True Food: A Love Poem

July 3, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , , ,

As headlines swirl and climates whirl
And Wall Street finds its feet
There’s one refrain that doesn’t change
“Mommy, what’s there to eat?”

Well listen child, I’ll tell you what,
That’s no small query there.
Come over here, and sit right down,
In fact, pull up a chair.

Your question, dear one, though you ask,
With all good heart intended,
Is fraught with complications that
Aren’t often comprehended.

What we call ‘food’ is not the same
As what our grandmas ate.
Would she have had yellow 5 & 6
On her child’s dinner plate?

What about ‘acesulfame potassium’?
Can you pronounce that, love?
Did grandmother have a jar of that
In her cupboards up above?

What would she think of all these things
You children eat today?
Perhaps she’d bow her gentle head
And just begin to pray…..

But since she is no longer here,
It is up to you and me,
To be the ones who will inspire
Her “true food” legacy.

Perhaps as we begin this quest,
We might ‘cut the colors’ first?
Or try to avoid things we can’t pronounce?
Tell me, which do you think is worse?

You see, my little one, in our hands,
In our minds and in our hearts,
We have the ability to affect remarkable change
So, love, where should we start?

Written by Robyn O’Brien, July 3, 2009

Though your time is precious, I invite you to learn more about the Grandmother Theory and “true food” in The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It.

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Kids Safe Chemical Act: The Chemical Industry Takes On the Mommy Lobby

June 29, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

As headlines swirl, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the nation’s food safety laws have an eerie similarity to the federal approach to safe guarding our citizens from exposure to toxic chemicals and toxic financial assets. If our federal aviation system were to adhere to the same loose, deregulated standards that we are now seeing in the chemical industry, the financial industry and the food industry, we’d be allowed to board airliners without first being checked for bombs, guns, knives, or any other objects designed to harm passengers and the crew.

That said, legislation will soon be introduced in the House and Senate that if it becomes law will protect every single American, including babies not yet born from a life of daily contamination to a host of toxic chemicals, some of which are extremely potent at even low doses.

New Jersey’s senior Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D), a kind hearted senior Senator with ten grandchildren who I had the honor of meeting last month in Washington, DC, and Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush (D) are poised to offer a landmark reform plan – The Kid-Safe Chemicals Act – to fix the failed federal toxics law that instead of protecting humans and the environment from the dangers of chemical exposures, has in fact allowed an entire population of people to become polluted, beginning in the womb.

The Kids Safe Chemical Act addresses the fact that back in 1976, with the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), legislation was approved that allowed over 60,000 chemicals in existence at that time to be deemed ’safe’ for use without a single thorough test to prove that to be true. And in the three-plus decades since the law was passed, and additional 20,000 chemicals have been rushed into the marketplace with little or no safety tests.

Today, 1 in 3 American children has allergies, ADHD, autism or asthma, with the Centers and Disease Control recently reporting stunning increases in the number of children expected to be insulin dependent by the time they reach adulthood. With 17.6% of our GDP being consumed by health costs, there is an urgent need to address the health of our children and the impact that this generation of children is having on our country, our families and our health care system.

The Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, or Kid-Safe, would help protect the health of the American children by placing the burden of proof on the chemical industry, requiring manufacturers to first prove a chemical is actually safe before it’s allowed into a consumer product. Currently, all of these chemicals are allowed into the marketplace until they are proven dangerous.

As I highlighted in a recent presentation in Atlanta, the American Cancer Society reports that the United States has the highest rates of cancer of any country in the world and that migration studies show that if someone is to move here from a country like Japan, their likelihood of developing cancer increases fourfold, which chemicals should they test first? Why not start with those founding people, particularly babies.

Readers can learn more about the Kid-Safe legislation, its amazing efforts to improve the health of our children and even join in the discussion as scientists, researchers, lawmakers, policy analysts and journalists interested chemicals policy reform engage in an online back-in-forth at this new site hosted by my friend and heroes at the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

As has been repeatedly demonstrated over the last several months, our system has some pretty significant shortcomings so a strong grassroots contingent of committed individuals will be key in order to deliver legislation to President Obama.

