Food as Medicine

Dear Friends,

I have a great treat for you this week: I would like to (and I am using Dohrea’s word) illuminate just a little the work my wife Dohrea has been engaged in the last few years, and share with you my delightful partner. Dohrea has been studying sociology through literature—or as she frames it: humanity’s issues through the lens literature, specifically, “the conversation” in literature about social justice issues throughout the centuries. She has always believed that a company should have a greater calling and “purpose for existence” over and above a good product line or service. Within the holistic industry we all are already engaged in a bigger and most important purpose, and yet (couple of her favorite words), we need to expand our profession into activism and education, or “enter into the conversation” by adding your voice in protest over the injustices occurring all around us. There is, after all, so much more to do. This email’s conversation then is about taking the time to reflect and possibly decide what step to take, just a little extra effort, to do just a little more.

People are starving in our world because our natural relationship with food is lost. The reality of food, on every level of its manifestation, is a fantasy created by corporations that depict food that is not food—as food. How much more crazy can our society become by eating these foods, which are not food and thinking that our body can be nourished by such nonsense? (D Bardell)

This past weekend Dohrea and I were in Washington DC attending the Food As Medicine Seminar—billed as the nation’s leading nutrition training program for physicians, medical school faculty and allied health professionals—the best introduction to medical nutrition therapy and foods for healing in the US. It is an annual event put on by The Center for Mind Body Medicine. It surpassed its billing and tremendous on all levels—great staff, great content and great food! The irony of our holistic industry is that we go to these conferences in big hotels and the food served is mainstream—whatever the hotel normally puts out. How can we nourish society when we don’t nourish ourselves? Our functions need to be the model of what our world has to do to heal—can we model and be an example by the way we behave? Not when we allow mainstream crazy notions about food to feed us during our conventions.

Not so with the Mind Body Center. The seminar was held this year at the Capitol Hilton, two blocks from the White House, and the food was holistic, organic, fresh and wholesome—a gourmet smorgasbord. They walked their talk. Their focus was the integration of nutrition into clinical practice, medical education and community health. The seminar teaches the importance of wholesome food for the restoration of health. The attendees were mostly MDs, DOs, NDs, ARNPS, Nutritionists and Registered Dieticians—300 of them. You know what fanatics we are, and I highly recommend you check them out for their next seminar. Here is a link—The Center for Mind-Body Medicine.

It has be said that 80 to 90% of the disease patterns we see in the world today can be corrected or prevented by making changes in our diets. Regardless of the countries status (first or third world, or more accurately, as I learned from Dohrea, Global North or Global South), the number one pandemic in our world today are the chronic degenerative diseases—Obesity, Insulin Resistance, Diabetes, PCOS; CVD, Stroke, High Blood Pressure; Cancer(s); Digestive—GERD, IBS, CD, IBD; Osteoporosis; Neurological—PD, AD, MS, Parkinson’s; Neuropsychiatric/Mood Disorders—the list goes on. People are not well in exponentially mounting numbers. Here are a few tidbits:

Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food. (Hippocrates)

He who does not know food….how can he understand the disease of man? (Hippocrates)

The myriad of health problems associated with living a Western or modern lifestyle is largely the result of the discord between our current diet and what we are designed to eat. Food staples and food processing have altered seven crucial nutritional characteristics of ancestral hominin diets that dramatically impact health and disease. (Origins and Evolution of the Western Diet: Health implications For The 21st Century. Cordain, L et all, AJCN 2004; 81: 341-354).

So enter the conversation: how about writing to us so we can share your thoughts with everyone else? How do we in this century converse and discuss the issues of our day? I learned from Dohrea that social justice and change happened in the past when everyone was involved emotionally. They read novels, essays, and poems in past centuries, while we watch TV and go online to catch bits and pieces of news. They wrote and debated issues through literature and took their time to think through and write because adding their voice and expression meant they are doing their part in creating a better world. We are connected by wireless devices yet are too busy and therefore disengaged. But our voice is important and our mission to clean our environment and get back into a natural relationship with our earth has to succeed. How else will we gain our health and create a sane world?

Take a serious look at the Clinical Notes this week: we discuss the Wild Blueberry Extract and the Wild Blueberry Daily. The brain is the center of our universe. When it goes—we are no longer who we are. Find out why the blueberry is a therapeutic food that protects and heals the brain.

Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

Lets take a look at what the experts say about the medicinal value of Blueberries:

In 1999 a USDA study showed that a diet rich in blueberry extracted reversed some loss of balance and coordination and improved short-term memory in aged rats. This was the first study to actually demonstrate a reversal in dysfunctions of behavior, going further than earlier studies that linked high-antioxidant fruits and vegetables to prevention of function loss only (Journal of Neuroscience, Sept. 15, 1999).

A 2003 Tuft’s study showed blueberries enhanced memory-associated neuronal signaling and alternations involved in certain neuronal activities and concluded it may be possible to overcome genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s Disease through diet. (Joseph JA et al. Blueberry supplementation enhances signaling and prevents behavioral deficits in an Alzheimer’s Disease model (Nutr. Neurosci J6, 3: 153-62, 2003).

