Pssst!... I've got a secret to share with you!

[Guest guest]

" To fully understand nutrition, you must understand that grains are

commonly 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 be

experiencing the greatest rate of chronic and debilitating disease in

the history of the World? Well, we've done it. Over half of our nation

is now overweight. Obesity is truly an epidemic. Its long-term effects

cost more than the harmful effects of smoking (Wall Street Journal,

March 2003). . It is associated with higher risks of cancer, birth

defects (Mercola.com, 2003. Obesity and diabetes increases risk of

birth defects- citing Epidemiology, Nov 2000;11:689-694), heart

disease, arthritis (Mercola.com 2003. Finally, Proof for my assertion

that sugar is more dangerous than cigarettes- citing an article in

Public Health, June 2001;115:229-235) - the list sadly grows every

day. Being obese is as bad, in terms of costs to lifespan, as simply

cutting 20 years from your life. As Jami Clark, RN, talks about in her

section of this newsletter, obesity has spilled over into the

childhood and adolescent age groups at an alarming rate. If it cuts

life span so drastically, these children are already starting out life

facing the huge medical, physical, and psychological challenges

associated with carrying around extra weight. In our latest book, What

makes bread rise?, we offer readers a chance to finally learn what's

at the root of most weight problems. In this first issue of Know the

Cause!. , I've taken some of the information that we present in this

book and talk about it here. Because obesity is such a widespread

problem that I feel the need to let you all in on a little secret

right 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 understand

the root cause of this epidemic. One is that carbohydrates-grains and

sugars-have inadvertently been rated as the " safe " food choice. The

other has to do with the fungal contamination of our grain food

supply. Let's talk about carbs, first.

 

Until the late 1970's to the early 1980's, the United States

Department of Agriculture's dietary recommendations did not include

any cautions against fat. Things changes after around this time, when

the USDA changed their mind about fat. Later, in the early 1990's the

USDA's Food Pyramid was introduced to the public. All of a sudden,

fats were shoved up to the tiny and claustrophobic top of the pyramid

in the category that equated to " bad foods that should be consumed in

small quantities. " People-medical personnel included-assumed that this

recommendation applied to all fats. Margarine quickly took the place

of butter. Whole grain bread and cereal became breakfast of

champs-move over bacon and eggs! Pasta now reigned over meat. Nobody

seemed to notice that it was not a panel of esteemed scientists who

devised this new, Food Pyramid. In truth, the " esteemed panel " was a

group 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, July

17, 2002). Yet, since this information was so heavily marketed and

taught to the dieticians who, in turn teach doctors how to tell us to

eat, we bought the information hook, line, and sinker. Even to this

day, when we've learned that margarine is actually more dangerous than

butter, and that eggs and nuts are not so bad after all-that consuming

them may actually lower risks of heart disease-we still have a fat

phobia. Doctors are terrified of giving thumbs up to the three-letter

" f " word to any of their patients with heart disease or high

cholesterol despite the fact that repeated, small studies over the

past 30 years have shown that eating a high protein, low carb diet is

just as effective, and often more so, at reducing bad cholesterol as a

low fat diet, whether or not an exercise program is involved. We have

clinically observed lipids such as cholesterol and triglycerides

increase dramatically as a result of following a low-fat diet. Just as

Doug said when he quoted the physiology text book: our bodies easily

convert carbohydrates into fat.

 

It's neither here nor there, though. Low fat and low carb proponents

will likely continue their battles for years to come. But some

interesting data has come to surface as of late. A study by Penelope

Greed of the Harvard School of public health looked at the effects of

following either a high carb, low fat diet vs. a high fat, low carb

diet. Both groups of people lost equal amounts of weight. There you

go, you say- there's no difference in the two diets. Not so fast. The

participants who followed a low-carb regimen ate, on average, 300 more

calories per day than the low-fat folks. Over the 12 week span of the

study, 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 a

calorie is a calorie. The extra calories consumed MUST turn into extra

weight, they were taught. Yet the low-carb participants managed to

loose this weight with ease. Was there a trick involved? Was there a

missing 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 of

the American Medical Association. Born out of the 9-11 incident and

the subsequent need to learn more about bioterrorism agents, such as

the fungal-derived T2 toxin (a.k.a. " Yellow Rain), this article did

more than educate the medical readers about chemical warfare. It took

the topic of fungal toxins-mycotoxins-a step further, saying that

these harmful chemicals are not just found on the front lines of

battle 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 was

beautifully filled with pearls of information. It stated that " the

primary concern in developed countries (that's us, folks) is the

long-term effects of ingesting food contaminated with low levels of

mycotoxins, " and that carcinogenic toxins, such as aflatoxin, a

by-product of the Aspergillus molds, is a " common contaminant of

peanuts, soybeans, grains and cassava. It went on to inform us that

the Fusarium mold group of toxins known as the fumonisins " seem to be

universally present in corn and corn-based products " and that these

fumonisins might be linked to human birth defects such as spina

bifida. Another toxin, called vomitoxin, of the trichothecene group of

mold 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 when

they are consumed in our foods or inhaled in moldy buildings. Without

a properly-functioning immune system, we're at risk of succumbing to

various, infectious and chronic diseases. Incidentally, fungi

preferably invade our grain food supply because grains-a source of

carbohydrates-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 as

you've read in Doug's section, antibiotics are simply another group of

mycotoxins. Most antibiotics are, in fact, mold byproducts. Think of

the penicillin that comes from the Penicillium mold, and cephalexin

(Keflex®), which is derived from Cephalosporium molds. Antibiotics

kill bacteria in low levels, and in overdose situations, they can kill

us. Thousands of mycotoxins have been studied in hopes of developing

new, effective and safe antibiotics. The antibiotics that make it to

market just so happen to be the ones that will effectively and safely

kill bacteria without causing much harm to our body. How toxic can

mycotoxins be? The lethal dose of aflatoxin, mentioned above, is a

mere 10mg. Think also of the ravages of chemotherapy. Many

chemotherapy drugs are themselves fungal byproducts that have a wide

range of toxicity, including heart failure, cancer (ironically) and

death.