The chemical industry’s lobbyists, a group worthy of a John Grisham novel, as I highlight in my book The Unhealthy Truth, have and will continue to spend millions to defeat any real reform efforts, and are gearing up for battle at the very moment.

As a matter of fact, The Washington Post recently revealed that the chemical industry lobbyists recently joined forces with the food and beverage industry at a secret meeting to develop a plot based on “fear tactics” to put the breaks on plans to mildly restrict the use of just a single chemical, BPA. At this point, they may be enlisting the help of one of the most infamous players in the lobbying game, a man who has earned the nickname of “Dr. Evil.”

But these industry funded folks may not realize what they are up against. We are mothers, fathers, creators and nurturers. We are teachers, lawyers, accountants and writers. And our children’s futures rest in our resiliently remarkable hands. We are soundly educated, compassionately connected and have been given the tools through this remarkable legislation to affect change.

As a mother of four, with a background in finance, I am profoundly grateful for the Kids Safe Chemical Act and invite you to learn more about this important legislation and to participate in affecting this extraordinary change for our children.

The opportunity is tremendous. The adventure is ours for the taking.

If we each take action, together we can begin to restore the integrity that is now lacking in our system. We can create a ripple of hope whose force is more powerful than any one of us could achieve individually, and Dr. Evil and his gang of lobbyists won’t stand a chance!

To learn more, I invite you to visit www.ewg.org and www.robynobrien.com.

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The Burden of Health Care Costs and What We Can Do About It

June 22, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

Maggie Fox’s poignant Reuters’ article today, Americans Struggle to Pay HealthCare Costs, is compelling and speaks to the urgent need to help Americans care for their health (true “health care”) with higher standards and increased funding at the FDA and personal measures like diet and nutrition.

The article is especially powerful in that it comes on the heels of the studies out of Harvard showing a 55% increase in medical related bankruptcies since 2001 (to be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Medicine) and studies showing that almost half of Americans now suffer from at least one chronic disease (RAND Corporation).

In subsequent studies, it would be interesting to include questions that speak directly to the healthcare costs associated with children under the age of ten (who are quickly earning the title “Generation Rx” as I highlight in my book on page 186).
• What percent of health care spending do these children represent in the family’s budget?
• What percent is visits to specialists?
• What percent is on prescriptive drugs?

And to follow asking about willingness to implement slight diet modifications in an effort to reduce these expenditures.

Unfortunately, in our commercialized health care system, there is little incentive to implement preventative measures at the precautionary level at the FDA, given the profitability to be found in illness and the prescriptions that surround it.

However, there is a lot that can be done on the personal level, given this failed federal policy and flawed incentive structure which favors prescription over prevention.

Is it worth implementing a few of these changes in your own home?

In the words of Sarah Palin, “You betcha!”

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A Sneak Peak at Our Book: The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It

April 29, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , ,

As many of you know, we are about to celebrate the launch of our book, The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It.

Random House is publishing The Unhealthy Truth on May 5th and describes it as a “first person story as shocking as it is inspirational that reveals the dangerous manipulation of the American food supply and its impact on the American children.” And as a mother of four with limited time and resources, I may not have gotten all of the details right on this blog over the last few years, but you can bet, with the help of my team at Random House, that the details in the book have been vetted by scientists and attorneys.

So I invite you to learn more about The Unhealthy Truth right here on the book’s new site , as knowledge is power, transparency is critical and attitude is everything. And I look forward to working with you to inspire remarkable change in our food system, for our health and the health of our children.

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Promise in the Pipeline: The Patented Peanut Protein

March 16, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , ,

NOTE: On April 24,2009, the following comment was submitted about this article from a Research Associate at Duke University which employs Dr.  Wesley Burks:

“The oral immunotherapy is done with peanut flour from peanuts grown and processed, not synthetically produced in a lab. it is a defatted flour which increases the protein (allergen) content.  the patents that dr burks has are for a completely different study.  these have not been tested in humans yet.”

