UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF MODERN LIVING

Importance of Vitamin D and its deficiency

In the past two hundred years with Industrial revolution following the agricultural revolution, we are becoming indoor people. We work in offices, factories or homes. With availability of air-conditioning we have become too soft and cannot stand sun or heat. This has further reduced our exposure to sun. It is a matter of recent knowledge that Vit D is formed in skin when it is exposed to ultraviolet rays of sun light. We are inadvertently losing this nature’s bounty because of which we are being hurt by many diseases.

As we know more about Vitamin D, it is becoming more apparent that this is more than a simple vitamin that we did not care much about until recently. Newfound additional knowledge Vit D is changing our respect towards Vit D. However, at the same time the modern life style that we are pursuing is inadvertently causing us Vit D deficient or insufficient resulting in many health issues. Let us see how this has happened?

Vit D was the fourth vitamin accidentally found early last century, after discovery of Vit A, B and C and hence it was named fourth in the alphabetical list. Vitamins are defined as “vital chemicals needed to complete metabolic and chemical processes beneficial to the body functions” and hence they are called Vitamins. These are not made within our body and hence have to come with our intake of food.

Similar vital chemicals “produced in the body” are called hormones, like in thyroid gland, pituitary gland, parathyroid, adrenaline glands etc. It was not realized in early days that Vit D is also produced in the skin and it is also a hormone. It's importance was not all that felt because it's production in skin while it is exposed to sun light containing ultraviolet rays B (UV B) was almost given because our life styles until century almost made it necessary for almost everyone to remain exposed to sunlight for certain part of the day. And that was just enough to produce necessary quantity of Vit D for our body functions.

With Industrial revolution more and more people started working indoors and exposure to sunlight reduced. Additionally, with the advent if air conditioning, staying away from heat of sun became more of an available comfort and people became habituated to stay away from sun. Now we also know that UV B do not pass through glass and hence if we are sitting in air conditioned space covered by glass windows, the skin is not exposed to the beneficial UV B and Vit D is not produced. It is estimated that we need about two hours exposure to mid-day sun to produce enough Vit D we need. In present day working in developed countries such a long exposure in hot sun has become either impossible or intolerable. Then the choice is to have Vit D supplements.

Vit D ids fat soluble. Fish is best source of Vit D. Eggs and beef also contains some Vit D. It is almost absent in vegetables. Vit D exists in two forms, I.e. Vit D2 and D3. Its daily need in body is minute and the presence of Vit din blood is measured in ng/ml of blood. One nanogram is one billionth of a gram. Its deficiency was not all that common except in Rickets, hence health professionals did not attach all that much importance to it.

We need to take care of our Vit D levels because of following reasons:

·       Because of more indoor living in air conditioned spaces, the Vit D deficiency seems to be on an increase.

·       As our knowledge about many prevalent conditions like Diabetes, Obesity, cardiovascular and Heart diseases, Depression, Alzheimer’s and Cancers etc is increasing, there is more and more evidence available that this Hormone/  Vitamin works at cellular levels. It is directly or indirectly affecting several thousand genes of our body. Some workers even connect Vit D with Multiple Sclerosis, ADD and many other conditions.

·       Our knowledge of minimum levels necessary of Vit D is also not firmly agreed upon by all the concerned pundits. For example recently in November 2010, Institute of Medicine (IOM) has almost doubled the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) to be taken as supplements because more number of Americans and Canadians seem to be Vit D deficient.

·       Until recently, <19 ng/ml was considered to be deficiency, and 19 to 29 ng/ml was considered to be insufficient. Those who swear by this Vitamin insist that probably 50 to 70 ng/ml is a satisfactory level, with 50 as optimal.

·       They also dispute strongly with the recent RDA from IOM and say that RDA should be 2000 to 5000 IU daily for an average person who does not get enough exposure to sunlight every day. And because our exposure to sun light and UV B is drastically reduced because of our newly adopted life style, it is estimated that a substantial majority of North American population is Vit D deficient.

