Vitamins…a 27 billion dollar folly?

Posted on 04/15/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

An April 13 article by Madison Park on CNN.com led off with the following: “As more than half of U.S. adults are popping vitamins and supplements, the question remains — has it made Americans healthier?”

Americans take $27 billion worth of vitamin supplements every year, yet have by far the highest cost of health care (disease care) in the world.

The short answer is NO. While the use of vitamins has been steadily increasing in recent decades, there has been no corresponding improvement in health. Just the opposite in fact. Everyone knows that obesity and type 2 diabetes are both on a meteoric rise while cancer and heart disease both continue to take their horrific tolls.

That rise (in vitamin use), from 42% in 1988 to 53% in 2006, has fueled the growth of the supplement industry to a $27 billion behemoth, according to Consumer Reports. The most popular supplements are multivitamins, used by 39% of U.S. adults in 2006. (See link to complete article at the end of this post.)

In addition to the obesity and chronic disease, Americans continue to use prescription drugs in record numbers. What’s wrong? We all know down deep inside that we’re eating a very unhealthy diet — and then we’re offered offered all these vitamins that we are led to believe will take care of the nutrients that were not getting from our food. WRONG! As the article said…

Some consumers mistakenly view supplements as a way to make up for a poor diet. “It’s a Band-Aid approach to think you can eat poorly and just take a vitamin and you’ll be equal to another person who eats well and exercises and takes care of their health and gets regular checkups,” Avitzur said. “There’s no substitute for a healthy lifestyle.”

As for evidence that our massive use of vitamins is doing any good, the article reported: “Several epidemiological studies showed there was no significant difference between people who take supplements and those who do not, said Anding, a registered dietitian and director of sports nutrition at Texas Children’s Hospital.”

Bottom line. As Dr. Campbell and all five of the enlightened physicians featured in our book will tell you, “Our bodies were designed to derive our nutrients from our food.” Dr. Campbell often talks about the “symphony” of chemical reactions that take place in the body when you feed it the natural diet for our species — whole plants in nature’s package.

So what, if any, vitamins should we take? From the research we did for our book, I concluded that I would follow the simple advice of Dr. T. Colin Campbell:

  • Since plants don’t contain B 12, it might be a good idea to take a supplement.
  • The body is supposed to get vitamin D from the sun. But, in the winter up north, it might be a good idea to take a supplement. (See related post)

Dr. John McDougall doesn’t entirely agree with Dr. Campbell on this topic. He shares his views, particularly on Vitamin D, in this short video.

Everyone must choose what they feel is best for them and their families. In my own case, I take an occasional vitamin D tablet in the dead of winter in New England. Recently, Dr. Campbell told me that the only vitamin that he takes himself is an occasional B12 — at the insistence of his wife Karen. He spends his winters in relatively mild North Carolina — as compared to New England or to his home of Ithaca, NY.

A word of caution. Not only is it very doubtful that our vitamin supplements are doing us any good, there is evidence that some of them are doing some damage. Noting that you can’t always believe what you hear on the evening news, in his book The China Study, Dr. Campbell commented on omega-3’s from a 1999 Harvard study: “Contrary to the predominant hypothesis, we found an increased risk of breast cancer associated with omega-3 fats from fish.”

What is the answer? Moving as quickly as you can — back to the natural diet for our species….a diet that derives the vast majority of its calories from whole plant foods — still in nature’s package.

J. Morris Hicks, author and activist. Working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

Entire April 13 article on vitamin supplements – CNN.com.

Posted in Vitamins & Supplements | 4 Comments

Flatulent cows…and saving the planet

Posted on 04/14/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

1.5 billion cows on planet earth do nothing but eat, drink and eliminate...solids, liquids and gas...and none of them are a bargain for the environment.

Every two-year old knows that flatulence is funny, they just haven’t learned that fancy word for it yet. But the environmental impact of the 60 billion animals that we raise for our dinner tables is no laughing matter.

In a March 30 article in Time (online) by Jeffrey Kluger, there was an article all about the methane emission from cattle and its corresponding impact on global warming. Quoting from the article (See link at end of this post)…

The emissions produced by nature’s woodwind section contain a nasty mix of many gasses, among them methane. Though carbon dioxide is the first gas that comes to mind when we think of greenhouse emissions, pound for pound, methane is more than 20 times more powerful in terms of its global warming potential. Methane doesn’t linger in the atmosphere quite as long as CO2, and it’s not produced industrially in anywhere near the same quantity, but it does its damage all the same — and livestock toots out a surprisingly large share of it.

This news is not new. In a 2006 UN Report entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, there was compelling data showing that livestock contribute 30% more to global warming than ALL of transportation combined. So why didn’t Al Gore tell us about that in his movie that same year? Remember An Inconvenient Truth, for which he won the Nobel Prize?

How could a man win a Nobel Prize for a movie about global warming and not even mention the #1 cause? Actually since that 2006 UN Study, the World Bank has come up with data suggesting that the livestock contribution is closer to 50% of the cause of greenhouse gases as opposed to the 18% reported in the UN Study.

So, once again, why didn’t Gore mention it? One reason is probably money. The other is the continued belief by the vast majority of the most educated people in the world that we truly “need” to eat animal products in order to be healthy. This belief, despite overwhelming scientific and clinical evidence to the contrary, continues to be widely held.

