Why soya is not good for you.

      4 Comments on Why soya is not good for you.

For the last twenty years, tofu has been all the rage. As people became increasingly educated about the dangers of dairy and dairy products, tofu became the viable substitute. However in a bizarre reversal of sorts, we have begun to discover that if a little of something is good, more of it is not necessarily better. “Tofu Shrinks Brain!” Not a science fiction scenario, this sobering soybean revelation is for real. But how did the “poster bean” of the ’90s go wrong? Apparently, in many ways – none of which bode well for the brain.

In a major ongoing study involving 3,734 elderly Japanese-American men, those who ate the most tofu during midlife had up to 2.4 times the risk of later developing Alzheimer’s disease. As part of the three-decade long Honolulu-Asia Aging Study, 27 foods and drinks were correlated with participants’ health. Men who consumed tofu at least twice weekly had more cognitive impairment, compared with those who rarely or never ate the soybean curd.

“The test results were about equivalent to what they would have been if they were five years older,” said lead researcher Dr. Lon R. White from the Hawaii Center for Health Research. For the guys who ate no tofu, however, they tested as though they were five years younger.

What’s more, higher midlife tofu consumption was also associated with low brain weight. Brain atrophy was assessed in 574 men using MRI results and in 290 men using autopsy information. Shrinkage occurs naturally with age, but for the men who had consumed more tofu, White said “their brains seemed to be showing an exaggeration of the usual patterns we see in aging.”

Phytoestrogens – Soy Self Defense

Tofu and other soybean foods contain isoflavones, three-ringed molecules
bearing a structural resemblance to mammalian steroidal hormones. White and his fellow researchers speculate that soy’s estrogen-like compounds (phytoestrogens) might compete with the body’s natural estrogens for estrogen receptors in brain cells.

Plants have evolved many different strategies to protect themselves from predators. Some have thorns or spines, while others smell bad, taste bad, or
poison animals that eat them. Some plants took a different route, using birth
control as a way to counter the critters who were wont to munch.

Plants such as soy are making oral contraceptives to defend themselves, says
Claude Hughes, Ph.D., a neuroendocrinologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.They evolved compounds that mimic natural estrogen. These phytoestrogens caninterfere with the mammalian hormones involved in reproduction and growth – a strategy to reduce the number and size of predators.

Toxicologists Concerned About Soy’s Health Risks

The soy industry says that White’s study only shows an association between tofu consumption and brain aging, but does not prove cause and effect. On the other hand, soy experts at the National Center for Toxicological Research, Daniel Sheehan, Ph.D., and Daniel Doerge, Ph.D., consider this tofu study very important. “It is one of the more robust, well-designed prospective epidemiological studies generally available. . . We rarely have such power in human studies, as well as a potential mechanism.”

In a 1999 letter to the FDA (and on the ABC News program 20/20), the two
toxicologists expressed their opposition to the agency’s health claims for soy, saying the Honolulu study “provides evidence that soy (tofu) phytoestrogens cause vascular dementia. Given that estrogens are important for maintenance of brain function in women; that the male brain contains aromatase, the enzyme that converts testosterone to estradiol; and that isoflavones inhibit this enzymatic activity, there is a mechanistic basis for the human findings.”

Although estrogen’s role in the central nervous system is not well understood, White notes that “a growing body of information suggests that estrogens may be needed for optimal repair and replacement of neural structures eroded with aging.”

One link to the puzzle may involve calcium-binding proteins, which are
associated with protection against neurodegenerative diseases. In recent
animal studies at Brigham Young University’s Neuroscience Center, researchers found that consumption of phytoestrogens via a soy diet for a relatively short interval can significantly elevate phytoestrogens levels in the brain
and decrease brain calcium-binding proteins.

Concerns About Giving Soy to Infants

The most serious problem with soy may be its use in infant formulas. “The
amount of phytoestrogens that are in a day’s worth of soy infant formula equals 5 birth control pills,” says Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., president of the Maryland Nutritionists Association. She and other nutrition experts believe that infant exposure to high amounts of phytoestrogens is associated with early puberty in girls and retarded physical maturation in boys.

