Results presented at the 2013 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting shows that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) can cause behavioural reactions similar to those produced by drugs of abuse such as cocaine.
by APRIL McCARTHY
These results, presented by addiction expert Francesco Leri, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Guelph, suggest food addiction could explain, at least partly, the current global obesity epidemic partly caused by these ingredients.
The same brain circuits are involved when people crave high fructose corn syrup as when drug addicts think about drugs. There is significant activity in all areas of the brain, especially in the hippocampus when consuming potent sweeteners. That region is related to learning, memory and is also related to a lot of things such as sensory and motor impulse and emotional behavior.
The stimulators also sent messages of satiety to brain circuits in the orbitofrontal cortex and striatum, which have been linked to craving and desire in cocaine addicts.
High-fructose corn syrup, which is a mixture a potent concentrated cocktail of the simple sugars fructose and glucose, came into use in the 1970s and by 2010 the average American was consuming about 80 pounds of it per year. Overall, dietary intake of fructose has increased by an estimated 50 percent in the last thirty years.
One of the most important mental health references in my library is called “Insulin Treatment in Psychiatry”. It was published in the 1950s and it provides ample evidence of how critical changes in blood sugar chemistry are for mental and emotional well-being. There are chapters with titles like “Biochemical Changes in the Brain Occurring During Insulin Hypoglycemia” , “Insulin Therapy in Schizophrenia” and “Trends in Insulin Treatment in Psychiatry” that provide proof positive that manipulations of blood sugar can play a crucial, non-pharmacological role in improving mental health.
Insulin is an anabolic (growth) hormone with many properties, the most striking of which is its ability to encourage fat cells to absorb sugar (glucose) and store it as fat. But what was recognized by old-time medical researchers, many decades ago, was the fact that this same hormone, as well-known as it was for its role in blood sugar control, was also a potential tool for psychiatrists treating various mental disorders.
Why is this so important? Well, the average American is ingesting over 140 pounds a year of sugar and another 60 pounds or so a year of high fructose corn syrup. In 1960 the amount Americans consumed was less than 100 pounds a year of sugar and zero pounds of high fructose corn syrup. If it is indeed true that there is an insulin connection to mental illness, considering the seeming epidemic in mental disorders 21st century Americans are confronting, one is forced to question how much is related to insulin and associated issues with blood sugar.
This question becomes especially significant in the case of children who are the most obvious and notorious consumers of the sweet stuff. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at any given time, one out of five American children is suffering from some kind of mental illness. That’s anywhere from 7.7 to 12.8 million kids! 30 to 40 percent have ADHD, 10% suffer from an anxiety disorder, and at any given time, 1 out of thirty-three will be clinically depressed and 3 out of 1000 will be diagnosed as schizophrenic.
The statistics for adults are no less alarming. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly one in four Americans over the age of 18 suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder.
If you go to a physician or psychiatrist and leave with diagnosis of depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD or some other mental health issue, it’s unlikely anyone will be questioning your diet or suggesting nutritional supplements. In fact, the odds are pretty good that you’re going to get a prescription (or two or three) for a psychotropic drug. In a one year survey period from 2006 to 2007, there were 472 million mental health prescriptions written. That’s almost 10 percent of the total annual number of prescriptions written in the U.S. There are over 170 prescription drugs used for mental health and there are more on the way. According to the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, there are 313 new drugs in research and development that are designed specifically to treat a variety of mental health concerns.
If you are suffering from some kind of mental illness, or you or your children are on a prescription drug that you want to get off of, or if you are being pressured by a well-meaning physician or loved one to start taking a prescription drug, please understand that you have options. And one of the most important ones involves (surprise, surprise) blood sugar and insulin.
Insulin Treatment In Psychiatry
Contributing Authors Include Hans Hoff, Joseph Wortis, Ivan Bennett, And Many Others. Proceedings Of The International Conference On The Insulin Treatment In Psychiatry Held At The New York Academy Of Medicine, October 24-25, 1958.
Laying off the sugar and refined carbohydrates is the obvious first step. But “just say no” doesn’t usually work. Will-power is relatively useless when it comes to resisting sugar. The best way to wean yourself blood sugar and insulin spiking foods is to increase intake protein and essential fatty acids. It’s probably a good idea to start off all meals with a protein powder drink and 3 to 9 Omega6/Omega 3 capsules or a couple of teaspoonful of a good EFA liquid-like Udo’s Choice. Then make sure you’re getting all the nutrients that help the body process sugar. The B-vitamins in liquid form are very important. Vitamins B1 and B3 have specific sugar-metabolizing properties. (Interestingly, Dr. Abram Hoffer used to use these two nutrients as medications in his protocol for treating schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.). Taking 50mg a day of Zinc picolinate and 2000 mg of chelated Magnesium would probably be wise. And, the minerals Chromium and Vanadium are well known for improving insulin response and blood sugar levels. There are many more supplements available for stabilizing blood sugar, and ultimately improving and helping maintain mental health. We’ll be getting to those in future posts.
