grains are commonly contaminated with fungi and their toxins.

[Guest guest]

"To fully understand nutrition, you must understand that grains arecommonly contaminated with fungi and their toxins." http://www.knowthecause.com/sciencefungus.html By: Dave Holland Who'd of thought that the most advanced civilization would beexperiencing the greatest rate of chronic and debilitating disease inthe history of the World? Well, we've done it. Over half of our nationis now overweight. Obesity is truly an epidemic. Its long-term effectscost more than the harmful effects of smoking (Wall Street Journal,March 2003). . It is associated with higher risks of cancer, birthdefects (Mercola.com, 2003. Obesity and diabetes increases risk ofbirth defects- citing Epidemiology, Nov 2000;11:689-694), heartdisease, arthritis (Mercola.com 2003. Finally, Proof for my assertionthat sugar is more dangerous than cigarettes- citing an article inPublic Health, June 2001;115:229-235) - the list sadly grows everyday. Being obese is as bad, in terms of costs to lifespan, as simplycutting 20 years from your life. As Jami Clark, RN, talks about in hersection of this newsletter, obesity has spilled over into thechildhood and adolescent age groups at an alarming rate. If it cutslife span so drastically, these children are already starting out lifefacing the huge medical, physical, and psychological challengesassociated with carrying around extra weight. In our latest book, Whatmakes bread rise?, we offer readers a chance to finally learn what'sat the root of most weight problems. In this first issue of Know theCause!. , I've taken some of the information that we present in thisbook and talk about it here. Because obesity is such a widespreadproblem that I feel the need to let you all in on a little secretright now. There are two huge problems that lay at the root of our nation's 60%obesity rate that we must first discuss in order to better understandthe root cause of this epidemic. One is that carbohydrates-grains andsugars-have inadvertently been rated as the "safe" food choice. Theother has to do with the fungal contamination of our grain foodsupply. Let's talk about carbs, first. Until the late 1970's to the early 1980's, the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture's dietary recommendations did not includeany cautions against fat. Things changes after around this time, whenthe USDA changed their mind about fat. Later, in the early 1990's theUSDA's Food Pyramid was introduced to the public. All of a sudden,fats were shoved up to the tiny and claustrophobic top of the pyramidin the category that equated to "bad foods that should be consumed insmall quantities." People-medical personnel included-assumed that thisrecommendation applied to all fats. Margarine quickly took the placeof butter. Whole grain bread and cereal became breakfast ofchamps-move over bacon and eggs! Pasta now reigned over meat. Nobodyseemed to notice that it was not a panel of esteemed scientists whodevised this new, Food Pyramid. In truth, the "esteemed panel" was agroup of attorneys working, at the time, under Senator George McGovern(Taubes, G. What if it's all been a big, fat lie? New York Times, July17, 2002). Yet, since this information was so heavily marketed andtaught to the dieticians who, in turn teach doctors how to tell us toeat, we bought the information hook, line, and sinker. Even to thisday, when we've learned that margarine is actually more dangerous thanbutter, and that eggs and nuts are not so bad after all-that consumingthem may actually lower risks of heart disease-we still have a fatphobia. Doctors are terrified of giving thumbs up to the three-letter"f" word to any of their patients with heart disease or highcholesterol despite the fact that repeated, small studies over thepast 30 years have shown that eating a high protein, low carb diet isjust as effective, and often more so, at reducing bad cholesterol as alow fat diet, whether or not an exercise program is involved. We haveclinically observed lipids such as cholesterol and triglyceridesincrease dramatically as a result of following a low-fat diet. Just asDoug said when he quoted the physiology text book: our bodies easilyconvert carbohydrates into fat. It's neither here nor there, though. Low fat and low carb proponentswill likely continue their battles for years to come. But someinteresting data has come to surface as of late. A study by PenelopeGreed of the Harvard School of public health looked at the effects offollowing either a high carb, low fat diet vs. a high fat, low carbdiet. Both groups of people lost equal amounts of weight. There yougo, you say- there's no difference in the two