A study reported in the British medical journal Lancet found that the “daily
exposure of infants to isoflavones in soy infant-formulas is 6-11 fold higher on a bodyweight basis than the dose that has hormonal effects in adults consuming soy foods.” (A dose, equivalent to two glasses of soy milk per day, that was enough to change menstrual patterns in women. ) In the blood of infants tested, concentrations of isoflavones were 13000-22000 times higher than natural estrogen concentrations in early life.

Soy Interferes with Enzymes

While soybeans are relatively high in protein compared to other legumes, Enig says they are a poor source of protein because other proteins found in soybeans act as potent enzyme inhibitors. These “anti-nutrients” block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion. Trypsin inhibitors are large, tightly folded proteins that are not completely deactivated during ordinary cooking and can reduce protein digestion. Therefore, soy consumption may lead to chronic deficiencies in amino acid
uptake.

Soy’s ability to interfere with enzymes and amino acids may have direct consequence for the brain. As White and his colleagues suggest, “isoflavones in tofu and other soyfoods might exert their influence through interference with tyrosine kinase-dependent mechanisms required for optimal hippocampal function, structure and plasticity.”

High amounts of protein tyrosine kinases are found in the hippocampus, a
brain region involved with learning and memory. One of soy’s primary
isoflavones, genistein, has been shown to inhibit tyrosine kinase in the
hippocampus, where it blocked “long-term potentiation,” a mechanism of memory formation.

Be well

Dr Sundardas


The Epidemic of Autism

      23 Comments on The Epidemic of Autism

When I first started practice 19 years ago, I had barely heard and registered that were conditions like ADHD, ADD and Autism. I think I was practicing for almost 3 years before I saw my first real case of learning disability. It was either ADD or ADHD. Since than the numbers have mushroomed. Now I may see 6 to 10 children a month. At least a third will have some kind of learning disability on top of allergy like symptoms. At least one child will be in the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Nearly 12 million children in the United States of America (or up to 17 percent) suffer from one or more developmental disabilities, including deafness, blindness, epilepsy, speech defects, cerebral palsy, delays in growth and development, behavioral problems, or learning disabilities.

Learning disabilities alone affect 5 to 10 percent of children in public schools, and these numbers appear to be increasing. Prior to 1960’s the reported figure was 0.2 percent. According to the US Census Bureau in 1997, there was a 2.7 percent of children under five who exhibited some form of developmental delay.

Why is there an increase?

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) conservatively affects 3 to 6 percent of all school children, and the numbers may be considerably higher. The incidence of autism seems to be increasing, though much of this apparent increase may be due to increased reporting.

Are we poisoning our kids?

Exposures to small amounts of substances like lead, mercury, or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have no discernible impact on adults, can permanently damage the developing brain of a child, if the exposure occurs when a child is most vulnerable (during development in utero up till the first six months of life) .

Early exposures to dioxin or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chemicals from industrial activities that accumulate in dietary fat, damage the developing immune system, making the child more prone to infections. Risks of asthma and high blood pressure are increased by early environmental exposures.

The gut-brain connection starts in the womb

When there is significant damage to the lining of the small intestine (intestinal villi,) multiple systems failure (ie the immune system, the digestive system, the nervous system, the endocrine system) tends to manifest. Perhaps of even greater importance is the effect on intestinal permeability. The intestines are lined with a slimy layer of mucoproteins.

This layer provides lubrication and protection for the intestinal wall as food passes down the alimentary canal. These mucoproteins must be sulphated if they are to be continuous, protective and effective. If they are not sulphated, the proteins clump together and leave exposed intestinal material which makes it more susceptible to toxic food particles. When these get into the tissues, the body’s immune system over-reacts, generating auto-immune conditions.

We believe that these peptides are the agents (bullets) which are directly responsible for the symptoms but there may be other agents, which can have a serious impact upon the total picture. In some cases, wheat (gluten) and dairy (casein) appear to be the sole elements but in other cases it is clear that other factors are involved. The involvement of peptides from gluten and casein is very large and will obscure other factors. It is only after the main sources of the bullets, gluten and casein, are removed from the diet that the smoke will clear sufficiently to allow us to detect other causative elements which are largely of dietary origin.