·       Yet another recent awareness is that if we live around equator, we get sun light at a better angle and if we are away in North or South latitudes on planet earth, our exposure to sun light is reduced and we need higher RDA.

·       Another new understanding is that the angle at which these rays fall on skin is also important. That is, if we are exposed to sun in morning or evening the angle is too small for UV B to produce Vit D. If our skin is exposed to sun at or around mid day the angle is better to produce more Vit D.

·       Yet another surprise revelation is that even mildest usage of sunscreen reduces the UV B penetration in skin and hence production of Vit D is small to none.

With all the above scientific facts that have emerged and that we know that we have adopted a different life style than what our ancestors used to live in sometime about a hundred years ago, it is a matter of God given common sense and wisdom that needs to be applied. A measure needs to be adopted to ensure that we maintain an optimal level of Vit D in our body by doing the following:

1.     Get ourselves tested for Vit D levels and try and keep it at above 50 ng/ ml.

2.     Get the appropriate diet supplement to achieve the above.

3.     It would be best to get enough exposure to sun light every day.

By taking those measures we can keep ourselves insulated from many diseases that are plaguing our citizens and incidence of such diseases is continuously becoming higher.

Congress members, get realistic. Decide urgently with maturity

An open letter to Respected Congress members

We have been witnessing the Republican and Democratic parties posturing, politicking, wasting time and spending tax payer's money when at the same time taking us to the brink of disastrous consequences of their tragic performance over the past few weeks. Worse still, a fear is spread that the US going to default on its obligations, bills will not be paid after 2^nd Aug and our government will be bankrupt. Unfortunately it is partly true and rating agencies like Moody's and S&P have also given notice that they are considering to downgrade US’s rating. All this stage show is because the GOP who controls the House refuses to agree to raise debt ceiling without getting something from democrats in return as concessions for us!

Given that this is being done in good faith for the good of the country. But only a small number of the citizens understand what this commotion is about. Debt ceiling is a non-issue; it is fixed and changed whenever needed by the congress. Presently it needs to be raised because we have reached its limit fixed sometime ago by congress itself. Since 2001 the debt ceiling was raised ten times; was there such a drama even once? Truth is that no one explains why we have gotten into such a huge debt? Let us try and do that.

I agree it will be terrible if the ceiling is not raised, not because the world will come to an end, but because we will surely lose the confidence of the world in our abilities to come together and make important decisions. This may result in unpredictable results, which in turn may be too bad particularly in the weak economy, because the monetary and stock markets react unfavorably to uncertainty. As said above, debt limit is set by congress; they can and will raise it (few days are left anyway, within which congress WILL raise it). It is an internal matter for congress and it should be done as a matter of normal course of business.  

Issue of raising the Debt ceiling is made into an absolute comedy, which if these politicians do not conclude quickly, may turn tragic. Larger issues that created this are as follows:

·       It is a fact that we are spendthrifts and not fiscally disciplined for past many years.

·       We do not have enough revenues to meet our expenses, which needs to be increased.

·       Some spending are musts; like the Social Security, Medicare, Security measures etc. But many unnecessary expenses must be cut down. A lot of obligation to police the world that the US has taken on must be shrugged off because it is very expensive for US taxpayers.  

·       GOP is totally against increasing taxes, so how do we increase revenue? This position is not acceptable.

·       “Earned” entitlements of elderly and veterans must be respected but a future strategy must be chalked out to meet new necessary obligations.

Only during last few days they have started listening to voices more forcefully that WE NEED TO REDUCE SPENDING AND AT THE SAME TIME INCREASE THE REVENUE. This very obvious solution was only being talked about in fragments. This is our only salvation to be able to reduce the deficit every year. Large debt that we have created equals to almost our one year's revenue and causing doubts on our credibility and our casting fears about our solvency.

First off, let me say that I am convinced that we will not default. Our leaders may be acting childish or even irresponsible, but they are not foolish to let that happen. I am surprised that our responsible representatives in congress are not taking the citizens into confidence and tell them in plain language the real serious story and measures needed to rectify the problems.

