.

Before you protest that they helped you, I want to define "severe depression" which is the only kind of depression the studies find these drugs apparently can help. If you were able to get up in the morning, get out of bed, make it to work or school, no matter how sad you felt, you did not have severe depression. Severe depression is the kind that ends up causing people to need hospitalization. I've seen it and it's very different from the mild condition that is so common--and so profitable to the people who market SSRIs.

What this study demonstrates is that even though people might attribute feeling better to the drugs, there is no evidence the drugs did anything more than make them think they should feel better. So if the pills helped you, so would laying on of hands, a sprinkle of fairy dust, expensive guga-guga extract from far off Wabutuland, or anything else you believed would have magical powers.

When a large study shows something works no better than a placebo, it means that it is worthless. Unfortunately, these worthless SSRI drugs make people fat, increase their insulin resistance, and may be a factor contributing to the so-called "obesity epidemic." If you need a placebo, go with something harmless like acupuncture, or fairy dust. SSRIs have very bad side effects.

Antidepressant Drug Effects and Depression Severity Jay C. Fournier, et al. JAMA. 2010;303(1):47-53.

And along with that bad news we get the even worse news is that one out of eight people who go to a doctor for help with depression are now being prescribed one of the highly dangerous antipsychotic medications which are known, for a fact, to cause diabetes.

Science Daily: More U.S. Patients Receive Multiple Psychotropic Medications

Discussing:

National Trends in Psychotropic Medication Polypharmacy in Office-Based Psychiatry. Ramin Mojtabai; Mark Olfson. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 2010; 67 (1): 26-36

These drugs are meant for people who are hearing voices and are unable to function without them. For them, the choice of living with diabetes or schizophrenia may be an easy one. But the drug companies are marketing these powerful antipsychotics to family doctors who have no idea how to use them appropriately and they are producing a new generation of diabetics.

That's enough bad news for now. I'm going to have discuss the new marketing efforts being employed to convince doctors that weight loss surgery, despite its significant risk of death, is an appropriate cure for people with diabetes no matter what they weigh. But not yet.

 

The National Day of Repentance

It's that day again. The tree is down. The wrapping paper and party hats went out with the recycling. The supermarket has replaced the aisle full of candy canes with one of diet shakes because it's that time of year: Time to atone for all that self-indulgence. Time for the annual Super Bowl diet.

Why do I call it the Super Bowl diet? Because 98% of those who start dieting today will have given up their diets by the time they tune in to watch the annual Battle of the Behemoths. (For those of you in parts of the world deprived of the wonder that is the NFL, The Super Bowl takes place in early February.)

I like dieting this time of year because it is so easy. With so many people cutting back on their food there's a brief period when you are spared many of the temptations that social life provides. For a few weeks, people don't sneer if you suggest there must be somewhere healthier than the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. They don't bring donuts to departmental meetings. They don't invite you over for dinners filled with lovingly baked platters of things your metabolism can't handle.

But only for a few weeks. Then the rest of the world gets over their holiday-induced resolutions and life gets back to normal.

Except for us folk with diabetes. For whom food can NEVER get back to being normal.

As is always the case when I wander out into the wider world, over the past few weeks I ran into people who have other chronic diseases, and as always happens when I expand my circle of friends, I was reminded how lucky I am to have one of the few chronic diseases that does not doom me to slow, inexorable deterioration, and which unlike most chronic conditions, offers me the ability to control--by the dietary choices I make--how bad that disease is going to get.

My friends who have MS can eat whatever they want--which I would envy, except that they also wake up every morning wondering what function they might have lost overnight, and knowing that the only thing they can do is pray researchers will come up some treatment, some time, that will work.

There is no diet that will stop the progression of MS, or hereditary dementia, or COPD, or Lou Gehrig's disease or any of hundreds of other horrible conditions that prey upon our human bodies.

But diabetes is different. All I have to do to keep this disease process at bay is pass on the toast and home fries, the fudge and the muffins, and keep my carbohydrate consumption within the limits that insulin makes manageable.

Is it a pain to have to do this? Yes, but trust me, if you have to have a chronic condition, folks, diabetes is the one you want to have.

But as grateful as I am to have a condition I can influence with my dietary choices, I don't discount the effort it takes to do it, nor do I have anything but compassion for people who find it hard to exercise the control it takes to keep the complications at bay.