What can you as a parent do? You can clean up your lifestyle. Eat clean food, clean water and reduce your personal exposure to toxins. I am sorry to say this ladies, you need to stop drinking alcohol and smoking for at least one year before conception. You may also want to clean out all your mercury fillings and reduce the metal and toxic load on your body. Very often I have parents and mothers come in to see me after they have one autistic child to figure out what to do for the next.

For those who are interested in learning how to clean themselves up, the resources are outlined in the books below. Alternatively they can also access the website of my Naturopathic Practice www.NaturalTherapies.com . For those who have children with learning disabilities, they can also access the above website and look at the information on Autism and Learning Disabilities.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Beating Fatigue

      No Comments on Beating Fatigue

You get your nine hours of beauty sleep regularly every night. So why do you feel so tired? You eat all the right foods or so you think. You regularly exercise thirty minutes a day. However you just can’t seem to get up and go. Even sex seem to be a chore. If so read on…

If you are fatigued and have trouble falling asleep, or sleeping restfully, suspect that caffeine may be the cause when: You drink any caffeinated beverage within three hours of bedtime You drink the equivalent of five or more cups of coffee per day You become aware that small caffeine increase makes you restless, excited, super-alert or nervous. You may suspect that your fatigue may be caused by caffeine overstimulation, if you drink the equivalent of five or more cups of coffee per day and if you suffer symptoms of physical hyperstimulation or a sense of depletion. If cutting down on your coffee makes you feel better, you have discovered the source of your problem.

Do you remember the times you used to feel depressed and out of sorts? Do you remember what you craved to eat at that point in time? Was it fruits and nuts? Was it salad and fruit juice? Most of you at such times would have gone for sweet things like chocolate, cookies and candies or ice-creams

The initial rush of energy or lift that you get occurs because these food products are quickly metabolised to produce blood sugar.This is precisely what happens when you crave your mid-morning cup of coffee with sugar. Initially you will get a temporary energy lift since it raises your blood sugar level. This is followed soon by a downward plunge of energy leaving you feeling worse than before, calling for a repetition of more coffee and sweets or alcohol.

When we have a simpler way of life we would strike at our enemy or run away for an emergency. The event would end and the body would return to a more normal relaxed state. In everyday situations however we are confronted with a series of stresses that arouse our bodies in the same fashion as a fight/flight emergency.. No wonder you are tired. However many individuals don’t feel their emotions of anger, impatience, frustration or depression and despair. They may be so accustomed to being worried or hostile that they think the condition is normal. Meanwhile their bodies are falling apart as they tax it to the limit. Fatigue is the inevitable outcome.

If you want to have a constant supply of energy, forget the “three square meals ad day” rule. Most meal aren’t square anyway but are likely to be unbalanced or inadequate anyway. Eat like a rabbit or squirrel. Nibble your way through healthy snacks. No, I am not suggesting that you snack on ice-cream, chocolates and sweets or pastries.

Eat health foods that build up your energy level consistently. Substitute protein for sweets and carbohydrates at your many meals. Snack on slices of fruits, nuts, a piece of raw fruit, a celery or a carrot stick.

Make a protein powder drink with your fruit juice for breakfast or lunch and you will have the juice of life to burn for hours. If you plan to attend an important meeting after lunch and you need to be mentally alert than skip the carbohydrates during lunch. Have a salad with some fish or chicken.

You could even try a protein drink with fruit juice. Sometimes though, you happen to be a really nervy type. You want to deliberately calm down and slow down at the meeting. That is when you would want to snack on rice and vegetables.

Skip the protein foods for they will make you overly alert. Another quick energy boosting routine is to eat a little fat. That’s right fat. I can imagine some of you shaking your head and thinking “Now I have really heard it all”.