Let me elaborate. Our government collects revenue mainly from taxes. That money is spent on all sorts of projects for the benefit of Americans. These projects include all the welfare projects, entitlement programs, infrastructure projects, national security matters, space programs etc. We must also keep in mind that there are other several realities happening simultaneously.  They are as follows:

Our aging population is increasing

Our overall population is increasing

Our needs are increasing

Things are getting more expensive as we go by

Our income tax rate was almost 90% after the WWII, is less than 40% today

Our expenses have gone up with years

Keeping in mind above facts, net effect is that our spending is more than our revenue. Hence we are in deficit every year for many years. This deficit is gradually increasing. Deficit is met with by borrowings in the shape of printing money by Feds and giving it to lenders in the form of bonds with a promise that it will be paid back with agreed interest at a point in time in future. Some borrowing is internal from other trust funds.

Hence as mentioned earlier we must tighten up our belts for as long as necessary, take hard decisions, live in simplicity, and ensure that we reduce our debt substantially and not only have the balanced budget but have surplus to be able to pay the past debt.

We must ask our representatives in congress to stop wasting their time. They must come to a compromise resolution to do this in the national interest. We must keep a few simple objectives in front of us. We should ensure that we do not reduce the entitlement payments. No one should stay below poverty line. People in middle class must be able to afford an acceptable standard of living doing a respectable job. Large corporations (which are owned by Americans anyway) must pay higher taxes, because as a nation we all have a responsibility to look after each other. Let us do that. 

If Congress does this quickly, they will save themselves from deterioration of confidence of public in them, their own health by changing into healthy and realistic life style and alleviate worries of Americans, making them also more at peace.

Almighty God is also against Carbohydrates?

For full disclosure, I am not a scholar of any religion. However, with simple logic and common sense I have tried to connect two important yet hypothetical dots, which have large bearing on our state of health. Because one of the dots, Adam and Eve belong to mythological legend mentioned in all three monotheistic religion, I start with this disclosure.

These dots are:

i)                Tremendous rise of incidence of disease load in recent past is closely related and directly proportional to our food intake and life style. I have attempted to tie this to

ii)               Narrative of Adam and Eve, which has basis in our all three major religions. I have tried to look at these two issues from outside the box and connect these two dots.

With this most famous story of God’s creation and punishment of Adam and Eve for non obedience of the Creator, I am adding the some hypothetical but logical and, I think, prudent observations to interpret the deleterious effects of Carbohydrates on our health. I am aware that I am stretching the story a little bit to prove the point that I believe in. My review of medical literature convinces me that starch and sugars are the main culprit for the recent disease load. Hence now you will understand why I have taken liberty to stretch the story a bit, only to drive home this point as strongly as possible.

God has created abundant food for all its creatures. However, some of these “foods” are good and others are not so good or even poisonous. We need to differentiate between these. Even the good foods are meant to be consumed in moderation.

Most of us know the story of Adam and Eve and how and why they were sent to planet Earth from Garden of Eden in heaven. All three traditions of monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam mention the creation of Adam and Eve (Eve is named Hawwa in Islam). Because they both ate fruit forbidden by God (and did not obey Him) they were banished from heaven.

Torah and Bible mention that God ordered them not to eat the “fruit” from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Most of the Western religious books mention in explanations that the forbidden fruit was apple (though few explanations name some other different fruits). According to Islamic traditions this forbidden food is said to be grains of wheat.

OUR ANCESTORS; From Adam and Eve until now:

It is evident from ancient history that our forefathers lived in caves or huts. The men hunted animals for meat and caught fish. Women collected wild berries or vegetation. This was their food, which was not guaranteed every day. The day they found food, they ate, the day nothing was found, they went hungry. Hence there may have been some gaps in their daily intake of food. There was no electricity, fridge or cooling facility in olden days and hence food had to be fresh every day.

