Health, mind, and food
Soybean oil intake has increased dramatically for those eating the modern industrial food diet, and now research shows that this inexpensive oil contains high levels of a type of fat that’s contributing to the obesity epidemic.
Chart by National Institutes of Health
Back in 2007, after a series of mostly ineffective treatments prescribed by doctors, Ms. Enders, then 17, decided to take matters into her own hands. Convinced that the illness was somehow associated with her intestines, she pored over gastroenterological research, consumed probiotic bacterial cultures meant to aid digestion and tried out mineral supplements.
The experiments worked (although she is not sure which one did the trick), leaving her with healthy skin and a newfound interest in her intestines. “I experienced with my own body that knowledge is power,” she writes of the episode in “Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ,” which was published in North America last month after its surprising success in Germany, where it has sold almost 1.5 million copies since its release in March 2014.
Water can be disinfected and in this way made drinkable using the rays of the sun. “Solar water disinfection” – SODIS for short – thus offers a solution for preventing diarrhoea, one of the most common causes of death among people in developing countries.
The SODIS method is ideal for treating water for drinking in developing countries. All it requires is sunlight and PET bottles. How does it work? Clear PET bottles are filled with the water and set out in the sun for 6 hours. The UV-A rays in sunlight kill germs such as viruses, bacteria and parasites (giardia and cryptosporidia). The method also works when air and water temperatures are low.
People can use the SODIS method to treat their drinking water themselves. The method is very simple and its application is safe. It is particularly suitable for treating relatively small quantities of drinking water.
Many scientific studies confirmed the effectiveness of the SODIS method. It kills germs in water very efficiently. The method has even been shown to improve the health of the population. Research into training strategies gave insight about which communication methods are most suitable. It has also been proven that the use of PET bottles in the SODIS method is harmless.
Solar water disinfection is a type of portable water purification that uses solar energy to make biologically-contaminated (e.g. bacteria, viruses, protozoa and worms) water safe to drink. Water contaminated with non-biological agents such as toxic chemicals or heavy metals require additional steps to make the water safe to drink.
There are three primary subsets of solar water disinfection:
Solar disinfection using the effects of electricity generated by photovoltaics typically uses an electric current to deliver electrolytic processes which disinfect water, for example by generating oxidative free radicals which kill pathogens by damaging their chemical structure. A second approach uses stored solar electricity from a battery, and operates at night or at low light levels to power an ultraviolet lamp to perform secondary solar ultraviolet water disinfection.
Solar thermal water disinfection uses heat from the sun to heat water to 70-100 °C for a short period of time. A number of approaches exist here. Solar heat collectors can have lenses in front of them, or use reflectors. They may also use varying levels of insulation or glazing. In addition, some solar thermal water disinfection processes are batch-based, while others (through-flow solar thermal disinfection) operate almost continuously while the sun shines. Water heated to temperatures below 100 °C is generally referred to as Pasteurized water.
High energy ultraviolet radiation from the sun can also be used to kill pathogens in water. The SODIS method uses a combination of UV light and increased temperature (solar thermal) for disinfecting water using only sunlight and plastic PET bottles. SODIS is a free and effective method for decentralized water treatment, usually applied at the household level and is recommended by the World Health Organization as a viable method for household water treatment and safe storage.[1] SODIS is already applied in numerous developing countries. Educational pamphlets on the method are available in many languages,[2] each equivalent to the English-language version.[3]
Valuable additional resources that contain reliable information about nutrition are available at the British Nutrition Foundation, Medline Plus, Harvard Nutrition Source and Nutrition.gov. For advanced students, the use of Pubmed is recommended. Pubmed is a public database for the scientific literature in the fields of biomedicine and health that also covers portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences and bioengineering. PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institute of Health (NIH). When using PubMed and other databases, the inclusion of search terms such as “review” and “meta-analysis” is recommended. These are the terms used for certain types of articles that provide a broad overview of a topic. For instance, if you are interested in overview articles about the relation between dietary fiber and colon cancer, enter the search terms “colon cancer” (or “colorectal cancer”), “dietary fiber” (or “dietary fibre”) and “meta-analysis” or “review” using the advanced search tool in PubMed.
Information about the nutrient content of foods is available from the USDA and through Eurofir. Many countries have their own website that provides information on food composition. The website used in the Netherlands can be found here.
Emotional contagion is the tendency for two individuals to emotionally converge. One view developed by Elaine Hatfield et al. is that this can be done through automatic mimicry and synchronization of one’s expressions, vocalizations, postures and movements with those of another person.[1] When people unconsciously mimic their companions’ expressions of emotion, they come to feel reflections of those companions’ emotions.[1] Emotions can be shared across individuals in many different ways both implicitly or explicitly. For instance, conscious reasoning, analysis and imagination have all been found to contribute to the phenomenon.[1] Emotional contagion is important to personal relationships because it fosters emotional synchrony between individuals. A broader definition of the phenomenon was suggested by Schoenewolf: “a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes”.