Researchers have learnt that a little fat is necessary to make your gall bladder work. I have heard of horror stories of people who have had their gall bladder shut down on them because went they went on a diet and did not take any fat at all. They needed surgery after that.

Taking a little fat staves of hunger as well as fatigue for hours, Either add a bit ofcold-pressed vegetable oil to your protein drink before you blend it (you will never notice it there) or add more oil to your salad at mealtimes and drink only the remains from the bowl.

After almost 19 years of seeing clients with a range of fatigue conditions, we have come to the following factors that could underlie as serious case of fatigue. These factors are

Allergies
Chemical Poisons
Heavy Metal Toxicity
Candida
Parasites
Dental issues
Nutritional Deficiencies
Hypoglycemia
Hypothyroid
Structural Issues
Emotional Issues
Estrogen Dominance – Progesterone Deficiency

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Is Natural Medicine safe?

      4 Comments on Is Natural Medicine safe?

For many years, Natural Medicine has always been touted as being the safer of the two medical systems. After all herbs and vitamins rarely if ever give you side-effects. They are also often non-toxic and rarely habit forming.

However this view is often rebutted by critics on the pro Western Medicine side who will talk about the incidences of herbal products being toxic or dangerous. One of the most recent incidents being skullcap (about 3 4 years ago). The difference is that when herbal products are considered unsafe, very often the person has been using a product for months if not years. Very often you have liver enzyme inflammation or a side effect like that. In contrast when Western Medicine drugs are considered to be unsafe, the death count would have often reached thousands and than someone blows the whistle and its yanked of the market or it comes back on the market with new disclaimers.

Doctors in the UK have linked 103 deaths to patients taking the drug Vioxx, which was mainly used to treat the pain associated with arthritis.

Dr David Graham said he had felt pressured to water down findings from a study linking the drug to greater chances of heart attacks. An FDA scientist told a Senate inquiry in November that the regulator had been guilty of a “profound regulatory failure”. According to Dr Graham’s calculations, Vioxx may be linked to as many as to 56,000 American deaths.

Research published by The Lancet medical journal, also in November, highlighted a study by the University of Berne in Switzerland which found serious question marks over the safety of the drug dating back to 2000. The Lancet concluded that the drug should have been taken off the market years before it was finally withdrawn. Editor Dr Richard Horton said: “The licensing of Vioxx and its continued use in the face of unambiguous evidence of harm have been public health catastrophes.”

So at this point we can say Natural Medicine is safer. However let me offer you a third scenario. If Western Medicine is guilty of sins of commission, Natural Medicine is guilty of sins of omission. Western drugs can kill. A Natural Medicine practitioner or therapist can by holding out false hope mislead a patient into foregoing the appropriate treatment.

A case in point. I saw this young lady who said she had a lump in her breast. She refused to have it X-rayed or scanned. I felt that I could not responsibly treat someone without appropriate testing. She opted to work with someone else who promised that her condition would clear up. This someone kept selling her health products for two years giving her the impression that her cancer would improve.

Two years later, she came back to see me. She was still alive. However her breast was ulcerated. She had been using hydrogen peroxide on an open wound because she has heard or read somewhere that this was a good way to clean it up. Eventually I persuaded her to work with a medical doctor as well.

Eventually she had the ulcerated (cancerous complication) breast removed. Eventually the tumours spread and she had to do chemotherapy. What should have been an open and shut case has become a precarious one. If she had done the X-rays and the scan, done surgery to reduce the tumour burden than gone on to do nutrition and diet, the whole situation would have been very different. Simply because someone with the best of intentions and the poorest of knowledge, information and training had held out to the cancer patient that these Natural Methods and products would cure her cancer.

In my opinion this is really sad. Of course the practitioner would maintain, “I was only giving her advice. She had made the choice.” The issue is more like, was there a gross misrepresentation? So what would you my dear reader do? Be safe when you work with Natural Medicine. Ask for training, expertise and life experience in your wellness practitioner.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Male and Female differences to wellness.

      No Comments on Male and Female differences to wellness.

