Health, mind, and food
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.
From cotton, wheat and forestry to cattle, pigs and poultry; Farmers and Ranchers all across the country are becoming more and more transparent while taking active roles in social media, through blogs, facebook and twitter.
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.
The data show that blacks are disproportionately affected by diabetes. From 1980 through 2011, the age-adjusted prevalence of diagnosed diabetes increased among all sex-race groups examined. From 1980 through 2011, the age-adjusted prevalence of diagnosed diabetes was higher among blacks than whites, and highest in general among black females. During this time period, the age-adjusted prevalence increased 160% (from 2.5% to 6.5%) among white males, 108% (from 2.6% to 5.4%) among white females, 148% (from 4.0% to 9.9%) among black males, and 84% (from 4.9% to 9.0%) among black females. Among Asians, from 1997 through 2011, the age-adjusted prevalence increased 81% (from 4.3% to 7.8%) among males and 49% (from 3.7% to 5.5%) among females.
The effects of elevated CO2 on plants can vary depending on other environmental factors. While elevated CO2 makes carbon more available, plants also require other resources including minerals obtained from the soil. Elevated CO2 does not directly make these mineral elements more available and, as noted above, may even decrease the uptake of some elements. The ability of plants to respond to elevated CO2 with increased photosynthesis and growth may therefore be limited under conditions of low mineral availability. This effect has been best documented for nitrogen. In FACE experiments, there is less enhancement of photosynthesis by elevated CO2 under low than high soil N conditions (Ainsworth & Long 2005; Ainsworth & Rogers 2007). Crop yield in FACE also appears to be enhanced by elevated CO2 to a lesser extent under low-N than under high-N (Ainsworth & Long 2005; Ainsworth 2008; Long et al. 2006). Across studies using all types of CO2 fumigation technologies, there is a lower enhancement of biomass production by elevated CO2 under low-nutrient conditions (Poorter & Navas 2003). Crops grown with low amounts of N fertilization also show a greater decrease in protein concentrations under elevated CO2 than crops grown with higher N fertilization (Taub et al. 2008).
Another environmental factor that interacts with elevated CO2 is atmospheric ozone (O3), a gaseous toxin. Ground-level O3 concentrations have been increasing worldwide (and are expected to continue to increase) due to increased emissions of pollutants that react to produce O3 (Vingarzan 2004). High atmospheric concentrations of ozone can cause damage to leaves and decreased plant growth and photosynthesis (Feng et al. 2008; Morgan et al. 2003). The primary location of O3 injury to plants is the internal tissues of leaves. Decreased openness of stomata under elevated CO2 can therefore decrease exposure of sensitive tissues to ozone. Elevated CO2 substantially decreases the negative effects of high ozone on photosynthesis, growth, and seed yield in both soybeans and rice (Feng et al. 2008; Morgan et al. 2003). Across experiments with all plant species, the enhancement of growth by elevated CO2 is much greater under conditions of ozone stress than otherwise (Poorter & Navas 2003).
Current evidence suggests that that the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 predicted for the year 2100 will have major implications for plant physiology and growth. Under elevated CO2 most plant species show higher rates of photosynthesis, increased growth, decreased water use and lowered tissue concentrations of nitrogen and protein. Rising CO2 over the next century is likely to affect both agricultural production and food quality. The effects of elevated CO2 are not uniform; some species, particularly those that utilize the C4 variant of photosynthesis, show less of a response to elevated CO2 than do other types of plants. Rising CO2 is therefore likely to have complex effects on the growth and composition of natural plant communities.
Most of the proposed solutions to climate change such as substitution of fossil fuels require large investments, policies that are politically contentious or difficult to enforce, and years to fully implement. However, some of the most effective and lowest cost opportunities for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions are lifestyle choices that can be made today that cost little, and that are actually good for us. Chief among them is the decision to adopt a healthier, less meat intensive diet.
The significance of this opportunity was emphasized in a recent presentation at the World Bank by Jonathan Foley, director of the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment. According to analysis by the Institute, every pound of meat is equivalent to about 30 pounds of grain production in its contribution to climate change when allowance is made for the full life cycle of livestock production. This is primarily because methane emissions from ruminants have a GHG impact roughly 25 times that of carbon dioxide.
Another expression of the resource intensity of meat production, Foley explained, is that even highly efficient agricultural systems like that in the US only deliver about the same calories per hectare in human consumption terms as poor African countries with more grain based diets. The surprisingly large role of livestock in global warming was explored in a 2009 article by Robert Goodland, formerly a World Bank economist, and Jeff Anhang, an IFC environmental specialist. They estimate that when land use and respiration are taken into account and methane effects are properly calculated, livestock could account for half of current warming when using a 20 year time-frame. According to Goodland and Anhang, replacing 25% of livestock products with alternatives would liberate as much as 40% of current world grain production with comparable benefits in reduced burdens on land, water, and other resources.