Folic Acid Supplements May Increase Cancer Risk

This post is going to say much the same as my post about omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) and cancer. In fact, I'll just recycle the last sentence of that post:

"Like most nutrients, there appears to be an ideal range for omega-3 fatty acids folate in the body, above and below which an individual can experience poor health."

A new study in JAMA this week is reporting an increased cancer risk among those who took folic acid supplements:
Cancer Incidence and Mortality After Treatment With Folic Acid and Vitamin B12, Journal of the American Medical Association, November 2009

The risk was not high (21% increased risk for getting cancer, 38% increased risk of dying from cancer) but it was statistically significant. Lung cancers led the pack.

Patients who experienced increased risk were taking 800 micrograms/day (mcg/d) of folic acid.¹ (They also took 400 mcg/d of vitamin B12 and/or 40 mg/d of vitamin B6. But those were found not to affect cancer rates.)

The recommended allowance (or DRI: Dietary Reference Intake) for folic acid in this country is 400 mcg/d. So they were taking twice the DRI. Yet they fell short of the tolerable upper intake of 1000 mcg/d.

In our body, folate is used in DNA replication - it's needed for cell growth and repair. Cancer cells also use it for growth.

Two items of note:

1. Participants in this combined analysis lived in Norway where there is no fortification of foods with folic acid. The US embarked on a mandatory fortification program in 1998 - flour and grain products here contain added folic acid. That's in addition to the folic acid added to our breakfast cereals, often 400 mcg/serving. (A bowl of cereal and a typical vitamin pill can easily put you at 800 mcg. Eat anything made with folic-acid-fortified-flour and you'll surpass their intake.)
   
   
2. One mechanism put forth for the increased cancer rates was reduced activity of our immune system's natural killer cells in the presence of high levels of folic acid.² Coincidentally, high intakes of omega-3 (about 1 gram/day) were also seen to reduce the amount and activity of natural killer cells.

Vitamin pill popping is not as innocent as supplement manufacturers make it out to be.
________¹ Folate found naturally in food hasn't been shown to be harmful. Green leafy vegs are a great source - about 270 mcg folate in 1 cup cooked spinach.
² Unmetabolized Folic Acid in Plasma Is Associated with Reduced Natural Killer Cell Cytotoxicity among Postmenopausal Women, Journal of Nutrition, 2006

Is Eating Personal?

I want to contrast these words from Al Gore who spoke to Jeremy Paxman last week on BBC's Newsnight program ...

Paxman: "Have you become a vegetarian?"
Gore: "No, I have not. ... I don't plan to. I respect those who do. But it's a personal choice and will remain so."

... with these words from James McWilliams, author of the recent "Just Food," writing in The Washington Post yesterday:¹

First he set the scene:

"I gave a talk in South Texas recently on the environmental virtues of a vegetarian diet. As you might imagine, the reception was chilly. In fact, the only applause came during the Q&A period when a member of the audience said that my lecture made him want to go out and eat even more meat. "Plus," he added, "what I eat is my business -- it's personal."

Then argues the opposite of Gore:

"It's hard to avoid concluding that eating cannot be personal. What I eat influences you. What you eat influences me."

And gives these statistics to argue his claim:

• The livestock industry -- as a result of its reliance on corn and soy-based feed -- accounts for over half the synthetic fertilizer used in the US, contributing more than any other sector to marine dead zones.
  
• Livestock consume 70% of the water in the American West -- water so heavily subsidized that if irrigation supports were removed, ground beef would cost $35 a pound.
  
• Livestock accounts for at least 21% of greenhouse-gas emissions globally -- more than all forms of transportation combined.
  
• Domestic animals -- most of them healthy -- consume about 70% of all the antibiotics produced. Undigested antibiotics leach from manure into freshwater systems and impair the sex organs of fish.
  
• If all the grain fed to animals went to people, you could feed China and India.

He also addressed animal welfare, including the ludicrousness of the term "free-range," the crass disposal of "economically worthless" male chicks, the cutting-off of body parts from live animals without anesthesia, and others.

He wraps it up:

"Now, if someone told you that a particular corporation was trashing the air, water and soil; causing more global warming than the transportation industry; consuming massive amounts of fossil fuel; unleashing the cruelest sort of suffering on innocent and sentient beings; failing to recycle its waste; and clogging our arteries in the process, how would you react? Would you say, "Hey, that's personal?" Probably not. It's more likely that you'd frame the matter as a dire political issue in need of a dire political response.

Vegetarianism is not only the most powerful political response we can make to industrialized food. It's a necessary prerequisite to reforming it."

Lots to chew on.

One last point. He said this about some popular alternatives:

"We've been inundated with ideas: eat local, vote with your fork, buy organic, support fair trade, etc. But these proposals all lack something that every successful environmental movement has always placed at its core: genuine sacrifice."

It's true.
________¹ Bellying Up To Environmentalism, Washington Post, Nov 16, 2009
The livestock picture links to the Food and Agriculture Organization's summary of their landmark 400-page report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," published in 2006.

Irradiation Of Cat Food Causes Paralysis

Well, this is interesting...

Cats fed dry cat food that had been irradiated (Orijen brand from Champion Petfoods Ltd of Canada) suffered forms of paralysis and subsequent death. Many were euthanized.¹

It does appear that irradiation of the food caused the illness:

"Previously published data and strong circumstantial evidence in this outbreak suggest that single-dose gamma irradiation of dry pet food at high levels (>36.3 kGy) is associated with the development of leucoencephalopathy in cats. We suggest that food irradiated at high levels should not be fed to cats as it poses a significant risk of severe neurological disease.