Over the last 19 years that I have been in practice, I have noticed that I have consistently seem more men rather than women. I used to wonder about it. I used to believe that this was because women were more in touch with their emotions and so they knew far earlier that something was not right.

There is this quite common misperception that women often imagine their pain and  it is often part of an attention seeking mechanism. In my experience I have yet to meet a female hypochondriac even after more than 10, 000 clients. When a woman says she feels something is not quite right, there often is. The only hypochondriac that I ever met was a male. He kept asking me to check him for cancer because his sister had had cancer. Eventually I told him to go and do medical scans to convince him that he had no cancer because all my testing did not show up any early warning cancer markers.

Until fairly recently it was controversial to suggest that there were any differences between males and females in the perception and experience of pain, but that is no longer the case,” said Dr Ed Keogh a psychologist from the Pain Management Unit at the University of Bath.

Male female differences in pain perception

“Our research has shown that whilst the sensory-focused strategies used by men helped increase their pain threshold and tolerance of pain, it was unlikely to have any benefit for women,” said Dr Keogh.

Other research by the Pain Management Unit has looked at the relationship between gender differences in anxiety sensitivity and pain. Anxiety sensitivity is the tendency to be fearful of anxiety-related sensations (e.g., rapidly beating heat), and seems to be important in the experience of pain sensations. In a study of 150 patients referred to a hospital clinic with chest pain, researchers discovered that the factors that predicted pain in men and women were different.

Researchers believe that it is the fear of anxiety-related sensations and an increased tendency to negatively interpret such sensations, both of which are more predominant in women than men that influences women’s experiences of pain.

When do men and women seek help?

Prompted by one’s cognitive appraisal of a stressor like pain, individuals respond using various coping mechanisms. Researchers have found that men and women differ in their mechanisms of coping with stress — particularly, coping with pain.

Unruh, citing other studies, reported that women more frequently use coping strategies that include “active behavioral and cognitive coping, avoidance, emotion-focused coping,
seeking social support, relaxation, and distraction.

Men rely on direct action, problem-focused coping, talking problems down, denial, looking at the bright side of life and tension-reducing activities such as alcohol consumption, smoking and drug abuse.

Researchers found that women’s ways of coping involved more expression of feelings and seeking social support, whereas men’s ways of coping “were more rational and stoic (e.g., accepting the situation, engaging in exercise).”

Other researchers found that in response to pain, women reported significantly more problem-solving, social support, positive self-statements, and palliative behaviors than men. Jensen and colleagues found that among individuals with long-term intractable pain in the neck, shoulder, or back, women increased their behavioral activity (e.g., household chores and social activities) as a coping strategy more often than men. Other studies suggest that coping strategies are influenced more by the type and duration of pain than by whether the person is a man or a woman.

Research has also shown that women, as compared to men, respond more aggressively to pain through health-related activities (e.g., taking medications or consulting a healthcare provider). This is consistent with studies that have shown that women tend to report more health-care utilization for treatment of pain than do men.

I once saw this lady who was worried about the heath of her children. Their hair mineral reports suggested significant metal toxicities and they were doing poorly healthwise. I also suggested that she check herself out. Eventually she came in with her husband and I suggested what tests they should do. They had to leave on a holiday.

When they came back, the lady sent me a email asking me about what testing she should do. I gave a a more elaborate list. Than she asked me about her husband. I gave him a simpler list of tests. She later queried me about the difference.

I replied that generally men unless they cannot work, are disabled by pain and cannot move or they are so sick and have a nervous breakdown, they maintain this veneer of stolidity and the attitude that says “I am fine”. I was being merely respectful of this. Whereas women prefer to be proactive and prefer to preempt trouble generally. She was very amused by my response.

My personal opinion is that women are more proactive, more sensitive to pain and seek earlier intervention. They are more interested in intervention before the quality of life is compromised. So serious issues are discovered earlier. Men wait until what happens to them creates an impasses in their ability to work or be effective. This may be one factor that accounts for increased life span.

Be well,

Dr Sundardas

Why Wellness is the way to go.

