More Heavy Metal – but not Music

The following is from Science News, April 16, 2005, Vol.167, No.16, p.254, Biochemistry

Blood Hints at Autism’s Source

Researchers have identified a biochemical peculiarity in the blood of autistic children. The scientists say the finding could lead to earlier diagnosis of this neurological disorder and a better understanding of how certain genes may drive it. (While this might be gene-driven, why do we always fall back on that when there is an easier environmental cause? Read on.)

Autism, which typically shows up in toddlers, is characterized by limited language skills, poor social interaction, repetitive behaviors, and limited interests. (Sounds like Congress.J) Autism often runs in families, which suggests a genetic cause. (Suggests? You don’t know? Then how about being more open to other possible causes?)

However, “The incidence of autism has gone up dramatically in the last 15 years,” notes S. Jill James, director of biochemical genetics at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. “Because genes don’t change that fast, this points to something in the environment as a trigger,” she says. (And the answer is… I wonder that they use the word “environment” here, then still fall back later to genetics. Is that a job protection mechanism?)

In a study of the blood of some apparently healthy children, the biochemistry of one sample stood out. It came from an autistic boy. Curious, James got blood samples from 20 other autistic children. All exhibited a similar, unusual biochemical fingerprint, which James has now confirmed in an additional 75 autistic children. None in a comparison group of 75 neurologically healthy kids carried the fingerprint in his or her blood.

The autistic youngsters have unusually low concentrations of the antioxidant glutathione in their cells. Their ratio of active glutathione to its inactive breakdown products also was unusually low. (Glutathione is an antioxidant and antitoxin that supposedly has the ability to boost the immune system and fight off the damage of free radicals to the cells.)

“This pattern is consistent with an inability to detoxify [poisons], especially heavy metals,” such as mercury or lead, James says. That’s because the antioxidant normally binds to heavy metals, and the body then targets the molecular complex for elimination. (Then how about we start the “cure” by not feeding our children heavy metal-laden foods? Don’t give them canned milk substitutes, mercury-filled fish, stop getting needless flu vaccinations, etc. Beef up their immune systems with good foods and exercise, etc.)

Any of several combinations of genes may predispose the body to low glutathione concentrations. James suspects that autism develops under the combined effect of several gene mutations that deplete glutathione and of exposure of a child to heavy metals or other poisons. One of the most controversial theories about autism is that vaccines preserved with the mercury-containing chemical Thimerosal can cause the condition (SN: 11/13/04, p.311). (Occam’s Razor suggests that, all else being equal, the simpler explanation is likely the right one. Decreased levels of glutathione can be brought about by continual stress upon the immune system. In children, that is not likely to be high-pressure jobs. What else will stress the immune system? Bad diet and moldy homes. What family-oriented environmental issues can often be misperceived as genetic traits? Bad diet and moldy homes. “My parents ate that way, their parents ate that way, and they all died early, so it must be genetic.” BS!)

Dietary treatments could boost glutathione in children carrying genes that reduce the antioxidant, says James. (While you need glutathione for a productive immune system, an already weakened immune system hampers your production of glutathione. This antioxidant is available from many sources as a dietary supplement, but I suggest you not purchase an individual oral supplement because it likely will not be absorbed into your system. Get one that is packed with the proper nutrients needed to promote the body’s ability to manufacture and absorb glutathione.)

New Recipes

Homemade Mayo

The jar of mayonnaise was just about empty and Lannie and I started discussing alternatives. Why? Well, look at the ingredients on that jar of stuff you spread on your sandwiches. This comes from the label on Kraft Real Mayonnaise (patent pending).

Ingredients: Soybean Oil, water, eggs, vinegar, contains less then 2% of egg yolks, lemon juice concentrate, salt, sugar, dried onions, dried garlic, paprika, natural flavor, calcium disodium EDTA (to protect flavor).

