Caustic Commentary, Healthy Baby Issue

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Precocious Puberty

“There has been much speculation about why earlier maturation may be occurring in girls, especially because there has been no apparent advance. . . in the onset of puberty in boys.” So writes Jane E. Brody in the New York Times (December 12, 1999). More than any other writer, Jane Brody has pushed Americans into the lowfat, mostly vegetarian diet that has sent sales of soy foods soaring and, as a corollary, resulted in 25 percent of American bottle-fed babies getting estrogen-loaded soy-based infant formula. Could this trend to early maturation be due to increased obesity or exposure to plastics and insecticides, she wonders, carefully avoiding mention of the dreaded S word. And how shall parents cope with the tragic truncation of girlhood, not to mention the other problems that often accompany premature puberty—stunted growth, central nervous system disorders including headaches and seizures, reproductive complaints and behavioral problems? Not to worry. Researchers suggest that we should just redefine the ages at which puberty is considered precocious. “The onset of breast development between 7 and 8 years of age in white girls and between 6 and 8 years in African-American girls may be part of the normal broad variation in the timing of puberty and not, in most cases, a pathological state,” say members of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society. This will be reassuring to one group of 33 early-maturing girls whom researchers found to be more depressed, socially withdrawn, aggressive and moody than a comparable group of girls who had not yet entered puberty. Perhaps these girls sense what is in store—a shrinking pool of fully developed males, due to the fact that failure to mature is becoming increasingly common in boys.

Wrong Premises, Wrong Diet

The traditional view of human brain development is that babies are born with all the brain cells they will ever have, and that neurological development occurs through the connection of these cells in the early years. But new research indicates that from birth through late adolescence, the brain adds billions of new cells, constructing its circuits out of freshly made neurons as children and teenagers interact with their environments. In adulthood, the process of adding new cells slows down but does not stop. Mature brain circuits appear to be maintained by new cell growth well into old age (New York Times, January 4, 2000). Unfortunately, current lowfat dietary recommendations for children are predicated on the belief that the brain does not grow or develop after the age of two. The new discoveries reveal why growing children need foods rich in animal fats and cholesterol throughout their growing years. These foods are essential for development of the brain and nervous system. Parents who want their children to grow into adults who can reason and think creatively must ignore the dietary advice of the “experts” and provide their growing children with rich traditional foods.

More On Brain Food

Brain function in baby rats was enhanced by feeding extra choline during the equivalent of the third trimester of pregnancy, according to a study at Duke University Medical Center. The offspring performed significantly better on memory tests than those of mothers with the normal intake of choline. Researchers found that choline enhanced a brain function responsible for paving the path between nerve cells, allowing electrical messages to travel more easily. The improved brain wiring persisted in the rats through early adulthood. (Neurophysiology, April 1998) Choline is an amino acid found in egg yolks, milk, nuts, liver and other meats—that is, in all those high-fat items the Diet Dictocrats want us to avoid.

Irreversible Damage

A case reported recently underlines the dangers of a strict vegan diet, one that excludes all animal products. It involved a 33-year-old patient who had been a vegan since the age of He did not eat meat, eggs, dairy products or fish. He had no history of alcohol abuse, did not smoke cigarettes and was not taking any supplements. The patient was diagnosed with severe optic neuropathy in both eyes with poor vision of 20/400 in each eye. There was no evidence for an infectious cause of this severe vision loss, but blood samples revealed deficiencies in B1, B12, A, C, D, E, zinc and selenium. The patient was treated with intramuscular and oral multivitamins until his blood levels normalized but his eyesight did not recover—the damage to the optic nerve from lack of nutrients was irreversible. The moral: beware of claims that veganism has no downside. (New England Journal of Medicine, March 23, 2000 342:897-898)

Toxic Oils

Scientists at the Universtiy of Basque Country have made a discovery that is bad news to the vegetable oil industry. They found that oxidation or thermal degradation causes deterioration of vegetable oils in foodstuffs and the generation of toxic substances. Heating to 70 degrees C created first hydroperoxides and then aldehydes, which are geno- and cytotoxic (poisonous to cells). In foods that were microwaved, the aldehydes were produced immediately. Among the oils tested, virgin olive oil took the longest to produce toxic compounds, and produced them at lower concentrations. More unsaturated vegetable oils produced more toxic compounds (foodnavigator.com May 26, 2005). Just what we’ve been telling folks for years–vegetable oils are bad news.

End of Conventional Farming?

One of the main ingredients in the so-called “efficient” conventional agricultural system, where food is monocropped, centrally processed and then shipped far distances, is cheap oil. The climbing price of energy has suddenly made this system not “efficient” but very expensive. Farmers nationwide have seen the price of fuel more than double, from 96 cents a gallon to $1.97 (Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, May 10, 2005). The pain of higher fuel prices has hit both farmers and merchandisers. Driving tractors, trucking food, producing fertilizer, making plastic packaging, shipping and warehousing have all gotten very costly. Suddenly, the local producer has a competitive advantage. Expect big increases in direct-to-consumer sales by farmers, which rose to $812 million in 2002, up 37 percent over 1997 (Stockman Grass Farmer, September 2004).