When you can't go off your diet come the Super Bowl, it is tough. There are hundreds of tips and tricks that most people with diabetes don't know about, because they don't know any other people with diabetes who are striving to avoid the complications. Doing it yourself is almost impossible, and it is not accidental that ALL the people I know who are in great shape a decade or more after their diabetes diagnoses are active online and discuss strategy and technique with others who are coping with the same challenges.

Online support can really help you get through all the days when you have to pass by all the food everyone else in the world can eat and you can't. It can help you on the days when you do everything right and still screw up.

I had that kind of day today myself. I'm on a new and oddball diet I'll describe in a future post. It allowed me to eat a nice lunch at a restaurant today. (I started it ten days ago). Unfortunately, my insulin cartridge seems to have died, perhaps thanks to having been carried around in my purse and getting exposed to too much cold. So though I covered my lunch with the amount of insulin that usually gives me normal blood sugars, I ended up at 216 mg/dl two hours after eating.

I felt like crap. I felt angry, because dammit I really do work at keeping my sugars under control and it sucks that it has to be so hard--especially as I have been eating very carefully for the last week. It wasn't like I'd eaten anything that awful at lunch either. I'd had a Chinese lunch with no egg roll, no chicken fingers, no wontons, no rice.

But that's how it is, and as that is the worst blood sugar I've had in a month, I'll be fine. Fortunately, I have my online friends who know what "216 at 2 hours" means and how crappy it feels. One of them might be able to tell me how to keep my insulin from going bad in the winter. This isn't the first time it's happened. I'm glad I've got those friends. If you are having trouble with your blood sugar control, finding a few of your own might really help.

You can find online diabetes support in many different web communities. They are all different, so you'll have to visit each one to see where you feel most at home. I've listed some of the communities you might want to check out on this page:

Finding Support Online

If you need help finding palatable foods to eat and other people who have managed to make a reduced carbohydrate diet work long term, check out the Low Carb Friends support board. Their recipe forum has lots of excellent recipes and ideas. There are quite a few people active on Low Carb Friends who can help you figure out what you can eat just about anywhere that won't raise your blood sugars. Some have diabetes, most don't, but all are committed to keeping the carbs under control.

If you know of other helpful online support environments for people with diabetes, let us know about them by posting in the comment section. Getting support this time, instead of trying to go it alone, may be what makes it possible to wake up next year at this time thinner, fitter, and with a much healthier A1c.

Let's all help each other make that happen!

 

Toxic Chemicals in New Cars

An article on MSNBC (www.msnbc.msn.com on 3.21.07) reported on the toxic fumes found in new cars.  Bromine and chlorine were the most common toxic elements reportedly found in automobiles.  These elements are found in the seats, armrests, door trim and shift knobs and other areas of the car.  Think about it, you spend perhaps two hours a day in your car, with the windows rolled up and little air circulating.  It is any wonder that I have seen many patients who feel that they can become ill from exposure to the fumes in a new car?  I refer to these patients as the ‘canaries’ of our population.  Many of these patients have to undergo detoxification in order to help them cleanse from toxic items.

Bromine and chlorine are members of the halide family.  The halides are a group of elements which includes iodine.  If we are exposed to excess amounts of one halide, it will cause our body to release other halides.  My research has clearly shown that we are exposed to too much bromine and chlorine.  These elements are found in many plastic products including computers, televisions, as well as other appliances.  In addition, bromine is a fire retardant found in carpet, clothing, mattresses and many other consumer items.  The consequence of this overexposure to toxic halides has been a depletion of iodine in our bodies.  The end result of too much bromine and chlorine and not enough iodine is poorly functioning immune and glandular systems.  I believe the high rates of thyroid disorders as well as cancer of the breast, ovary and prostate are directly related to the increasing exposure to toxic halides.   I describe this in more detail in my book, Iodine Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It, 4th Edition.

Ann is a patient of mine. I had diagnosed Ann with Hashimoto’s Disease approximately three years ago.  After we treated her thyroid problem she felt much better.  I treated Ann with a combination of dietary changes as well as vitamins and minerals.  She was also prescribed iodine.   Approximately one year later, Ann came to my office complaining that all of her thyroid symptoms were back.   “I feel like I am back to square one.  I am tired, my muscles hurt and brain fog is back,” she said. 