Nutritional Facts: Serving size 1 Tbsp (14g)

Calories 100 (All from fat)

Total fat 11g (saturated 1.5g, trans fats 0g)

No carbs, no proteins…

OK, let’s do some math. If a serving size is 14g and the amount of fat is 11g per serving, then 11/14 = 79% (rounded). This then tells you that the first ingredient (which is always the major component) makes up 78-79% of the entire contents of this jar (given that there are little to no fats in the remaining ingredients). And the first ingredient was? Yeah, soybean oil, a big mycotoxin source in the Standard American Diet, as well as potential estrogen overload (Hey! Does that turn regular guys into wieners?). J

So, Lannie digs out her favorite cookbook and finds a recipe for making mayonnaise, then proceeds to modify it to use reasonably good ingredients instead of this killer soybean oil. Here’s the list:

1 whole egg (at room temperature)

¼ tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp lemon juice

¼ tsp salt

¾ cup olive oil (at room temperature)

Get out your blender, put the first two ingredient in, push the HIGH button for about five seconds. Then add the second two ingredients and blend on high for about two minutes. Scrape down the sides with a spatula. Now comes the tricky part because you have to leave the lid off of the blender for this. While the blender is on high, slowly drizzle the olive oil in, holding your cupped hand around the top to avoid spatters flying in all directions.J (I’m going to have to invent a blender funnel/tube feeder or something.) (It’s already been invented - it’s called a “drip tube” - but we don’t have one!) As the mixture thickens, pour the remaining oil in a little faster. It won’t take long before you notice that the blender is no longer moving the entire mass around. Stop. Using a spatula, scrape down the sides and blend one more time until you see nothing is happening. Now, scrape all the contents into a jar and either use it or put it in the refrigerator. Note that there are no preservatives in this mixture; so don’t make gallons of this because it won’t keep. The cookbook suggested you should use this up in 2-3 days, but ours was still OK at the end of one week (I suppose the temperature of your refrigerator has something to do with that).

Note to those aspiring do-it-yourselfers: You can alter the consistency here by reducing the amount of egg white, and change the flavor by the amount of salt or swapping out olive oil for extra virgin olive oil or even grapeseed oil.

Then after we used up that small amount, we made a new discovery: Plain old sour cream, used in place of mayonnaise, makes a pretty good sandwich spread. Lannie tossed a dollop of sour cream in with a can of tuna fish, spread it on a flour tortilla, and darned if my mouth didn’t take to it right away. Much less fat than real mayo too, so if you can’t handle the above recipe, or it’s just too much trouble and mess to make your own once a week, try the sour cream idea.

Yeastless Bread

Other than the small potential for mycotoxins in flour, what is the one ingredient in bread that makes those of us on the Phase I, Phase II, or Life-Phase programs resistant to eating bread? Yeah, yeast. And even though those yeasts die in the baking process, the act of dying causes a release of mycotoxins. So, how about bread that has no yeast? Yeah, we’ve all heard about sourdough bread, which has no “added” yeast. But that takes a couple weeks to make because it has to sit around on the countertop collecting free-air yeasts. Yes, folks, that is how sourdough bread rises. (And don’t forget the airborne molds that will get in there too.)

Well, we decided that because we often substitute flour tortillas for many of the things we used to use bread for, why wouldn’t non-sourdough yeastless bread work? Specifically, something that has the consistency of bread rather than the doughy taste of tortillas. If you want to try this, here are the ingredients.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 heaping tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

1 cup plain yogurt

2 tbsp raw honey

(I’m going to use Xylitol next time because even this small amount of honey started my RLS symptoms up again.)

Preheat your oven to 350 °F (176 °C for our Canadian and European friends). Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Mix the egg, honey, and yogurt in another bowl and, when smooth, pour that into the bowl of dry ingredients. Mix well. The final mixture will still be dry.