Over the weekend, headlines rocked the food allergy world that a cure for the peanut allergy was in the pipeline.

The Centers for Disease Control recently reported a 265% increase in the number of hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions, highlighting the urgent need to address the health risks and health spending associated with this life threatening condition, and today Dr. Wesley Burks of Duke University was ushered onto the media stage with a hero’s welcome as he promised the “possibility of a cure” within the next few years.

In a study paid for in part by the Gerber Foundation and the Robins Family Foundation (founded by A.H. Robins whose drug and medical device company filed for bankruptcy in the 1908s due to mass litigation over the Dalkon Shield, a faulty IUD product, distributed by Robins who “in a rush to beat competitors purchased the Dalkon Shield without conducting any meaningful independent research on the new IUD, which was marketed by investors as the best contraceptive device on the market”), 33 children were given daily doses of a synthetically derived peanut powder.

According to Dr. Burks’ press release from Duke University, four children tolerated the treatment so well that they are now able to consume peanuts. However, according to an insightful piece by Tara Parker Pope in the New York Times, four children had such severe reactions to the treatment that they had to drop out of the study.

In the $17 million study, a peanut powder derived and engineered in a laboratory by Wesley A. Burks and a handful of doctors is fed to children under strict medical supervision.

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Burks et al. (Hugh Sampson, Monsanto’s Gary Bannon and others) are listed as inventors on US Patent 6486311 – Peanut allergens and methods issued in November 2002. Burks’ invention is being tested on children after approval for this study was obtained from the Human Use Advisory Committee at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

According to filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the “peanuts” being used in some of Burks’ tests are derived in the laboratory using the following method:

“Three commercial lots of Southeastern Runners peanuts (Arachis hypogaea), medium grade, from the 1979 crop (North Carolina State University) were used in this study. The peanuts were stored in the freezer at -18° C. until they were roasted. The three lots were combined in equal proportions and blended before defatting. The defatting process (defatted with hexane after roasting for 13 to 16 minutes at 163° C. to 177° C.) was done in the laboratory of Dr. Clyde Young (North Carolina State University). The powdered crude peanut was extracted in 1 mol/L NaCl, 20 mmol/L sodium phosphate (pH 7.0)1 and 8 mol/L urea for 4 hours at 4° C. The extract was clarified by centrifugation at 20,000 g for 60 minutes at 4° C. The total protein determination was done by the bicinchoninic acid method (Pierce Laboratories, Rockville, Ill.).”

Since these “peanuts” hardly resemble the peanuts that we have in our kitchens, blood samples of those being tested were “prepared” to receive the “peanut” in the following way:

The serum pool and patient serum samples were diluted (1:20 vol/vol) and dispensed into individual wells in the lower portion of the plate. After incubation for 1 hour at 37° C. and washing, biotinylated, affinity-purified goat anti-human IgE (KPL, Gaithersburg, Md.) (1:1000 vol/vol bovine serum albumin) was added to all wells. Plates were incubated for 1 hour at 37° C. and washed, and 100 μl horseradish peroxidase-avidin conjugate (Vector Laboratories, Burlingame, Calif.) was added for 5 minutes. After washing, the plates were developed by the addition of a citrate buffer containing O-phenylenediamine (Sigma Chemical Co.). The reaction was stopped by the addition of 100 μl 2N hydrochloric acid to each well, and absorbance was read at 490 nm (Bio-Rad Microplate reader model 450; Bio-Rad Laboratories Diagnostic Group, Hercules, Calif.).

In the current headlines, it is unclear if the Burks’ studies refer to this patented invention (assigned to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the University of Arkansas) or to a more recent invention by Burks et al., US Patent 6835824 – Peanut allergens and methods, issued in December of 2004 that does not disclose the assignee of the invention to whom the financial rewards and royalties would accrue which is interesting should the patent prove lucrative as a vaccine or for the invention’s intended uses in the market place as outlined by Burks et al. below:

“The principle object of the present invention is the provision of a monoclonal antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for peanut allergen. Another object of the present invention is the isolation and purification of peanut allergens. A still further object of the present invention is the provision of peanut allergen antigens and monoclonal antibodies having specificity for a selected peanut allergen antigen. Yet another object of the present invention is the provision of hybridomas which produce monoclonal antibodies specific for peanut allergen.