But now there’s a former president of the United States (Bill Clinton) who is beginning to learn that not only do we not “need,” animal products — they are in fact the primary drivers of disease throughout the western world. But the writers of the Time piece haven’t been enlightened to those facts yet and are still focusing on things like eating kangaroos or changing what we feed the cattle….

Since nobody is going to re-engineer the ruminant digestive tract anytime soon, the solutions are limited: stop eating meat or at least eat other kinds. (A 2010 study from the Science and Environment section of the Library of the U.K.’s House of Commons reported that a pair of Australian biologists have recommended eating marsupials instead of livestock, since kangaroos and their kin produce almost no methane when they digest.) But there’s one more answer too: reformulate the diet of the animals themselves. If you change what goes in, you should be able to change what comes out.

J. Morris Hicks, the "big picture" guy enjoying the fresh air of New England -- far from the vast feedlots of Nebraska.

Bottom line. In the western world, we are eating a totally unnatural diet for our species and we’re growing 60 billion animals a year to feed less than 2 billion humans. That number is projected to increase to 120 billion by 2050.

Not only is this toxic diet destroying our own health, it is destroying the health of the planet in a very long list of ways — global warming is just one of them.

Complex problem — refreshingly simple solution. Just begin a deliberate shift back to the health-promoting natural diet for our species. Our 4-Leaf Programwill help you get started. On a plant-based diet, we can feed twenty times as many people on the same amount of land and simply eliminate the sources of vast damage to the environment. A blinding flash of the obvious to be sure.

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

Silence the Cows and Save the Planet – Ecocentric – TIME.com

Posted in Climate Change, Environment | Leave a comment

Extremely early puberty…Would you believe 6 years old?

Posted on 04/13/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

A front page article on this topic appeared in the USA Today on April 11, 2011. The complete headline reads:

PUBERTY TOO SOON…Girls are maturing faster than ever, and doctors are not sure why. By Liz Szabo — USA Today

J. Morris Hicks, writer, speaker, blogger and health coach

Since I have been reading about this phenomenon for years, I knew right away that there were indeed “some doctors” who are sure why — and they have been sure for a long time. I actually reached out to two of them yesterday and this was their response. John McDougall, M.D., said “Interesting – I have been writing about this since the early 80s. I know what the cause is.”

Also Dr. Joel Furhman weighed in on this topic…referring me to this quote from his book, Disease-Proof Your Child:

Early puberty is obviously not due to any one factor, but rather to the combined effect of the modern diet of processed foods, cheese, daily animal products and the lack of fresh produce….Early puberty is strongly associated with breast cancer and the occurrence of breast cancer is three times higher in women who started puberty before age twelve.

Since the medical doctors consulted for the article were not sure of the cause, the author goes on to  cite many possible causes including everything from plastic bottles and obesity to genetics and environmental toxins…..but not a single mention of the fact that we just might be eating the totally wrong diet for our species.

Actually, to be fair, in a related article in the Life section of the same issue, it was suggested that it might be a good idea to eat less meat & dairy and more fresh produce. Good advice to be sure, but buried within a long list of recommendations and following a lead article declaring that doctors were not sure of the cause. It’s truly a sad situation — quoting directly from the article:

They first noticed something different when Laila was 3, and she began to produce the sort of body odor normally associated with adults. Three years later, she grew pubic hair. By age 7, Laila was developing breasts.Without medical treatment, doctors warned, Laila could begin menstruating by age 8 — an age when many kids are still trying to master a two-wheeler. Laila’s parents, from the Los Angeles area, asked USA TODAY not to publish their last name to protect their daughter’s privacy.

Doctors say Laila’s story is increasingly familiar at a time when girls are maturing faster than ever and, for reasons doctors don’t completely understand, hitting puberty younger than any generation in history.

About 15% of American girls now begin puberty by age 7, according to a study of 1,239 girls published last year in Pediatrics. One in 10 white girls begin developing breasts by that age — twice the rate seen in a 1997 study. Among black girls, such as Laila, 23% hit puberty by age 7.

“Over the last 30 years, we’ve shortened the childhood of girls by about a year and a half,” says Sandra Steingraber, author of a 2007 report on early puberty for the Breast Cancer Fund, an advocacy group. “That’s not good.”

All of the above is just another sad example of how innocent people are suffering because their vast “system” of health care is failing them. It is not providing clear-cut information that enables people to take charge of their own health and avoid the hazards of eating the wrong diet for our species.

Dr. John McDougall says, "Interesting - I have been writing about this since the early 80s. I know what the cause is." Check out his work at drmcougall.com

The bottom line is that this. Our “system” is failing us miserably, yet people within the system are well-intentioned and just doing what they have been taught. Too big and too complex to change from the top down, the only answer to fixing our “system” is a grassroots movement by people such as ourselves who begin by taking charge of our own health.

To do that, we simply learn the truth about nutrition, make better choices in what we eat, enjoy the plethora of benefits of vibrant health — then spread the word to everyone you care about.

Clearly, there is something terribly wrong when you have girls hitting puberty at six years old. The good news here is that things are beginning to change — with people like Bill Clinton and Oprah now moving back towards the natural diet for our species, millions more will be following. 

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

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If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com.

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Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, Board of Directors…

Posted in Cancer, Children, Health in General, Medical Experts | 1 Comment