diets. Not so fast. Theparticipants who followed a low-carb regimen ate, on average, 300 morecalories per day than the low-fat folks. Over the 12 week span of thestudy, this should have translated into an extra 7 pound weight gain.Did the calories just vanish into thin air? Dieticians were befuddled.From day one of their schooling they'd been taught that a calorie is acalorie is a calorie. The extra calories consumed MUST turn into extraweight, they were taught. Yet the low-carb participants managed toloose this weight with ease. Was there a trick involved? Was there amissing factor that we're not accounting for in the high carb group?This, my friends, is where we must introduce to you our fungal foes. History was made in January of 2002 when a simple article entitled"Mycotoxins," by Ruth Etzel, PhD, MD was published in the Journal ofthe American Medical Association. Born out of the 9-11 incident andthe subsequent need to learn more about bioterrorism agents, such asthe fungal-derived T2 toxin (a.k.a. "Yellow Rain), this article didmore than educate the medical readers about chemical warfare. It tookthe topic of fungal toxins-mycotoxins-a step further, saying thatthese harmful chemicals are not just found on the front lines ofbattle grounds. They are just as easily found on playgrounds.Specifically, they're in foods that we eat every day (Etzel, R.Mycotoxins. JAMA, Vol 287, No. 4. Jan 23/30, 2002). The article wasbeautifully filled with pearls of information. It stated that "theprimary concern in developed countries (that's us, folks) is thelong-term effects of ingesting food contaminated with low levels ofmycotoxins," and that carcinogenic toxins, such as aflatoxin, aby-product of the Aspergillus molds, is a "common contaminant ofpeanuts, soybeans, grains and cassava. It went on to inform us thatthe Fusarium mold group of toxins known as the fumonisins "seem to beuniversally present in corn and corn-based products" and that thesefumonisins might be linked to human birth defects such as spinabifida. Another toxin, called vomitoxin, of the trichothecene group ofmold toxins, causes nausea, headaches, and abdominal cramps. It's a"frequent contaminant of wheat and corn." The trichothecenes(try-ko-thee-seens) are documented to suppress our immune system whenthey are consumed in our foods or inhaled in moldy buildings. Withouta properly-functioning immune system, we're at risk of succumbing tovarious, infectious and chronic diseases. Incidentally, fungipreferably invade our grain food supply because grains-a source ofcarbohydrates-are their favorite food. What's a mold or toxin got to do with my waistline, you might ask.Let's go a step further. As you see in the examples above, and asyou've read in Doug's section, antibiotics are simply another group ofmycotoxins. Most antibiotics are, in fact, mold byproducts. Think ofthe penicillin that comes from the Penicillium mold, and cephalexin(Keflex®), which is derived from Cephalosporium molds. Antibioticskill bacteria in low levels, and in overdose situations, they can killus. Thousands of mycotoxins have been studied in hopes of developingnew, effective and safe antibiotics. The antibiotics that make it tomarket just so happen to be the ones that will effectively and safelykill bacteria without causing much harm to our body. How toxic canmycotoxins be? The lethal dose of aflatoxin, mentioned above, is amere 10mg. Think also of the ravages of chemotherapy. Manychemotherapy drugs are themselves fungal byproducts that have a widerange of toxicity, including heart failure, cancer (ironically) anddeath. Let's return to the fungal-derived antibiotics, then. It's no secretthat the agricultural industry has been using antibiotics in animalsfor years. Back in 1949, it was observed that when animals were fedbyproducts of the fungus Streptomyces aureofaciens they had a tendencyto easily gain weight (Lawrence, TLJ; Fowler, VR. Growth of farmanimals, 2nd ed. CAB International. 2002.CABI-Publishing.org/bookshop/ReadingRoom/0851194849.asp. Pp320-330-Chapter 15). It was later discovered that antibiotics were thebyproducts that were responsible for causing the weight gain. Withthis newfound knowledge, the feedlot industry was born. To this day,animals are fed millions of pounds of antibiotics each year. This is apotential source of human exposure to growth-promoting antibiotics.And what's not consumed in our diet is taken care of at the doctor'soffice, when we run to the doctor for every sniffle and ear ache todemand yet another antibiotic. It stands to reason that the veryantibiotics causing weight gain in animals can cause weight gain inhumans. What's more, it's not enough that we're just over-consumingthese fungal-derived drugs. We're also suffering from the result ofpopping these pills, and that is the secondary fungal and yeastovergrowth that occurs in our body as a result of knocking out ourgood, protective intestinal bacteria with these antibiotics. Thesesecondary growths of fungi and yeast are now free to manufacture theirown, various batches of mycotoxins, right in our body (Shah, D, et al.In situ mycotoxin production by Candida albicans in women withvaginitis. Gynecol Obstet Invest. 