Now you can pat this out onto a cookie sheet, either as one large loaf or make half a dozen biscuit-sized lumps. Note that this will spread out as it cooks. Alternatively, you could stuff the whole thing into a standard bread pan and, even though it won’t rise like regular bread, the pan will contain it and the horizontal spread of cooking will be forced upward (it might be wise to smear a little olive oil or butter around the pan to facilitate getting the loaf out after baking.). However, if you want the single flat loaf (great for finger sandwiches), you might want to make three or four diagonal slices along the top to prevent cracking during baking. Baking time is about 30 minutes for the single loaf, or 20 minutes for the biscuit-sized baby loaves.

This stuff tastes good and it tastes like bread, not biscuits or buns or whatever.

Cautionary Note for all those who bake things: I can’t seem to keep my nose out of the labels lately and here’s what is in Baking Powder: Cornstarch (A dense, powdery flour obtained from the endosperm portion of the corn kernel), Bicarbonate of Soda (AKA, Baking Soda, a white crystalline compound with a slightly alkaline taste, used in making effervescent salts and beverages, artificial mineral water, pharmaceuticals, and fire extinguishers), Sodium Aluminum Sulfate (a leavening acid used as a buffer, neutralizing agent, stabilizing agent, firming agent, and as a replacement in yeast foods), and Acid Phosphate of Calcium (AKA calcium dihydrogen phosphate, a stable acid, white crystalline powder, might act as an irritant, normally used as a fertilizer, seems to have something to do with solubility). Basically, all those things together makes what is called a “leavening agent”  This stuff, when wet, produces carbon dioxide, one of the things that gives bread its bubbles. Of course, in yeast bread, if you don’t use any baking powder, the bubbles are the outgassing of the yeasts.

Yogurt Bread

Lannie got another recipe from a friend and this one is for Life Phase people only (and then only is you choose to tempt the yeastie dragons). Of course, Lannie cannot leave a recipe alone (why should she?), so this is her modified version:

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

5 tsp baker’s yeast

2 ½ tsp salt

1 ½ cups hot water

½ cup plain yogurt

2 tbsp olive oil

Destructions: Mix the first three ingredients together in your mixing bowl, then add the next three. As your handy dandy KitchenAid ® is stirring that around with its special dough hook, add more flour as needed until you have a soft, elastic dough ball (or knead by hand for 7-10 minutes). Take it out of the bowl and divide it (as evenly as possible) into two balls. Put each ball in its own slightly oiled bowl, turning to coat both sides, and cover that with plastic wrap, letting it rise for 30-45 minutes. Take the wrap off, punch down the balls, knead briefly and reform into balls, then recover and let it rise again. Remove the wrap, punch it down again, dump it out on the counter and form it into a loaf shape. Lightly oil two standard loaf baking pans (we use Pyrex ®), place each loaf neatly in its pan, trying to make sure there is no air under it, then cover with the plastic wrap you used on the bowls and let the dough rise until crested. At this point, we split the top of the loaves with a sharp knife. Place both pans on the center rack of a preheated oven at 375 °F (190 °C) for 50 minutes. Remove finished bread from the oven, dump it out of the baking pan onto a cooling rack and cover with a thin towel until cooled. At this point, we put both loaves into old bread wrappers, placing one in the bread bin for immediate use and the other in the freezer to be thawed when the first one has been consumed. This recipe makes bread that is denser than normal white bread (due to the yogurt). Variations on this bread might include dried onion flakes or various spices of your choice.

Be Alert!

J (the world needs more Lerts) J

Issue 72 had a couple errors. One was an incomplete sentence, where I said I have lost 50 pounds since we changed the way we eat last summer. No one questioned this, even though I had given my weight last summer in one of the initial newsletters, but it should have said: “I have lost about 50 pounds in the past year and 15 pounds of that just since we changed the way we eat last summer.” (Implication: little to no exercise involved since that time.)

Thanks to an alert Canadian reader for catching the other error in News 72, regarding the article “What is Arthritis?” written by Dr. Ben Lerner. The good doctor, who is a chiropractor, wrote:

• Tendons connect bones
• Ligaments connect muscles to bones

The reality is that it’s the other way around. There are a couple medical professionals who also receive this newsletter, and given that they didn’t correct it, I can only assume that they didn’t even read it, or like me, just cruised right on by it. I have corrected that article for the web site version to save us all embarrassment (Dr. Lerner, who should have known better, and me for not catching his error). Obviously, it should have read:

• Ligaments connect bones to bones
• Tendons connect muscles to bones. 