Still yet another object of the present invention is the provision of a two-site monoclonal antibody based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay that can be used to detect and determine the concentration of a specific peanut allergen such as Ara h I in a food product or food processing and producing equipment or materials.

Another object of the present invention is the provision of a process for producing monoclonal antibodies specific to a selected peanut allergen, hybridoma cell lines which produce such monoclonal antibodies, and an immunoassay which utilizes the monoclonal antibodies for detecting the presence and concentration of a selected peanut allergen. And, still yet another object of the present invention is the provision of a monoclonal antibody based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay which does not contain human blood derivatives or radioactively labeled antibodies.”

Given that the Centers for Disease Control recently reported a 265% increase in the number of hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions, there is an urgent need to address the health risks and health spending associated with this life threatening condition and Burks’ (patented?) invention deserves the accolades that it is receiving.

However, as these doctors, industry funded scientists and researchers engage 33 of our children in a study in which four children successfully built up immunity while four children had to drop out due to extreme allergic reactions to these synthetically derived “peanuts” (while this was not disclosed in Dr. Burks’ press release out of Duke University , it was responsibly revealed in the New York Times), it would be beneficial to learn what the long term consequences might be of exposing our children to these synthetic proteins in the form of food products or a vaccine and if any consideration or analysis has been given to these consequences?

Just as the novel milk protein, rBGH, introduced into our milk supply as a pharmaceutical injection back in 1994 before being fully evaluated for long term health consequences (elevated IGF-1 levels that have been linked to breast, prostate and colon cancers) has resulted in a revision to the rBGH position statement by the American Cancer Society, perhaps, as these doctors bring their inventions to market, we should consider the health implications, liabilities and costs associated with exposing our children to yet another novel protein and synthetic substance before the long term health consequences have been evaluated.

And as beneficial as this (patented?) “cure” may initially seem to children, their families, the food industry and vaccine manufacturers, it would be interesting to see the cost-benefit analysis and the evaluation that Burks et al. conducted on the liabilities associated with his invention.

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Duped: A Nation of Eaters

February 4, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

We are a nation of 300 million eaters.

And anyone that eats can attest to the utter confusion that our food supply has become. As headlines swirl about beef recalls large enough to feed every American two hamburgers, baby formula laced with melamine, and controversial additives used to preserve processed foods, eaters can’t help but yearn for the days when all we had to worry about was contaminated spinach.

To be candid, I was never much of a foodie. When I heard about Michael Pollan’s PBS Interview with Bill Moyers, I couldn’t relate when he said that his “path was through the garden“. My path was through the aisles at Costco and the tubes of blue yogurt, since I saw the organic thing as a lifestyle choice that I couldn’t afford.

But as 2008 headlines exposed our tainted financial system, stories followed about our tainted food supply. As I read about baby formulas and jars of salsa laced with who-knows-what, I was left slack-jawed as I learned that the financial industry wasn’t the only industry that had experienced deregulation, lack of transparency and failed oversight.

In the last eight years, the Food and Drug Administration, charged with safeguarding the health of our nation’s 300 million eaters, has not only seen its budget decline but has also seen its staffing levels fall behind its workload.

From 2003 to 2006, the number of food safety inspections conducted by the agency dropped by 47 percent, leading its own Science Board, chaired by Barbara McNeil, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Department of Health Policy at Harvard Medical School and a radiologist at the Brigham and Women’s in Boston, to declare that the agency could “no longer fulfill its mission without substantial and sustained additional appropriations.”

In “an alarming report,” the New York Times stated that the FDA had also declared that “American lives at risk” and that the FDA lacks resources and “can no longer ensure the safety of the food supply.”

And I thought all I had to worry about was the declining stock market and sick kids.