Agriculture started about ten thousand years ago. Fruits seem to have been found much later and the orchards of fruits are a novelty of past few hundred years only. Only until few hundred years ago the fruits were scarce and eaten by rich occasionally. It is only recently that ingenious farmers and horticulturists have made the availability of grains and fruits abundant. Human beings have transgressed from a situation of scarcity of food on the verge of ongoing famine to over abundance in the past few centuries.

PREVALENCE OF DISEASES AND KNOWN CAUSES:

We all are aware that as we are consuming a lot more calories than we need in recent times. In our life lives, thinking back, we realize that our serving size has gotten much larger. Our big calorie and large and various grain and fruit consumption can be seen almost directly proportional to the increase in our contracting more and more diseases. Prevalence of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, depression, Alzheimer and cancers, all have tremendous increase of incidence. These are all interconnected diseases. Each of them has increased prevalence as we consume more and more grains and fruits, i.e. calories, starch and carbohydrates.

This may sound very simplistic way of explaining the wrath of God that is delivered on mankind when the mythological stories are made relevant to the present status of our diseases. But the scientific evidences and simple logic when combined with such mythological story of creation of lives by God and sending them to planet earth because of consuming the “forbidden” fruit makes a lot of sense.

Facts that we know today:

We have known for over 80 years that Glucose is directly related to cancer and that cancer cells thrive in it. A German biochemist, Dr. Otto Warburg discovered this in 1923 and he received 1931 Nobel Prize for doing so.

• We also know that our glucose levels in blood remains elevated in diabetes and our high intake of sugars and starch causing resistance to insulin.
• During past century our new life style and residential and working condition has reduced our exposure to sun drastically and hence a substantial percentage if our population is Vitamin D deficient. This vitamin is touted as causative factor of all above mentioned diseases and perhaps many more.
• Our sedentary life style is taking its toll because we are not “using” the extra calories that we eat with almost no exercise.
• We are feeding corn to animals instead of grass to fatten them quickly and hence the quality of meat that we are eating is not as good as it used to be. It likely contains more saturated fat consisting of less Omega 3 fatty acids.
• Our cattle are given bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to fatten them. Incidentally rBGH) is officially allowed to be used In US only and no other Western developed country. So much so that our US produced rBGH laden meat is banned in all the European countries.
• Poultry farming as an industry was unheard of just over a hundred years ago. The chicken after being hatched from egg will take over 100 days to come to our dinner table as food. In contrast to that, today if the chicken is not sold for eating on about 49th day, the “industry” is likely go in loss. Hence to make them dinner ready the fowls are fed corns, fish meal, and given hormonal injection to fatten them as soon as possible.
• Crops of grains and fruits that we eat are likely to be contaminated with chemicals from fertilizers and pesticides; many such chemicals are touted to be carcinogens.
• Seeds are genetically modified (GM) to avail higher yield per acre. Again US are at forefront to allow GM seeds and crops for human consumption. We do not have long enough experience of their benefits or harms through scientific studies.
• Fruits are the only source of fructose sugars in nature, which is metabolized separately in liver and not like glucose in all cells of body.
• Since about 1970s when it started as High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) by Japan, we are consuming more and more fructose in almost all cola drinks and juices and almost everything that we eat. For industries, it is cheaper and sweeter than glucose. It is becoming evident that fructose is harmful (touted to be even poison by some experts). It is making our children addicted to sweets and harming their liver.

CONNECTING THE DOTS:

Now coming back to the story of Adam and Eve; it makes perfect sense why God Almighty had ordered them not to eat the fruits, which are the source of fructose, and wheat, which is source Carbohydrate and starch. In larger scheme of things, with the lives on planet for thousands upon thousands years old, our experience and experiment with Carbohydrate has been very limited. Agriculture, which brought to us grains, is only few thousand years old. And Fructose has been introduced to our foods only in 1970s. We know that grains contain a lot of carbohydrates, which coupled with vitamin D deficiency (resulting from modern life style), are potent cause of increasing incidence of diabetes and obesity, insulin resistance and perhaps depression, Alzheimer and cancer also.