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Truth Nourishment: Extracts, Supplements, Shakes and more
Truth Nourishment: Extracts, Supplements, Shakes and more Products to Benefit Health. Nourish: noun
1. something that nourishes; food, nutriment, or sustenance.
2. the act of nourishing.
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Pharmacist Ben Fuchs and Alex discuss breast cancer, and Angelina Jolie’s recent double mastectomy. The brilliant German biochemist Dr. Otto Warburg discovered that deficiencies in oxygen make cells cancerous. (See: What Really Causes Cancer) In this video interview, Alex makes the observation “If you have brain cancer, why not have your brain removed?” Predisposed to ovarian cancer? Take out your ovaries! Predisposed to breast cancer? Let’s hack them off. When you have surgery to remove your breasts, your body goes through the same trauma as if a wild animal were eating you. This whole thing with Angelina Jolie is like a poster child for the utter insanity of the modern medical model. The BRCA gene mutations occur secondary to maternal malnutrition, when the baby is in the womb. A double mastectomy is one of the most severe and traumatic surgical procedures a human being can undergo, all in response to a mutation in her genetics that is secondary to lifestyle issues. Epigenetics is all about nutritional and lifestyle factors that are transcendent to genetics. It’s the environment that the genes are in! Watch the video for more information and details.
Ben Fuchs’ “8 Chapters of Good Nutrition” presentation on video is full of pearls of wisdom. Pharmacist Ben is a well informed and dynamic speaker. He teaches nutrition in a way anyone can comprehend. Easy going, and easy to listen to, Ben can hold your attention while dishing out eye opening insights into foods for the human body and soul. It’s worth tearing yourself away from the daily duties for a few minutes. It might improve the quality of your life while adding a few years to it as well. What are the 8 Chapters? 1) Proteins 2) Fats 3) Carbohydrates 4) Fiber 5) Water 6) Vitamins 7) Minerals 8) Trace Nutrients The human body is amazing. We have the potential to be strong and healthy, given the knowledge and raw materials to do so. Ben has been doing a lot of the hard work for us, and packaged it for your consumption. Lot’s of invaluable information at no cost. Topics & Notes Don’t get your health and nutrition information form mainstream sources. Get it from alternative information sources like the Townsend Letters. Pharmaceutical drugs are a leading cause of death. Ben and the Blistex lab. The benefits of supplements for skin. The skin is your digestive system inside out. The dumbest thing you can use for dry skin is moisturizer. The day Ben started his own pharmacy. A nutritional compounding pharmacy that specializes in skin. The code of life. Spiritual, mental, emotional, physical. 125,000,000 miles of DNA in your body. Protein. From the Greek, “of primary importance”. The gears that run the machinery. Fatty cucumbers and oil on your salad. The medicine is bitter. Eat the peel. Look for pigments. Beer and your hair. If you are missing these 2 minerals, you are now deficient in 500 different chemical reactions in your body. Some of the other topics covered are: Whey protein, Eggs, Essential Fatty Acids, Fat, Hormones, Master Hormones, Receptors, Thyroid, Diabetes, Hot Flashes, Menopausal Symptoms, Arthritis, Prednisone, Cholesterol, Cravings, Carbohydrates, Sugars, Fiber, Flax Xenoestrogens, Water, Electricity, B Vitamins, Vitamin D, Sun, Zinc, Copper, Magnesium, Iodine, and Breast Cancer. Curious yet? Book Description Product Description Get the skinny on fats! “Fats that Heal-Fats that Kill” brings you the most current research on common and less well-known oils with therapeutic potential, including flaxseed oil, olive oil, fish oil, evening primrose oil and more. Author Udo Erasmus also exposes the manufacturing processes that turn healing fats into killing fats, explains the effects of these damaging fats on human health, and furnishes information that enables you to choose health-promoting oils. 456 pages. Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill: The Complete Guide to Fats, Oils, Cholesterol and Human Health
Pharmacist Ben Fuchs interviews Dr. Joel Wallach in this 5 part series, covering topics about Amazing Discoveries In Health, Essential Life Minerals, Statin Drugs, & The Best Diet. In the first video you will get to know a little about both Doctor Wallach and Pharmacist Ben and how they became involved in health and nutrition. Ben mentions getting a tape in the mail titled “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie”, in the 1990s! In part 2, they go into epigenetics[1], how it relates to nutrition and genetics. Thiamine[2] deficiency and the heart. Part 3 covers one of Ben’s favorite minerals, selenium. How selenium is involved with the thyroid, and diabetes. All the different benefits of this incredible mineral. They talk about many related topics from AIDS to MS, to the common cold. Dr. Wallach shares enlightening information about Colloidal[3] Minerals. Dr. Wallach discusses new information about Statin drugs in part 4. He also talks about the incredible edible egg. Is it the perfect food? What about grains and gluten? Watch part 4 and learn the answer to