      1 Comment on Why Wellness is the way to go.

We all know our health is influenced by what we eat, drink and other well-known lifestyle choices that we make. The latest scientific research now shows that for each of us these choices can have greatly differing effects on our health.

Small differences in your genes can influence how well your body metabolizes foods, utilizes nutrients and excretes damaging toxins, all of which can affect your general state of health. By finding out if you have any of these small variations, you can modify your diet and lifestyle choices to achieve optimum nutrition and health.

After 40 years of the American Medical Association saying that three square meals a day could feed your nutritional needs, the statement below totally repudiates that stand. The AMA has been forced to revise its stand in view of the new evidence. They say it takes 25 years before a new idea takes hold in medicine. In 25 years every medical doctor will be studying nutrition thoroughly. Currently average medical education spends 7 to 12 hours out of a 7 year education on food, vitamins, minerals and health.

Vitamin deficiency syndromes such as scurvy and beriberi are uncommon in modern (Western) societies. However, suboptimal intake of some vitamins, above levels causing classic vitamin deficiency, is a risk factor for chronic diseases and common in the general population, especially the elderly. Suboptimal folic acid levels, along with suboptimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12, are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E, and C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases……….
( JAMA. 2002;287:3127-3129)

The average naturopath spends 1.5 to 2 years of a four years diploma/degree program on herbs, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and nutrition and food. This is why naturopaths and natural health care providers excel at prevention and medical practitioners at pathology.

By the time you have a heart attack or a gastric ulcer or a lump in the breast, you may need medical intervention, drugs or surgery. These conditions do not happen overnight. They take anything from 5 to 15 years to develop. Meantime subtle changes occur. In fact people become so used to these changes, that they put it down to ageing. Once you put it down to ageing then you of course can’t do anything about it.

What will early interventions do for you? It will ensure that you will be healthy and well enough to make your next million or more between 45 to 65. For others it will mean that they can be healthy enough to run and play with their grandchildren instead of waving at them feebly from the bed of a hospital or nursing home.

While doing a health checkup is a good practice, conventional medical testing does not provide a full picture. Functional medicine testing will often identify hidden health conditions long before they show up on conventional medical tests.

Most medical doctors will look at the standard tests and be satisfied with its results most times, possibly dismissing nagging pains or discomfort that a patient has experienced over long periods of times. Only a small percentage of medical doctors will look at functional testing to get a truer picture of health. They will also check with the quality of life the patient has.

I was once talking about early Wellness Screening to one of my ex-wife’s very good friend. She heard me politely and said with a shudder, “I’d rather not know”. About a year later, she discovered a lump in her breast and had to see a surgeon to remove it and biopsy it. Fortunately for her, it was benign. It could easily have been otherwise.

If you think that a healthy lifestyle and eating fresh organic food protects you, think again. There are more than 100, 000 chemicals in the environment that our grandparents did not get exposed to. There was this sweet radio personality who used to interview me on radio some years ago. She was famous for her healthy and organic food lifestyle. She was diagnosed early this year with cancer. She came to see me for a visit. A few months later, there was a report about her death.

While I can’t say that I have prevented people from developing cancer, (because if the early method of detection that I use in my practice work so well, they will never develop cancer), I can say that I have found individuals who have come in with cancer markers. Those who clean up their lifestyle and diet do not develop cancer. Those who find out but did not make the necessary changes often do go on to develop cancer. These are general tendencies from a sample population of 10, 000.

I will round up with a positive case history. This lady flew in from Bangkok. She was incidentally an “A” blood type. She had a great diet, exercised reasonably well and was a little stressed. She had recently discovered that she had a breast lump. She had it excised.Biopsy revealed that it was malignant. When we examined her and tested her, we found that a mercury filling in one of her teeth was leaking. It also happened to be in the tooth on the left side that was involved with the stomach meridian. The left stomach meridian by the way also influences the left breast. Mystery solved. If she had come in earlier, she could have even bypassed the cancer. One month later, she came in for a second visit feeling wonderful.

So which would you rather choose? To say, “I’d rather not know” or “Lets nip it in the bud.”

Be well

Dr Sundardas