Orijen was subject to a total gamma irradiation dose >50 kGy on entry to Australia."

How consumption of irradiated food may cause neurological damage:

"Irradiation results in the production of ions and free radicals, including high-energy oxygen radicals, that are used to kill or damage pathogenic organisms in food. Irradiation doses of foods for human consumption normally range from less than 1 up to 10 kGy. Larger doses (30 kGy) have been approved for dried herbs, spices and dehydrated vegetables. Oxygen radicals produced by irradiation will also cause the formation of lipid oxides by directly reacting with membrane lipids and other lipids in foods, and some foods such as fatty fish and meat are not considered good candidates for irradiation. Irradiation also induces chemical changes in carbohydrates and proteins by the action of hydroxyl radicals and hydrated electrons generated from water molecules to produce radiolytic products. These products are also generated in cooking or pasteurisation."

So, the dose of radiation was thought to be significant in this case, but the risk from chronic, low-dose exposure wasn't ruled out:

"However, the mechanism by which changes induced in foods then result in damage to the white matter of the spinal cord and brain is not clear. Whether a single insult to the CNS results in on-going damage or whether the damage is the result of cumulative or repeated insult remains speculative."

Maybe this is something just unique to cats? I know the USDA/FSIS is considering (and the American Meat Institute is endorsing) the use of radiation on beef to reduce risk from foodborne pathogens. Some ground beef on the market is already irradiated.

I wonder what happened to all that recalled cat and dog food, in so much as "the fate of salvaged pet food ... it gets turned into feed for pigs, poultry, and farmed fish," according to Marion Nestle.
________¹ Ataxia And Paralysis In Cats In Australia Associated With Exposure To An Imported Gamma-Irradiated Commercial Dry Pet Food, Australian Veterinary Journal, September 2009
Full (pdf)
Rundown from Felipedia: Effect Of Gamma-Irradiated Commercial Dry Pet Food In Cats

Jonathan Safran Foer Defines "Free-Range"

Fighting words from Jonathan Safran Foer:¹

Free-Range:

"Applied to meat, eggs, dairy, and every now and then even fish (tuna on the range?), the free-range label is bullshit. It should provide no more peace of mind than "all-natural," "fresh," or "magical."

(Imagine a shed containing thirty thousand chickens, with a small door at one end that opens to a five-by-five dirt patch -- and the door is closed all but occasionally.)

Very often, the eggs of factory-farmed chickens -- chickens packed against one another in vast barren barns -- are labeled free-range.

One can reliably assume that most "free-range" (or "cage-free") laying hens are debeaked, drugged, and cruelly slaughtered once "spent."

I could keep a flock of hens under my sink and call them free-range."

________¹ Foer in his book "Eating Animals."

Banana Squash

It resembles a banana, a big banana, except when it's green:

I'd been wanting to try one but most I'd seen, if I saw any, were 2 feet or longer. Too unwieldy. And since I bake it whole, not oven-friendly. When I spotted this one, a little under 2ft., I snatched it.


Into a 310ºF oven for about 1.5 hours, or until soft.


The slightly warm and moist squash was heavy and handled, with all due respect to aquatic animals, like a dead fish. (I bake it whole to avoid the life-in-your-hands task of cutting raw squash rind. You could use a butter knife to slice this open and a teaspoon to scoop seeds.)



All that work ... for around 1.13 cups of squash meat.


The taste and texture? More on the savory side, that is, not very sweet. And very wet. It's unlike the drier and sweeter kabocha or buttercup (not butternut) squashes. I'll probably make a soup with this, something like:

Apple Squash Soup

1 or 2 cups cooked squash (Butternut squash makes a good substitute.)
1 or 2 cups sautéed apples (Here's a very old post on making sautéed apples.)
1 cup apple cider or juice
Dash cinnamon
Dash nutmeg
Dash salt
Few squeezes lemon juice

Purée squash and apples in a food processor or blender. If necessary, add some apple cider to help purée. Reserve a few nicely browned apples for garnish.

Transfer purée to a soup pot. Thin with cider to desired consistency. Season with spices, salt, lemon juice or as desired. Heat.

Garnish with dried cranberries or dried cherries, toasted almond slivers or walnut pieces, and reserved apples slices. A swirl of cranberry sauce looks nice too.
________Photos: Bix

The Uniqueness Of Humans

Stanford professor of neurology, Dr. Robert Sopolsky, spoke to Stanford's 2009 graduating class about the uniqueness, and the not-so-uniqueness, of humans. Topics included aggression, theory of mind, the golden rule (tit-for-tat), and pleasure. His speech begins at 4:55 minutes:

An excerpt:

"You have two humans, and they are taking part in some human ritual. They are sitting there silently at a table. They make no eye contact; they’re still, except every now and then one of them does nothing more taxing than lifting an arm and pushing a little piece of wood. And if it’s the right wood and the right chess grand masters in the middle of a tournament, they are going through 6,000 to 7,000 calories a day thinking, turning on a massive physiological stress response simply with thought and doing the same thing with their bodies as if they were some baboon who has just ripped open the stomach of their worst rival, and it’s all with thought, and memories and emotions. And suddenly we’re in the realm of taking just plain old nuts and bolts physiology and using it in ways that are unrecognizable."

________