Plastics Ban?

Assemblywoman Wilma Chan has introduced a bill in the California state legislature that would ban bisphenol A, a chemical used in liners inside canned food and water supply pipes, some water containers and, most importantly, numerous products that are intended for use by infants including baby bottles, pacifiers and teethers. The chemical is also an ingredient in dental sealants coated on children’s teeth for the “prevention of cavities.” The bill, AB319, would also ban certain forms of plastic softeners called phthalates in toys and child care articles. Chan became aware of these chemicals’ possible hazards to hormone balance and the nervous system through her work on the Select Committee on Children’s Health and School Readiness. It was Chan’s legislation that led to the banning of two forms of flame retardant two years ago. Naturally, the industry, which produces about 2 billions pounds of bisphenol A yearly in the US, opposes the bill. “You can’t make polycarbonate without it,” says spokesman Steve Hentges, adding, “. . . the weight of evidence supports the conclusion that bisphenol A is not a risk to human health at the extremely low levels to which people might be exposed.” However, a study published February 2005 in the journal Endocrinology showed that exposure of lab animals to bisphenol A altered the ability of thyroid hormone to correctly regulate brain development. Other studies indicate that at very low doses the chemical inhibits the positive role of estrogen in enhancing neural connections in the hippocampus, the part of the brain involved in the formation and retention of memory (San Francisco Chronicle, March 31, 2005).

Soy to the Rescue

Food manufacturers that use eggs extensively in products like baked goods, mayonnaise and salad dressings have seen profits threatened by fluctuations in egg prices. The decimation of millions of birds through avian flu led to an increase in yolk prices from L1700 per ton in 2002 to L2250 per ton in 2003. Alleggra Foods is seizing the opportunity to promote its new soy-based egg replacer, Alleggra, developed by food scientists at Unilever. The product is composed of soy protein, whey proteins, vegetable oil (sunflower oil but can be varied) and egg white and will be marketed as a “fully functional replacer of egg” with “seventy-five percent less saturated fat than an egg and 10 percent more protein.” “Alleggra has clear advantages in terms of cost and health,” says Gavin Hays, chief executive for Alleggra Foods. “Alleggra is not only cholesterol free, but is actively cholesterol lowering.” The product is currently in two development trials with food makers for muffin and quiche products and aimed at replacing eggs in other products later in the year. In 2004, the firm signed a L350,000 contract with Britain’s Ministry of Defence for Alleggra to replace powdered egg rations for the military (Ingredients.com, 20/04/2005). Expect to see this ingredient in a grocery store or PX near you.

From the Frying Pan to the Fire

Clothed in good intentions, a nutrition program spearheaded by the St. Louis-based Parents as Teachers and St. Louis University’s School of Public Health, “seeks to improve the lives of preschoolers” by promoting a High 5 Low Fat nutrition program among families in the St. Louis area. Funded in part by the National Cancer Institute and designed to address “diet-related cancer disparities among the black population,” the program encourages “strategies on buying food cheaply while boosting nutrition.” Susie Nanney, manager of the Obesity Prevention Center at the university and the original project manager for High 5 Low Fat calls the program “realistic.” “We’re not telling people to clean out their cupboards and throw out the candy bars. We’re not saying line your refrigerator with just broccoli and tofu,” she said. “If a family enjoys macaroni and cheese, they can be taught how to make it with less fat and to add a vegetable to it. Or a boxed meal might be prepared with skim milk and less butter” (WebMD, January 14, 2005). In other words, the program doesn’t teach people how to make simple, wholesome meals, but how to remove the few real foods they are incorporating into a diet of processed foods.

Vitamin A and the Brain

The most important conclusion of Dr. Price’s research is that the fat-soluble vitamins A and D are key to human development and optimal health. In spite of the many voices urging lowfat and vegetarian diets, modern scientists have actually corroborated Price’s conclusions in many studies. The most recent was performed by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, located in San Diego, California. Scientists found that removing vitamin A from the diets of mice diminishes chemical changes in the brain considered the hallmarks of learning and memory. Lack of vitamin A interferes with optimal function of the hippocampus, the main seat of learning. Earlier work indicated that mice born without receptors for vitamin A in the hippocampus performed under par in standardized learning tests. When vitamin A is added back to the diets of the mice, the impairment is reversed (although the researchers have not yet determined whether removal of vitamin A during embryonic development leads to permanent learning disabilities.) These studies confi rm what we have been saying all along—that children need cod liver oil, organ meats, butter from grass fed cows and other foods rich in vitamin A in utero and throughout their growing years, not only for optimal physical development but also for the kind of mental development that yields human beings who can learn quickly and think clearly (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, California).