The allostatic load is “the wear and tear on the body” which grows over time when the individual is exposed to repeated or chronic stress.[1] It represents the physiological consequences of chronic exposure to fluctuating or heightened neural or neuroendocrine response that results from repeated or chronic stress.[2] The term was coined by McEwen and Stellar in 1993.[3]
It is used to explain how frequent activation of the body’s stress response, essential for managing acute threats, can in fact damage the body in the long run. Allostatic load is generally measured through a composite index of indicators of cumulative strain on several organs and tissues, but especially on the cardiovascular system.
Leslie Carol Botha: Very fascinating research and writing on a little known connection between bipolar disorder and thyroid functioning.
PsychEducation.org
(Reviewed and minor revisions 12/2011)
Your liver and kidneys are vital organs that help process and filter out food, medications, alcohol and other substances that enter your body. What you take into your body can pollute your liver and kidneys, make it hard for them to function properly. This can lead to innumerable kinds of complications, including renal failure, kidney stones, liver cirrhosis and hepatitis.
Exercising and eating the right kinds of foods are key to effectively detoxifying your liver and kidneys.
Step 1
Acidity helps detoxify the liver while helping it break down fats. It also helps prevent kidney stones from forming.
Step 2
Tannin works by helping your liver remove cholesterol out of your blood while flushing out bacteria and toxins from your kidneys.
Step 3
Add one serving of artichokes to your daily diet. Artichokes contain cynarin and chlorogenic acid that help protect and strengthen the liver while helping the kidneys filter out toxins from the blood and excrete them in urine.
Step 4
Exercise at least 30 minutes daily to strengthen your cardiovascular system. This will help improve blood flow and oxygen to your liver and kidneys while helping them process out toxins fast. Make sure to consult your doctor before beginning any new exercise program.
Prominent food researcher Patricia Allen finds promise in the movement, but also raises concerns about the effects of alternative economic strategies that are found in community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers market models
and the possibility that these types of “designer” food production schemes may create a two-tiered food system built upon class differences.
She also critiques the movement’s view that using food assistance programs is “dependence,” pointing out that in antihunger perspectives food is viewed as a right to be fulfilled by the state if the market, or for us the self-reliant community, fails.
Published on Mar 4, 2013
LaDonna Redmond is the founder and executive director of The Campaign for Food Justice Now. Previously, she was part of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in 2011 as the Senior Program Associate in Food and Justice. A long-time community activist, she has successfully worked to get Chicago Public Schools to evaluate junk food, launched urban agriculture projects, started a community grocery store, and worked on federal farm policy to expand access to healthy food in low-income communities. In 2009, she was one of 25 citizen and business leaders named a Responsibility Pioneer by Time Magazine. In 2007, she was awarded a Green For All Fellowship. LaDonna was also a 2003-2005 IATP Food and Society Fellow. Redmond is a frequently invited speaker, and currently hosts the weekly Monday evening radio program “It’s Your Health” on 89.9 KMOJ, The People’s Station. LaDonna attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Accessing healthy food is a challenge for many Americans—particularly those living in low-income neighborhoods, communities of color, and rural areas.
A 2009 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 23.5 million people lack access to a supermarket within a mile of their home.
A recent multistate study found that low-income census tracts had half as many supermarkets as wealthy tracts. Another multistate study found that eight percent of African Americans live in a tract with a supermarket, compared to 31 percent of whites. And a nationwide analysis found there are 418 rural “food desert” counties where all residents live more than 10 miles from a supermarket or supercenter— this is 20 percent of rural counties.
Researchers find that residents who live near supermarkets or in areas where food markets selling fresh produce (supermarkets, grocery stores, farmers’ markets, etc.) outnumber food stores that generally do not (such as corner stores) have lower rates of diet-related diseases than their counterparts in neighborhoods lacking food access.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourages individuals to eat a healthful diet — one that focuses on foods and beverages that help achieve and maintain a healthy weight, promote health, and prevent chronic disease. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) jointly publish the Dietary Guidelines every 5 years. Learn more:
The 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Committee) submitted the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Advisory Report) to the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in February 2015. The purpose of the Advisory Report is to inform the Federal government of current scientific evidence on topics related to diet, nutrition, and health. It provides the Federal government with a foundation for developing national nutrition policy. However, the Advisory Report is not the Dietary Guidelines for Americans policy or a draft of the policy. The Federal government will determine how it will use the information in the Advisory Report as the government develops the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. HHS and USDA will jointly release the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015 later this year.
Each section of the Advisory Report below links to text for that section. A printable PDF is also provided. The PDF provides page and line numbers that the public can use when submitting written comments.