A 2005 study to investigate blueberry’s ability to ameliorate age-related deficits in neuronal and behavioral functions, examined whether short-term supplementation with blueberries might enhance the brains’ ability to generate a heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) mediated neuro-protective response to stress. Hippocampal (HC) regions from young and old rats fed either a control or a supplemented diet for 10 weeks were subjected to an in vitro inflammatory challenge (LPS) and then examined for levels of HSP70 at various times post LPS (30, 90, and 240 min). While baseline levels of HSP70 did not differ among the various groups compared to young control diet rats, increases in HSP70 protein levels in response to an in vitro LPS challenge were significantly less in old as compared to young control diet rats at the 30, 90, and 240 min time points. However, it appeared that the blueberry diet completely restored the HSP70 response to LPS in the old rats at the 90 and 240 min times. This suggests that a short-term blueberry intervention may result in improved HSP70-mediated protection against a number of neurodegenerative processes in the brain (Neurobiol Aging. 2005 Apr 30).

What does it means?

HSP70- Members of the Hsp70 family are strongly up-regulated by heat stress and toxic chemicals, particularly heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, copper, mercury, etc. Hsp70 was originally discovered by FM Ritossa in the 1960s when a lab worker accidentally boosted the incubation temperature of Drosophila (fruit flies). When examining the chromosomes, Ritossa found a “puffing pattern” that indicated the elevated gene transcription of an unknown protein[3][4]. This was later described as the “Heat Shock Response” and the proteins were termed the “Heat Shock Proteins” (Hsp).

Hsp70 proteins can act to protect cells from thermal or oxidative stress. These stresses normally act to damage proteins, causing partial unfolding and possible aggregation. By temporarily binding to hydrophobic residues exposed by stress, Hsp70 prevents these partially-denatured proteins from aggregating, and allows them to refold. Low ATP is characteristic of heat shock and sustained binding is seen as aggregation suppression, while recovery from heat shock involves substrate binding and nucleotide cycling. In a thermophile anaerobe (Thermotoga maritima) the Hsp70 demonstrates redox sensitive binding to model peptides, suggesting a second mode of binding regulation based on oxidative stress.

The Alzheimer’s Facts from Scientific America, June 2010:

As the US population ages-along with that of the rest of the world, the number of new Alzheimer’s cases will soar because the incidence increases with age. In 2010 an estimate39 million people in the US are senior citizens, a figure that will more than double to 89 million by 2050.

Age is the biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s. The numbers’ of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s will increase by nearly 50% during the next 20 years. Statisticians predict that by the middle of the century the global prevalence of Alzheimer’s will quadruple reaching 107 million.

Alzheimer’s researchers believe that much of the disease pathology-accretions of aberrant proteins and loss of brain cells or circuits-begins well before the memory loss become apparent.

Wild Blueberry Daily contains per capsule 150 mg of blueberry extract and 350mg of the whole blueberry. The extract is the purple part where are the polyphenols are. It takes us ¾ of a cup of blueberries to fill one capsule. ORAC per capsule 2000. No excipients, flowing agent or fillers of any kind. The berries and extract are freeze-dried. Based on the work of Dr. James Joseph 150 mgs of the extract may be enough to protect human beings against neurological conditions such as AD. (Click on this link to the Wild Blueberry Dossier) in the BioImmersion Library. Take one or more capsules a day.

Wild Blueberry Extract contains per capsule 500 mg of blueberry extract. It takes us 1 and ¼ cups of blueberries to fill one capsule. ORAC per capsule is 4000. No excipients, etc. Use for treatment of neurological disease and conditions of chronic inflammation. Works throughout the body and especially the brain. Protects against cancer. Take one or more capsules a day.

The Last Quiz Answer: This amazing picture of a rhino mom and baby is from the National Geographic 2009 Best Photo Collection. Due to relentless poaching the numbers and distribution of black rhinoceros have declined by 96% between 1970 and 1992—placing them on the endangered list. They are easy targets for poachers and the horn is greatly valued in Chinese medicine. Protecting them effectivly is very expensive and requires a lot of man power. (WWF)

More Tidbits from the Food as Medicine SeminarWhat is this? Amyl acetate, Amyl butyrate, Amyl valerate, Anethol, Anisyl formate, Benzyl acetate, Benzyl isobutyrate, Butyric acid, Cinnamyl isobutyrate, Cinnamyl valerate, Cognac essential oil, Diacetyl, Dipropylketone, Ethyl acetate, Ethyl amyl ketone, Ethyl butyrate, Ethyl cinnamate, Ethyl heptanoate, Ethyl heptylate, Ethyl lactate, Ethyl methylphenlglycidate, Ethyl intrate, Ethyl propionate, Ethyl valerate, Heliotropin, Hydroxy-phenyl 2-butanone (10% solution in alcohol), alpha-ionine, Isobutyl anthranilate, Isobutyl butyrate, Lemon essential oil, Maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, Methyl anthranilate, Mehtyl benzoate, Methyl cinnamate, Methyl heptine carbonate, Methyl naphthyl ketone, Methyl salicylate, Mint essential oil, Neroli essential oil, Nerolin, Nervl isobutyrate. Orris butter, Phenethyl alconhol, Rose, Rum ether, y-indicalactone, vanillin, solvent. The answer is: Artificial Strawberry Flavor