Autism and the Amish

One in every 166 children born in the United States is afflicted with autism, a living-death condition characterized by “markedly abnormal or impaired development in social interaction and communication and a markedly restricted repertoire of activities and interests.” While most parents of autistic children have reported the onset of symptoms immediately or shortly after a dose of vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry denies any connection between this epidemic and the load of childhood vaccinations to which modern children are subjected. What’s needed in this debate is a look at the rates of autism in an unvaccinated population and one reporter, Dan Olmsted, has done just that. Among the unvaccinated Amish of Lancaster County Pennsylvania, there should be well over 100 children with some form of the disorder if autism has nothing to do with vaccination. What he found is that in all the Amish schools, there is one classroom with about 30 “special needs” Amish children and of these, one is autistic. Another autistic Amish child does not go to school and a third is a pre-school-age girl. Olmsted found that all three had actually been vaccinated; two were born to Amish parents who gave in to the constant pressure to vaccinate their children. The third and worse case was a girl adopted from China, who received many vaccinations in one day, at age 15 months (UPI, April 18, and June 7, 2005).

More Lowfat Hype For Kids

A recent Finnish study on children’s diets received headline coverage. Researchers divided 496 children into two groups. The parents in one group were asked to put their youngsters on a lowfat diet, with a goal of limiting fat to no more than 30-35 percent of calories. Specific recommendations included nonfat milk after the children were weaned and the addition of 2-3 teaspoons soft margarine or canola oil to their food until they reached two years of age. The parents of the children in the other group were advised to give them cow’s milk containing at least 1.9 percent fat starting at age one, but otherwise received no specifi c guidelines on fat intake. At age five, children on a “reduced-fat” diet and those on the “regular” diet performed similarly on tests of speech, language, motor functioning and visual skills. “Study Finds No Neurological Harm in Young Kids’ Lowfat Diets,” said the headlines (Associated Press, August 22, 2000). But the fi ne print revealed that the difference in fat consumption for the two groups was no more than 3 percent. And neither of the two groups was compared with children who were given a truly adequate diet, one containing lots of quality dairy fat and cod liver oil. The recent decline in test scores and great increase in learning disabilities tells us that modern diets—either lowfat diets or diets in which vegetable oils are substituted for animal fats—have tragic effects on the neurological development of our children.

Not Fully Wired

Scientists have always blamed the surge of hormones at puberty for reckless adolescent behavior but neuroscientists have come up with a different explanation. Beginning around age 11, the area of the brain associated with social behavior and impulse control actually sprouts a tangle of nerve cells. After puberty, this thicket of nerve sprouts is “pruned.” About half the new nerve fibers are cut away to create an efficient network of circuits. The new wiring allows the adult to manage “executive functions” such as goal-setting, priority-setting, planning, organization and impulse inhibition (Washington Times, January 7, 2001). Now consider the fact that most American children are denied the kind of fats the brain needs when they are put on lowfat milk and margarine at the age of two. How does the brain get fed during this period of delicate rewiring? The answer is that many teenagers enter adulthood not fully wired, and unable to participate in those kinds of activities that give pleasure and a sense of meaning to adults—goal-setting, priority setting, planning, organization and the kind of patient follow-through based on mature impulse inhibition.

It’s A Scream—Ketchup That’s Green

The latest funny food to hit the marketplace is green ketchup, an invention by the food engineers at H. J. Heinz. In development for nearly a year, the green ketchup is aimed squarely at children. It comes in a softer, “child-friendly” bottle which lets kids draw or write on their food, decorate each French fry and make patterns on their burgers. Red ketchup is also being sold in the new bottle. “It’s the first step in making ketchup fun,” said a Heinz spokesman, who did not rule out other colors in the future. What makes the new ketchup green is Yellow No 5 (associated with Attention Deficit Disorder) and Blue No. 1 Aluminum Lake. (Aluminum ties up magnesium and has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease and kidney problems.) Then there are all those other ingredients in ketchup not fit for man nor beast, including high fructose corn syrup and “natural flavors,” a source of MSG. Another thing: the only way to make ketchup green is to get rid of the red color first, which makes us wonder whether they started with tomatoes bleached white (New York Times October 22, 2000)

Vaccine Damage

As the number of required vaccinations increases, and the use of protective fats rich in vitamin A declines, the numbers of vaccine injuries in our children is soaring. According to the Federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, of the four million children each year who receive multiple vaccines, about 10,000 have adverse reactions, including high pitched screaming, bowel blockage, seizures, autism, bizarre neurological disorders and complete paralysis. Doctors are discouraged from reporting reactions so this number is probably low. This year a record number of families have filed cases with the nation’s Vaccine Compensation Fund on behalf of children who’ve suffered side effects from their immunizations. Recently a New Jersey girl whose mental development stopped at two months old after an immunization received a $4.7 million settlement from the Fund. Of course, no amount of money can compensate parents for the heartbreak of lifelong brain damage. 🖨️ Print post