It may be late already, but let us hope not too late. Let us heed, listen and interpret His anger and fury causing banishment of Adam and Eve from Garden of Eden because of disobeying His command. I believe we are now further disobeying Him by being congenial with the forbidden foods. Our children are becoming sugar addict by adding untested sugars like Fructose and HFSC to our diet. We need to wake up and start correcting ourselves. Let us analyze what are we doing and where we are heading. If our direction is not corrected, we shall soon face extinction of lives on the planet. This sounds dramatic and apocalyptic. But food about which we do not know enough and radiation, (again a new experiment of last less than hundred years), which is neither felt nor seen, both creations of the past few centuries have likely take us to brink. Stop this madness. Save mankind. This is for us, our progeny and lives on this planet earth for many generations to come on this planet.

Excessive Sugars; culprit of many miseries like Obesity and Diabetes

I was reading Dr Mercola's article about how Carbohydrate ingestion is causing the disease load of Obesity, Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, Cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer's and even Cancers. The link of his article is here.


He quotes from The Daily Mail London of June 15, 2011: "[In modern times], the Real Bread Campaign, a non-profit pressure group, claims that bread has actually gotten worse since 1911 in terms of secret adulterants -- enzymes that do not have to be declared on labels -- still being smuggled into it. Today, despite the modern fashion for healthy eating, 'nutritionally empty' white bread accounts for more than 50 percent of what we buy."
So, we are aware for almost 100 years that the bread is nutritionally empty. And almost half of what we eat consists of bread or some similar grain flour product, which is again same carbohydrate. We also know that all carbohydrate that we eat turns into glucose and raise blood sugar. This is normal if it was in moderation and in a healthy individual. This is what we all need to understand, as to when it gets out of hand and abnormal, and hence starts causing problems.
It is a little technical but bear with me and I will try and make it simple in one paragraph. Even after that if there is any question, please email me and I will try and explain again either on email or on telephone:
Insulin is secreted by pancreas and its normal function is to reduce the levels of glucose (sugar) in blood. A) However, if pancreas is exposed to high demand due to excessive intake of carbohydrates, the insulin it can produce may not be enough to do the job. B) Another important aspect we need to logically understand is that where does this sugar go from blood? Answer is that it is stored in liver or muscle for future use. But then if the intake is too excessive and the storage capacity is also full then what happens to this excess glucose? This is important to remember; such extra glucose is removed from blood but because the storage is full, it turns into FAT, which is stored in separate storage called fat cells. Whereas the stored glucose converts into blood glucose readily when needed for use, the stored fat does not easily convert and hence it increases obesity and all its related problems.
Other problems that excessive intake of carbohydrate will cause is Insulin Resistance because of continued high levels of insulin present in blood to fight with high blood sugars. Such insulin resistance is touted to be the cause of high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, which are all collectively called metabolic syndrome. Aside from this Alzheimer’s (which is now referred to as type 3 diabetes by some experts) and cancers are also connected by many researchers to the same basic phenomenon.
Our aim should be to simply try and follow the following food intake:

1.     Maximum use of greens leafy and colored veggies.

2.     Substantial intake of all proteins like fish, eggs, meat, lentils etc.

3.     Moderate amount of fat to meet calorie requirements.

4.     Remaining needed calories from carbohydrate from whole grains.

If the above regimen is followed, we may be able to reduce the human disease load of all kinds. By following this people are known to have lost weight, prevented diabetes and coronary artery disease an even regress these diseases and enjoy better health.


Add to this the following:

• Enough exposure to sunlight or supplements of Vit. D
• Supplements of Omega 3 essential fatty acids
• Protection from undue exposure of radiation
• Enough exercises, aerobic and resistance both
• Staying away from chemicals as best as possible
• Eating organic where possible

We will deal with these subjects in our future postings. Good luck and great health to you