As I dug into additional research from organizations like the Cato Institute, the Environmental Working Group and the Royal Society of Chemistry, I learned that a lot of the scientific data highlighted in the press has been funded by the food industry and propagated by groups with legitimate sounding names like the American Council on Science and Health. I also learned that in the last ten years, our food supply had been chemically engineered in order to enhance product shelf life, productivity and profitability of food corporations.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States is the world’s largest corporate producer of genetically engineered organisms. Since the introduction of these bio-engineered ingredients into our food just over ten years ago, we are also one of the only developed countries allowing these ingredients into our food supply (stats from USDA/ERS: Rapid growth of adoption of genetically engineered crops continues in the US).

As I continued to learn more from the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, I also learned that no human trials had been conducted to assess the safety of consuming these genetically modified and bio-engineered foods, prompting government agencies around the world – from Europe to Russia to Australia – to either ban or label these ingredients due to the health risks that they may present.

Through documentaries like The Future of Food and a May 2008 Vanity Fair investigative story , which detail the remarkable relationship that the agrichemical, food corporations have with our government, I learned about a “revolving door” that exists between the food industry and our government agencies. Candidly, the stories read much like a James Bond movie or George Clooney’s Michael Clayton and reminded me of a recent New York Times piece titled “The Guys From Government Sachs” about the “revolving door” between the investment banking industry and our government.

As I struggled to reconcile what I was learning about these corporations, their profit-driven strategies, our government and the global food crisis, I was fascinated by an article by Michael Pollan, “Playing God in the Garden” and a recent Catholic News document from the Vatican stating that “the responsibility for the food crisis “is in the hands of unscrupulous people who focus only on profit and certainly not on the well-being of all people. If one wants to pursue GMOs (genetically modified organisms) one can freely do so, but without hiding that it’s a way to make more profits” given that “a more just system of distribution and not the manufacturing of genetically modified foods is the key to addressing the problem.”

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Money and Investing section, one of these corporations has recently seen their stock price rise 170 percent.

As the Vatican cries “moral foul”, is this a signal that there’s more fire than smoke on the horizon? We will have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I may listen to a few earnings’ calls as evidence continues to mount regarding health risks like infertility that these bio-engineered foods present. I may also clean out my cabinets in an effort to reduce my family’s exposure to these genetically engineered organisms now found in conventional corn, soy and milk in the United States.

And as I do, I will reflect on the headlines of 2008, The Audacity of Greed, and the impact that the corporations, lobbyists and bankers spinning through the “revolving door” have on our policy decisions, while the theme song from Donald Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice, runs through my head:

“Money, Money, Money, Mon-ey, MON-EY!”

To learn more about Food Politics, please visit: www.foodpolitics.com, FOOD POLITICS at www.allergykids.com, or the Environmental Working Group at www.ewg.org

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Heavy Metal In Our Daily Bread

February 2, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , ,

As Pfizer swallowed Wyeth and Bank of America started belching up Merrill Lynch, you just might have missed the heartburn-inducing headline of the year: heavy metal has been found in our daily bread.

According to a report in Environmental Health by a former FDA scientist and whistleblower, the heavy metal, mercury, “a potent neurological toxin” removed from vaccines due to concerns that it “is a danger to unborn children whose developing brains can be damaged if they are exposed to low dose micrograms exposures in the womb”, has now found its way into your kitchen cupboards, your fridge, your mouths and your bellies.

Talk about a “fly in your soup” kind of news!

You just might be thinking, “How in the world did mercury get into our food supply?”

Funny you should ask. According to a must-read report in Environmental Health, Mercury in Measured Concentrations in Food Products by Renee Dufault’s team, mercury is used in thousands of food ingredients such as citric acid, sodium benzoate and high fructose corn syrup.

Little did we know!

According to the report, the EPA learned this in 2003 when it reported that “tons of mercury were missing”. Shortly thereafter, an employee at the EPA tipped off someone at the FDA to investigate a corporation called “Vulcan Chemicals.” The FDA’s Environmental Health Officer (glad to know we have one) then decided to conduct an investigation of Vulcan Chemical’s “mercury balance sheet” in an attempt to locate the missing neurological toxin.