1995;39(1):67-9). How convenient! Fungal-derived hormone growth promoters have also been popular sincethe 1930's. One, present-day product is Zeranol®, a commercialform ofthe Fusarium mold toxin, zearalenone. Zearalenone-Zeranol-stimulatesthe pituitary gland in the brain to produce more growth hormone,which, in turn, causes rapid weight gain. It is not a mycotoxin thatwe screen our grain food supply for, despite the fact that the highestlevels of zearalenone have frequently been found in North Americancereal grains. Zearalenone wouldn't be so bad if all it did wasstimulate growth. As it turns out, it also mimics the effects ofestrogen. Some other results of ingesting it can include feminizationof male animals, infertility, precocious (early) puberty in females,and miscarriages (Council for Agricultural Science and Technology.Mycotoxins: Risks in Plant, Animal and Human Systems. Task ForceReport No. 139. Jan 2003). We could go on. Literally hundreds of mycotoxins, along with theirtoxic effects in animals, have been studied. The fungal contaminationof food is a costly and never-ending battle, and it remains a battlebecause of the seriousness of the end result of fungal contaminationof food: the eventual exposure of animals and humans to harmfulmycotoxins. Sick, cancer-ridden and infertile animals don't yield goodprofit for farmers. Sick, cancer-ridden, overweight, and infertilehumans don't yield good profits for employers and insurance companies,either. Yet, despite these known, harmful effects of these chemicals,we still only screen for one, single toxin-aflatoxin-in our grainfoods. And based on "allowable" levels (20 parts per billion) ofaflatoxin in the grains that have been cleared for human consumption,it is estimated that we consume, on a daily basis, between 0.15mg and0.5mg of aflatoxin per day. Remember what we said about zearalenone(highest levels are found in North American cereal grains) and theeffects of the fumonisin and trichothecenes. By law, we don't have toscreen our foods for these other mycotoxins in America. Remember that.We don't screen for the vast majority of harmful mycotoxins in ourgrain food supply. And therein lies the secret to why low-carb diets work.Growth-promoting mycotoxins in the form of antibiotics and various,hormone-related substances in grain-based foods- the supposedlyhealthy foundation of the USDA Food Pyramid- are the missing factorthat allows participants in all of these, various, low-carb studies,including the one above, to magically consume more calories than thelow-fat dieters and yet still loose as much weight as the low-fatconsumers. No need to fret, dieticians and food experts. A calorie isstill a calorie. It's just that some calories-namely the grains-havebeen tainted with growth-promoting contaminants. It has little, ifanything to do with Glycemic index, or ketosis (a physiologic stateachieved when following an Atkins diet, or when starving), the amountof calories consumed, or insulin resistance. What causes insulinresistance and diabetes is a whole, other topic covered in our book,Infectious Diabetes. Incidentally, look again also at the effects ofsome of these grain contaminants, and you'll also understand why obesepersons suffer from higher rates of cancer and infections and chronic,degenerative diseases. So the secret's out. To fully understand nutrition, you mustunderstand that grains are commonly contaminated with fungi and theirtoxins. And thus, these are some of the steps that we feel that oneshould follow in order to achieve quality health and longevity: • Minimize your intake of these toxins by avoiding the morenotoriously contaminated grains, such as corn and peanuts • Treat obvious, existing fungal infections on the body(toenailfungus, yeast infections, ringworm) • Reverse the previous damage done by taking antibiotics in thepast by supplementing with probiotics • Include in your diet some of the nutrients and supplementsthatminimize or block the effects of the fungal toxins that happen to maketheir way into our body, despite your best intentions. In our book,What Makes Bread Rise?, we outline what this program looks like ingreater detail. Sincerely, Dave Holland, MD