these questions. The US spends more money for healthcare than any other nation, yet has the most obesity. What’s going on? Pharmacist Ben and Dr. Wallach discuss diet and nutrition in Part 5 of this 5 part series. Pharmacist and Doctor Speak Out Part I of V Doctor’s Amazing Discoveries In Health Part II of V Doctor Shares The Secret of Essential Life Minerals Part III of V Doctor Unloads on Statin Drugs Part IV of V Doctor and Pharmacist Break Down The Best Diet Part V of V Dr. Joel Wallach B.S., DVM, N.D. Dr. Joel Wallach is sometimes referred to as the godfather of liquid supplementation. He is considered a true pioneer in the fields of biomedical research and nutrition. Doctor Wallach’s 40 years of work in the field of Veterinary Medicine forms the basis to his deep understanding of nutritional health. Some of his ground breaking research includes the discovery of the effects of selenium on cancer and the essential fatty acids on heart disease. He has written more than 70 scientific papers and six books including the famous textbook, “Diseases of Exotic Animals”, still being used today by leading veterinary schools, and can also be found on display at the Smithsonian Institute where it is stored as a national treasure. Following an extensive career in Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Wallach went on to become a primary care physician of Naturopathic medicine. He has worked tirelessly as an advocate of the dietary supplement industry and has successfully lobbied the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on a number of occasions. Dr. Wallach’s forward-thinking ideas on nutritional health are clearly spelled out in his most famous lecture, “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie” which currently has more than 150 million copies worldwide, making it the most widely distributed health lecture on record. [1] Epigenetics There exist several definitions of epigenetics, and as a result, there are disagreements as to what epigenetics should mean. Epigenetics (as in “epigenetic landscape”) was coined by C. H. Waddington in 1942 as a portmanteau of the words epigenesis and genetics. Epigenesis is an old word that has more recently been used (see preformationism for historical background) to describe the differentiation of cells from their initial totipotent state in embryonic development. When Waddington coined the term the physical nature of genes and their role in heredity was not known; he used it as a conceptual model of how genes might interact with their surroundings to produce a phenotype. Robin Holliday defined epigenetics as “the study of the mechanisms of temporal and spatial control of gene activity during the development of complex organisms.” Thus epigenetic can be used to describe anything other than DNA sequence that influences the development of an organism. The more recent usage of the word in science has a stricter definition. It is, as defined by Arthur Riggs and colleagues, “the study of mitotically and/or meiotically heritable changes in gene function that cannot be explained by changes in DNA sequence.” The Greek prefix epi- in epigenetics implies features that are “on top of” or “in addition to” genetics; thus epigenetic traits exist on top of or in addition to the traditional molecular basis for inheritance. The term “epigenetics”, however, has been used to describe processes which haven’t been demonstrated to be heritable such as histone modification, there are therefore attempts to redefine it in broader terms that would avoid the constraints of requiring heritability. For example, Adrian Bird defined epigenetics as “the structural adaptation of chromosomal regions so as to register, signal or perpetuate altered activity states.” This definition would be inclusive of transient modifications associated with DNA repair or cell-cycle phases as well as stable changes maintained across multiple cell generations, but exclude others such as templating of membrane architecture and prions unless they impinge on chromosome function. Such redefinitions however are not universally accepted and are still subject to dispute. In 2008, a consensus definition of the epigenetic trait, “stably heritable phenotype resulting from changes in a chromosome without alterations in the DNA sequence”, was made at a Cold Spring Harbor meeting. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [2] Thiamine Thiamine or thiamin or vitamin B1 (pron.: /ˈθaɪ.əmɨn/ THY-ə-min), named as the “thio-vitamine” (“sulfur-containing vitamin”) is a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex. First named aneurin for the detrimental neurological effects if not present in the diet, it was eventually assigned the generic descriptor name vitamin B1. Its phosphate derivatives are involved in many cellular processes. The best-characterized form is thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP), a coenzyme in the catabolism of sugars and amino acids. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [3] Colloidal A colloid is a particle substance that retains its identity and remains in liquid suspension. Colloids are very small in size and therefore easily absorbed by the cells of the body. Plants convert metallic minerals into this form. Dr. Carey Reams, a well known biophysicist and biochemist, discovered that colloids can get so small they can go […]