Ann, complained that her health began going downhill when she purchased a new car.  The car dealer would not believe that a new car could cause her health concerns.  Testing found Ann severely deficient in iodine (nearly zero levels) and toxic with bromine.   Previous testing found Ann’s iodine levels were near normal.  Ann was detoxified from bromine with a combination of Vitamin C, unrefined salt, iodine, and magnesium.  I also had her do salt baths.  As Ann’s bromine levels fell and her iodine levels elevated, she began to feel better.   About 1.5 years after starting therapy, Ann felt that she had regained her health.   In fact, her thyroid blood tests now returned to normal, without the use of thyroid hormone.   Ann said, “All of my symptoms have improved.  I can’t believe how much better I feel,” she said.  

More information about bromine toxicity can be found in my book, Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It, 4^th Edition. Furthermore, I devoted a whole newsletter (Dr.  Brownstein's Natural Way to Health) to bromine.  For more information on my newsletter please go to:  http://w3.newsmax.com/newsletters/brownstein/bromine.cfm?PROMO_CODE=8988-1

I have treated many patients for bromine toxicity.  In fact, it is the number one toxic element that I find in the majority of my patients.  Bromine toxicity can be treated with a combination of nutrients such as iodine and salt. 
One statement I would make to those who are ill with chemical sensitivities:  Don’t give up. You can overcome your illness by detoxifying and supporting the body’s normal physiologic function.   Detoxification can be accomplished safely and effectively with a variety of natural substances.  Appropriate pre- and post- testing can help guide the detoxification process.    

A Helpful Low Carb Food Product

Those of you who follow my postings know that I avoid most foods marketed as "low carb" and "sugar free" foods because they are so deceptively marketed. You have only to look at the latest fad food, Agave Nectar, to see the extent to which food companies will pervert science to make a buck.

Agave Nectar is sold as being good for diabetics because it doesn't raise blood sugar. What they don't tell you is that it doesn't raise blood sugar because it is full of fructose which goes directly to the liver after you eat it and turns into the intracellular liver fat that turns out to be a major cause of insulin resistance.

But I'm writing now to report on a low carb food that turns out to live up to the claims made for it, one that may be very helpful to many of us who are trying to keep carbs low.




The food is the modified wheat flour sold in the form of Carbalose flour and Carbquik Baking Mix. The latter is a biscuit mix similar to Bisquik. You can see the nutritional information for it posted on the Netrition.com site: Carbquik Nutritional Information.

I had been aware of these for years, as they are cited in many low carb recipes, but I avoided them as they used to contain soy protein and I don't eat soy protein because it has the ability to damage the lining of the gut allowing proteins into the blood stream where they provoke antibody formation and autoimmune attack.

But it turns out that Tova, the manufacturer has removed the soy protein from these products, and the only soy in them is a small amount of soy fiber, which I can handle.

I've been using these products for a month and am happy to report that they work as advertised. They have about 6 grams of carb per cup after deducting fiber and I have found no reason NOT to deduct the fiber as my blood sugar responds to these flours as if they did have 2 g per 1/3 cup serving.

The Carbquik makes a great Belgian waffle. It was nice to get out my dusty waffle maker and rediscover a great breakfast. Here's the "quick and dirty" recipe I use for 1 serving:

1/3 cup Carbquik
water sufficient to make the batter look like waffle batter (thick but pourable)
1 egg
1 pat butter, melted

Stir up ingredients in order listed and pour onto your waffle iron. I top it with Vermont brand sugar free syrup (about 2 g of sorbitol) and defrosted frozen berries.

When it was time to do my holiday baking, I made two loaves of pumpkin bread, one with regular flour and one with Carbalose flour. The recipes were identical, which meant that I used regular sugar. This is because I wanted to know what changes the flour made that were independent of replacing the sugar with artificial sweetener. I doubled the baking soda as instructed by the Carbalose label.

The result was a loaf that was denser and moister than the flour version but most definitely a bread and quite delicious. The Carbalose loaf was also sweeter than it needed to be, which suggested that I could probably have made it with a lot less sugar. This was a lower carb food you could serve to people who loathe "diet" foods without hearing a word of complaint.

Even with the sugar left in, cutting out the flour made the pumpkin bread a lot kinder to my blood sugar than the unmodified version which is so full of carbs that even with insulin it tends to make me feel groggy.

Now that I know that the Carbalose flour replaces regular flour well, I will try it in some other baked goods and see what happens when I combine it with artificial sweeteners. I would not use it for a recipe that needs to be light and fluffy but it works well for moister things.