Did John Grisham write this?! You couldn’t make this stuff up!

Not only did they locate the missing neurological toxin (phew!), but Dufault’s team learned that “mercury grade caustic soda and hydrochloric acid are primarily used by the high fructose corn syrup industry” to “stabilize food products enhance product shelf life”.

“Stabilize food products and enhance product shelf life”? Translation: mercury is good for business.

But neurological toxins in the high fructose corn syrup in our food?

What about those commercials running on TV telling us that high fructose corn syrup is “natural”?

In case you missed them, “back in June, the Corn Refiners Association embarked on what the Wall Street Journal described as an 18-month, $20-30 million campaign to “rehabilitate the reputation of the longtime sweetener.” The blitz includes full-page ads in more than a dozen newspapers and prime-time television spots.”

I wonder if those actors read Dufault’s report that states that several chemicals are required to make HFCS, including caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, alha-amylase, gluco-amylase, isomerase, filter aid, powdered carbon, calcium chloride, and magnesium sulfate?

Heaven help us all.

Given the remarkable influence that the corn industry has on everything from bailouts, to ethanol policy, to lobbying efforts that were set in place in the 1970s with the informal public-private partnership between grain-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland and the federal government, I sure hope that Obama isn’t too distracted by economic bailouts or the fact that Illinois based ADM is the “supermarket to the world” with 2008 revenues of $70 billion to address this issue.

And even if he is distracted or only sees the inevitable industry-funded response likely to hit (perhaps a ’shock and awe’ headline about Canadian bird flu, melamine scandals in China, or a likely response by the corn industry claiming that the amounts reported in the study are “negligible”), I hope that Michelle will give him one of those discerning looks, then cue Malia to load her dad’s iPod with some heavy metal and have Sasha belt out “Pour Some Sugar On Me!”
Maybe it’s time that “we put aside childish things” and get this “natural” sweetener out of our food supply like other developed countries have. What do you think?!

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“We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For”

December 30, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Whoah. What just happened? Does the end of this year at all resemble what we thought we knew twelve months ago?

As I reflect on 2008, it seems as though the world as we knew it redefined itself. As the stock market fell, heroes like Michael Phelps and Dara Torres inspired us, as new players like Sarah Palin, Rachel Maddox, and Rick Warren emerged on the scenes. And while headlines told us about toxicity in our financial system, our food supply and our politicians, comedians kept us laughing when we otherwise might have cried.

Somehow we survived it all: the downturns, the corporate scandals and the crises. And we survived with our hope, faith and dreams still in tact. Because that is who we are.

We are mothers, fathers, inspirers, creators, nurturers, and care givers. We are teachers, lawyers, accountants, nurses and writers. And the future rests in our resiliently remarkable hands.

We are soundly educated, compassionately connected and have been given the tools to affect the change that is now required to restore the world to one worthy of our children’s inheritance.

The opportunity is tremendous. The adventure is ours for the taking, and the calling is that of our children’s voices asking us to use our hearts and our minds to return the world to one that they deserve.

Yet as the world as we know it changes, we must not be daunted by the enormity of the task at hand. But rather, we should collectively engage our passions, our hearts and our minds and collaborate on how we can each take one tiny step forward, just as our children first learned to do as toddlers.

Together, if we each do our part, we can restore the integrity that is now lacking in our system, our food supply, our banks and our government. And through these small courageous acts, we could create a ripple of hope whose force is more powerful than any one of us could achieve individually.

What steps can we take? Cutting back on a digital cable package in order to buy more fruits and veggies? Reducing the artificial colors in your child’s diet? Switching out just one conventional lightbulb for a compact fluorescent lightbulb since they last ten times longer?

Perhaps it is carpooling with a friend, reaching out to a local Congressman or serving on the nutrition board at your child’s school.

As we stand together, with our children’s hands in ours, can you imagine the collective strength of what we could achieve if we each took just one step forward?