The “Experts” Rant

This obviously is a good place to insert a small rant regarding how all of us tend to look upon those who claim to be “experts” in their fields, often overlooking some of the things they say regardless of our own knowledge or our doubts about their knowledge. We often have feelings of “I don’t need to check up on what he says because, after all, he’s an expert in his field” or even, “Even though I think he’s wrong about X, I shouldn’t question his opinion because, after all, he’s a real doctor and I didn’t even finish college” or some such similar things. And, we all know (or we should) that just because it is in a book (or on the internet), that doesn’t make it true. And, while there are Catholic priests who also hold degrees in astrophysics, it is a fairly accurate assumption to make that just because I have a doctorate in theology, that doesn’t mean I know how radar works. Well, OK, I do know how radar works, but that’s a whole ‘nother degree. J

Anyway, back in the 1960s, there was a bumper sticker that proclaimed (all uppercase because I am sure they wanted to shout it): QUESTION AUTHORITY! I found that insufficient and made my own, which said: QUESTION EVERYTHING! Perhaps, when we are not in a particularly radical frame of mind, we forget to protest “acceptance of the norm.” How easy is it to assume that because a person has a title like Doctor or Professor or CEO of the American Cancer <pick a cause> Society, that they know everything? I would hazard a guess, that the average professional who has the title “doctor” in front of his/her name, cannot adequately explain why the light goes on when they flip the light switch. We simply take it for granted that this thing happens. Now, another expert, one who knows electricity in minute detail, can give the full explanation of why the light switch works, but hasn’t a clue exactly what causes a hematoma when a dead horse kicks him. J We, therefore, have a tendency to believe what we read (or hear when visiting our doctors) from those we consider to be experts in their fields. This, my friends, can land you in deep doodoo.

A really good example of this is one of the forums that Lannie visits quite regularly. A few of our readers might also be members of that forum, so let me start by saying that I am not picking on any particular person with the following comments. While listening to Lannie mumble in the next room over the apparent stupidity of some of the things she reads there, I have to wonder why these people proclaim the answer to life, the universe, and everything is to kill all forms of yeast (some are necessary). Upon serious discussion, I find that apparently each of the people there have read one book, by someone who professes to be an expert in that field, and they seem to be following his advice as if he were the world’s leading health authority and there cannot possibly any other solutions than what he wrote. That’s a guess because I have not read his book, but it fits a pattern I have witnessed before. I am sure that a lot of what he says is true, but… he does not have the big picture (not that I know it all either, but at least I will admit that and go in search of the answers, examining both sides of the equation). Because the author of this book has blinders on, all his followers appear to be wearing the same blinders. There is such a narrow focus that they fail to see that there are more things than yeasts affecting their state of health. A true scientific/logical mind will study all available data, make assessments based on tests, then disregard or accept the data on the basis of its relevance to the subject (which is, here, your health). Only those following a guru (AKA mired in a focused belief system) will disregard logical data simply because their master does not admit it is part of the solution.

Likewise, when some otherwise wonderful people get outside their fields and recommend a specific air purifier, I have to wonder how much they really know about the electronics, the mechanics, the physics – or atmospheric thermodynamics of household room air circulation. Or, could it just be that they have a friend who claims to be an expert in that field and trust him/her enough to promote that product? I am guilty of this too (we are all human, even if some of us act like aliens occasionally), though I try very hard to stay unbiased. I am only starting to learn microbiology, so I often lean on the expert (Natasha Trenev) when trying to understand things in that field. Yet, the little voice in my head often reminds me, “Are you sure she knows it all?” Well, she knows more than me at this given point in time, so she’s the best starting point in my quest. Other people, likewise, are the starting point for other areas.