I also made biscuits using just Carbquik and water. They were a bit denser than regular biscuits but quite edible.

The product looks expensive, but you are buying Industrial-sized boxes and bags that should last you awhile. The 3 lb Carbquik box is surprisingly large and I still have about half of it left after making at least 20 single serving recipes.

I bought mine from Netrition because they host the very useful Low Carb Friends forum filled with helpful people who know a great deal about how to cut carbs and eat enjoyably. Their shipping is a flat rate of $5 no matter what you buy, so it is worth including some of the many flavors of DaVinci Sugar Free Syrup they carry in your order if that is something you use.

As far as how suitable these products might be for people dieting for weight loss, I am happy to report that I have actually lost a pound or so since I started eating the Carbquik waffles for breakfast. The high fiber content leads to a feeling of fullness. It's worth noting that as is the case with all high fiber foods too much can lead to gas, so I limit myself to one serving a day, which works well for me. Two was too much. But I did not experience any hunger or cravings after adding these products to my diet.

These products do contain gluten, so if you are gluten intolerant, they aren't for you. I am not wheat-phobic as are some people in the online health research community, as I believe it is the carbs in flour that cause the health problems attributed to wheat not anything specific to wheat except in the case of people autoimmune disease who are likely to have true gluten intolerance. But gluten should not be an issue for people who avoid soy and who do not have the inherited genetic profile that leads to gluten intolerance.

 

Beware of Contaminated Supplements

Ginger is a good herb, right?  Good for many things including helping prevent motion sickness and improving digestion.  Where do we get our ginger from?  Nearly 78% of the ginger imported to the U.S. comes from China.  In 2006, 53.8 million pounds of ginger was imported from China.

Investigators in California found that ginger, imported from China, was contaminated with a dangerous pesticide—aldicarb sulfoxide.  Symptoms of adicarb poisoning include nausea, headaches, blurred vision, muscle spasms and difficulty breathing.  High doses of the chemical can be fatal.[i]  The U.S. EPA has not approved the use of aldicarb sulfoxide for use on ginger.  After discovering the contaminated ginger, California Department of Public Health ordered a recall of the tainted product. 

If that were the end of the story, it would not be so bad.  However, ginger is used in many products including soups and frozen meals.  Companies may unknowingly buy the tainted ginger and use it in the manufacturing of their products. 

So, should we just avoid ginger?  No, ginger, properly grown and used is a healthy and safe product.  The problem is the quality control of items made/grown in China.  There have been a slew of reports of contaminated items from China including kitchenware, children’s toys and lunchboxes.  

Approximately one month ago,  a sales representative from a vitamin company came to our office.  She wanted me (and my partners) to use her supplements.   The supplements she was detailing were mostly Chinese herbs, from China.   Due to all the negative articles about items made/grown in China, I was skeptical. I asked her if the items were pure.  She said, “Our Company would not sell anything that was not pure.  We have checked these products. “  I was not reassured by her statements when we received her company’s analysis of the different products.  The analysis showed no variation in the different products.  In other words, all of the toxicity reports were exactly the same—essentially zero. 

I had my nurse send out samples of many of the products to a lab that does heavy metal testing.  Our results showed that many of these products were contaminated with lead and other heavy metals.    When we called the company to report our findings, they were not happy with the results.  They questioned our testing and said they would do further testing.   To date, we have not received any of their testing results.

The take home message is to beware of what you are purchasing.  You should only use companies that have a reliable track record.  These companies should be able to provide certificates demonstrating that their products are safe.  I have been testing nutritional supplements for years.  I am continually amazed by the results.  Many items contain toxic elements.  We have not tested all of the supplements that we use in our office, but, we have tested a substantial number of them.  If a product tests for a contaminated substance or does not meet the amounts of nutrients stated on the label, I will not use that product or any products from that company.    

Due to all the bad press out there, at the present time, I would suggest not using any supplements derived from China unless the product has been analyzed.    Unfortunately, sometimes it is hard to find out where the raw ingredients come from.  The best results are to rely on a reputable company that will provide you with an analysis of a product when you request one.   There are many good supplement companies out there.  However, there are many that are not the best. 

The take home message is to get the best result, work with a health care provider knowledgeable about natural therapies.  Ask where the ingredients come from.  Ask if the company will provide certificates of analysis.  If you don’t get the answers to these questions that you would like, then it may be time to search for a new supplement company.

---

[i] WSJ.  11.19.07