 

Let's return to the fungal-derived antibiotics, then. It's no secret

that the agricultural industry has been using antibiotics in animals

for years. Back in 1949, it was observed that when animals were fed

byproducts of the fungus Streptomyces aureofaciens they had a tendency

to easily gain weight (Lawrence, TLJ; Fowler, VR. Growth of farm

animals, 2nd ed. CAB International. 2002.

CABI-Publishing.org/bookshop/ReadingRoom/0851194849.asp. Pp320-330-

Chapter 15). It was later discovered that antibiotics were the

byproducts that were responsible for causing the weight gain. With

this newfound knowledge, the feedlot industry was born. To this day,

animals are fed millions of pounds of antibiotics each year. This is a

potential source of human exposure to growth-promoting antibiotics.

And what's not consumed in our diet is taken care of at the doctor's

office, when we run to the doctor for every sniffle and ear ache to

demand yet another antibiotic. It stands to reason that the very

antibiotics causing weight gain in animals can cause weight gain in

humans. What's more, it's not enough that we're just over-consuming

these fungal-derived drugs. We're also suffering from the result of

popping these pills, and that is the secondary fungal and yeast

overgrowth that occurs in our body as a result of knocking out our

good, protective intestinal bacteria with these antibiotics. These

secondary growths of fungi and yeast are now free to manufacture their

own, various batches of mycotoxins, right in our body (Shah, D, et al.

In situ mycotoxin production by Candida albicans in women with

vaginitis. Gynecol Obstet Invest. 1995;39(1):67-9). How convenient!

 

Fungal-derived hormone growth promoters have also been popular since

the 1930's. One, present-day product is Zeranol®, a commercial

form of

the Fusarium mold toxin, zearalenone. Zearalenone-Zeranol-stimulates

the pituitary gland in the brain to produce more growth hormone,

which, in turn, causes rapid weight gain. It is not a mycotoxin that

we screen our grain food supply for, despite the fact that the highest

levels of zearalenone have frequently been found in North American

cereal grains. Zearalenone wouldn't be so bad if all it did was

stimulate growth. As it turns out, it also mimics the effects of

estrogen. Some other results of ingesting it can include feminization

of 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 Force

Report No. 139. Jan 2003).

 

We could go on. Literally hundreds of mycotoxins, along with their

toxic effects in animals, have been studied. The fungal contamination

of food is a costly and never-ending battle, and it remains a battle

because of the seriousness of the end result of fungal contamination

of food: the eventual exposure of animals and humans to harmful

mycotoxins. Sick, cancer-ridden and infertile animals don't yield good

profit for farmers. Sick, cancer-ridden, overweight, and infertile

humans 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 grain

foods. And based on " allowable " levels (20 parts per billion) of

aflatoxin in the grains that have been cleared for human consumption,

it is estimated that we consume, on a daily basis, between 0.15mg and

0.5mg of aflatoxin per day. Remember what we said about zearalenone

(highest levels are found in North American cereal grains) and the

effects of the fumonisin and trichothecenes. By law, we don't have to

screen our foods for these other mycotoxins in America. Remember that.

We don't screen for the vast majority of harmful mycotoxins in our

grain 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 supposedly

healthy foundation of the USDA Food Pyramid- are the missing factor

that allows participants in all of these, various, low-carb studies,

including the one above, to magically consume more calories than the

low-fat dieters and yet still loose as much weight as the low-fat

consumers. No need to fret, dieticians and food experts. A calorie is

still a calorie. It's just that some calories-namely the grains-have

been tainted with growth-promoting contaminants. It has little, if

anything to do with Glycemic index, or ketosis (a physiologic state

achieved when following an Atkins diet, or when starving), the amount

of calories consumed, or insulin resistance. What causes insulin

resistance and diabetes is a whole, other topic covered in our book,

Infectious Diabetes. Incidentally, look again also at the effects of

some of these grain contaminants, and you'll also understand why obese

persons suffer from higher rates of cancer and infections and chronic,

degenerative diseases.

 

So the secret's out. To fully understand nutrition, you must

understand that grains are commonly contaminated with fungi and their

toxins. And thus, these are some of the steps that we feel that one

should follow in order to achieve quality health and longevity:

• Minimize your intake of these toxins by avoiding the more

notoriously contaminated grains, such as corn and peanuts

• Treat obvious, existing fungal infections on the body

(toenail

fungus, yeast infections, ringworm)

• Reverse the previous damage done by taking antibiotics in the

past by supplementing with probiotics

• Include in your diet some of the nutrients and supplements

that

minimize or block the effects of the fungal toxins that happen to make

their way into our body, despite your best intentions. In our book,

What Makes Bread Rise?, we outline what this program looks like in

greater detail.

 

Sincerely,

Dave Holland, MD