I love Dr. Mercola, Dr. Strand, Dr. Lerner, Dr. Holland, (and many others), and they all have some interesting and very valid points to make, but I also realize that when one of those people tells us about something outside his particular field, he is relying on some other person’s word for it. Again, these folks might be able to tell you the potential damage solar radiation can have on your skin (assumed to be an area of medical study), but they know almost nothing of the inner workings of a microwave oven. They rely on someone else’s opinion for that. And it is possible that opinion might be wrong. (Hey, my opinions might be wrong too…) Perhaps the jack-of-all-trades is the wisest, because an expert is one who learns more and more about less and less until s/he knows absolutely everything there is to know about absolutely nothing, at which point s/he becomes a philosopher.

Enough! The point is, we each must keep investigating and learning and gaining new knowledge daily if we are to keep up with a world full of experts (or pseudo-experts), each of whom is trying to push his or her particular set of beliefs down our collective throats. Throw out the blinders and try to widen your field of vision. Do not reject new ideas simply because they do not agree with the old school of thought that so many have become mired in. At the same time, do not blindly accept new ideas simply because they are different. Investigate them thoroughly before you decide that cosmic energy – or world peace through butt-bouncing levitators from Maharishi University J – are the answers to the world’s ailments. The search for ultimate truth is a never-ending quest and will never be found between the covers of only one book.  

Reader Q&A

Q: I found the Arthritis article in News 72 to be interesting, but I wonder if you could elaborate on the difference between plain old arthritis and the one the doctors are calling osteoarthritis? I see a lot of ads on TV for this one.

A: Osteoarthritis is the one most likely to be called a “disease” rather than simply being an “affliction.” The general term “arthritis” is, typically, a catch-all for persistent joint pain, while osteoarthritis is a specific breakdown of articular cartilage in the joints, usually with chronic inflammation of the lining of the joint. Cartilage works as a cushion between the bones in a joint in a healthy person, but when that breaks down, you start getting a bone-on-bone situation, accelerating erosion of the joints, nerves being pinched, etc., which makes things more painful than just the inflammation by itself (which is also pressuring your nerves). Osteoarthritis usually affects the hands, feet, spine, hips, and knees. If you have osteoarthritis, you will usually have joint pain and limited movement of the affected joint. Doctors say this is a condition associated with aging and the exact cause is unclear or even unknown (I’ve said that one before, eh?), but as osteoarthritis develops there is progressive loss of the articular cartilage, bone spurs occur around the joint, and you experience muscle weakness of the extremities. Personally, I am convinced that this, as with other forms of arthritis, is caused by mycotoxins inflaming the joints and degrading the cartilage. Then we get put on allopathic medicines to reduce the inflammation, such as naproxen sodium, which further degrades the cartilage and connecting links (ligaments and tendons). My choice of medicine for this condition is, obviously, antifungals and reduction or elimination of the foods that feed the fungi. It is working for me.

Q: How’s the pop situation?

A: Most of our readers probably won’t get that question, but I made the claim several months ago that we intended to get soda pop (all store-bought carbonated beverages) out of our lives. Lannie drank the diet cola and she quit that cold turkey a couple weeks ago (when her supply ran out). Hopefully, she’ll see some nerve-response improvements soon (aspartame being a neurotoxin). My last can of regular pop is now gone, so the fungi-feeding sugars are finally no longer a daily item. I had slowly decreased my habit, from several cans of Coke ® or Pepsi ® per day to one can of generic 7-Up ®, but even that is now out of the picture. I discovered I can keep my tongue happy by placing five or six drops of liquid stevia in the bottom of a glass, fill it ¾-full of tap water (we have a deep well here – depending on where you live, you might want bottled water), then filling the glass with ice. It provides a sweet and slightly flowery refreshing drink with no nasty side effects like all types of soda pop have. Seriously, besides sugar/corn syrup or aspartame, there were just too many other iffy chemicals and those are now gone from our lives. On the rare occasions when we do manage to go out to a restaurant, we’ll have iced tea or water.

More PFOA Data

More from: http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/teflon2.cfm