In the words of poet June Jordan, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

And as I look into the eyes of our children, we are the ones that they have been waiting for, too.

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Jaw-Dropping 300 Percent Increase in Food Allergy Hospitalizations

October 22, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

The Associated Press reported today that there has indeed been an increase in food allergies in the last ten years (though any preschool teacher, parent or caregiver could have told you the same thing!).  

According to the Center for Disease Control, today it is now estimated that at least 3 million American children suffer from food allergies, though AllergyKids questions how the study was conducted and its impact on underestimating the scope of the problem: 

“The CDC results came from an in-person, door-to-door survey in 2007 of the households of 9,500 U.S. children under age 18.

When asked if a child in the house had any kind of food allergy in the previous 12 months, about 4 percent said yes. The parents were not asked if a doctor had made the diagnosis, and no medical records were checked. Some parents may not know the difference between immune system-based food allergies and digestive disorders like lactose intolerance, so it’s possible the study’s findings are a bit off.”

Perhaps a more accurate assessment can be gleaned from the CDC report and the jaw-dropping number of hospitalizations resulting from food allergic reactions over this same time period:

“The study also found that the number of children hospitalized for food allergies was up. The number of hospital discharges jumped from about 2,600 a year in the late 1990s to more than 9,500 annually in recent years, the CDC results showed.”

An increase from 2,600 to 9,500 suggests an increase of almost 300%.  Is this estimate a more accurate reflection of the growing epidemic?  And what burden will this present not only to our children, but to our schools, our health care system and our economy as a whole?

The first step on the road to healing: admitting we have a problem.

Houston, we have a problem.

 

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Does High Fructose Corn Syrup Make You Fat?

October 9, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , , ,

Since the introduction of High Fructose Corn Syrup in the late 1970s and its widespread adoption by Coke and Pepsi in 1984, it has become the preferred sweetener for many food manufacturers, mostly because it is cheap (especially when made with government-subsidized corn, as is unfortunately the case in the U.S.).

 

Given the recent increase in the number of children (and adults) with a corn allergy, AllergyKids would like to highlight this recent article from one of our health heroes, Dr. Andrew Weil. 

 

Does High Fructose Corn Syrup Make You Fat?

 

“High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is made of roughly 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Since its introduction in the late 1970s, it has become the preferred sweetener for many food manufacturers, mostly because it is cheap (especially when made with government-subsidized corn, as is unfortunately the case in the U.S.).

 

Now, new research from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centers shows what many have long suspected: our bodies make fat from fructose more readily than from other kinds of sugar. In the research, published in the Journal of Nutrition, six healthy individuals went through three tests: one in which they drank 100 percent glucose, another with half glucose and half fructose, and a third with 25 percent glucose and 75 percent fructose. The tests were random and double-blind, and the subjects ate a regular lunch about four hours later.

 

The researchers found that lipogenesis, the process by which sugars are turned into body fat, increased significantly when as little as half the glucose was replaced with fructose. Fructose given at breakfast also changed the way the body handled the food eaten at lunch. After fructose consumption, the liver increased the storage of lunch fats that might have been used for other purposes.

 

Of course, HFCS isn’t the sole cause of the obesity epidemic, but it is certainly a major offender.

 

Regardless of what the new industry commercials say about its being natural, one of the best dietary decisions you can make is to eliminate it from your diet. Not only does HFCS boost fat storage, but it also serves as a “marker”: any food that contains it is likely overprocessed and full of cheap, unhealthy, unnatural ingredients. Stick with natural sweeteners such as honey or maple syrup and use them in moderation – or better yet, retrain your taste buds to appreciate the subtle sweetness of fresh fruit. While fruit contains a small amount of natural fructose, the bulk, fiber and relatively low sugar density of the fruit’s flesh minimizes the lipogenesis potential.”

 

To learn more about ways to protect your family from artificial and synthetic ingredients now found in the American food supply, please watch AllergyKids’ appearance on Good Morning America or visit www.allergykids.com and www.drweil.com. 

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