Health Conscious

Prebiotics: the New Food of the Twenty-First Century

Most people do not eat sufficient prebiotics, the food that feeds probiotics, the beneficial bacteria in the large intestine, referred to collectively as the microbiome. Probiotics help to keep our intestines healthy, and also aid in ridding the kidneys of toxins, so if they are not fed properly, they die off and we suffer intestinal distress. Exposure to antibiotics, as well as diet and nutritional habits influence the bacteria mix in your microbiome. The type of food you eat determines which type of bacteria—healthful or harmful—you feed and build. You need foods containing probiotics, such as yogurts and kefirs which contain live and active cultures, and supplementation with prebiotics.

Prebiotic fructans feed your probiotics, change the environment in the gut and kill or force out hamrful bacteria. Fructans are found in a variety of foods, but not in a quantity that can spark rapid microbiome changes.

Our research and patents allow us to prepare prebiotic fructans as a natural food in sufficient quantity and with such quality that you can rapidly gain a very healthy balance in your microbiome.

Fiber for a Healthy Gut

A lot of companies are trying to find ways to lower the sugar content of their foods while still giving consumers that sweet taste they want. Some, of course, are using chemical sugar substitutes, such as Aspartame. But health-conscious Americans don't want chemical substitutes. Many would rather stick with natural sugar, in spite of its health consequences. Some consider honey a good alternative, but while honey has many good properties, it is not something diabetics can turn to as a sugar alternative. A tablespoon of honey actually has more carbs and calories than table sugar. Dietician Toby Smithson, a spokesperson for the American Diabetic Association, says, "One of my favorite quotes is 'a sugar is a sugar' when it comes to diabetes."

Some companies are starting to turn to other natural sweeteners that don't have the side effects of sugar, but still offer the sweetness consumers like. Even Coca-Cola has a new product out called Coca-Cola Life, a reduced calorie soft drink sweetened with a blend of sugar and stevia leaf extract.

The FDA has recently released new mandatory nutrition labeling regulations which will require companies to include a line for "added sugars" on products, in addition to the current "total sugars" line. "Total sugars" will include sugars naturally occurring in a product, such as lactose in milk and fructose in fruit. "Added sugars" would include any caloric-carbohydrate sweeteners. The new requirement is intended to help Americans make healthier dietary choices.

"Intense focus on added sugar consumption and links to obesity, diabetes and heart disease is motivating consumers to not only reduce total sweetener consumption, but to also switch to sweeteners perceived as more healthful," said David Sprinkle, research director, Packaged Facts, Rockville, Md.

Stevia is becoming a commonly used natural sugar substitute. But while stevia may be somewhat healthier, its bitter aftertaste has to be masked by mixing it with something else—something like sugar, which we want to eliminate as much as possible. Other products mix stevia with erythritol, another zero-calorie plant-based sweetener. But too much may cause cancer.

The answer is probably a cost one. Being 250 to 300 times sweeter than sugar, less stevia needs to be used for the required sweetness. On the other hand, erythritol is only about 60-80% as sweet as sugar, so more of it is needed.

But although stevia may be healthier than regular table sugar, it has its disadvantages. Dental caries is one of the major complaints against sugar. Stevia also can cause dental caries. But erythritol does not. In fact, a study published in the May 2014 issue of "Caries Research" found that erythritol may even help prevent cavities.

There are other problems with stevia. The FDA established an acceptable daily intake of stevia at 4 milligrams per kilogram (about 2 pounds) of body weight. So for a person weighing 150 pounds, that would be 300 milligrams. However, most stevia sweetening packets contain 1 gram (or 1,000 mg.), which far exceeds the FDA allowance. The NYU Langone Medical Center advises that anyone with liver, kidney, or cardiovascular disease, or women who are pregnant or nursing, consult a physician before using stevia. Stevia can also cause adverse reactions with some medications. The use of stevia by people taking diabetic medications can cause hypoglycemia, with blood sugar levels falling abnormally low. Those on blood pressure medications should also avoid stevia as it can cause significantly lower blood pressure. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center also warns that high doses of stevia may be mutagenic. And a warning to women who want to get pregnant—whole stevia leaves were traditionally used by natives in Paraguay as a contraceptive. There are no such warnings concerning erythritol.

Lu Ann Williams, director of innovation, Innova Market Insights, Arnhem, The Netherlands, says, "The quest to combine taste and health is driving new product development, as the industry faces the challenge of balancing public demand to reduce added sugars and create indulgent experiences, while at the same time presenting clean label products."

Sweet-tasting fiber may also help reduce added sugars in some food products. One of the most common fiber food ingredients is chicory root fiber, also known as fructan.

Life Energy Food's Frē® Gold is a prebiotic fructan fiber product sweetened with erythritol. It has no calories, does not cause cavities (and may even prevent them), is non-carcinogenic, and won't cause your blood pressure or blood sugar to drop. And it has no bitter aftertaste.

One of the most important benefits of Frē® Gold is that it will not only sweeten your foods naturally and healthily with erythritol, but the prebiotic fructan fibers will add additional sweetness and feed the probiotics (good bacteria) in your gut to give you better intestinal health.

A Healthy Gut Can Lead to a Healthy Brain

We've talked a lot about the need for a healthy microbiome (gut) and how the prebiotic fructan fibers in our Frē® Gold and Vim® products feed the probiotics (healthy bacteria) in your gut. It's important to have a healthy digestive system to keep us feeling well and fit.

But recent studies have suggested that a healthy microbiome may lead to a healthy brain as well. Those probiotics not only control our physical well-being, but also regulate how we think and feel.

Dr. Emerson Mayer, a gastroenterologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been studying this topic for years. "I'm always by profession a skeptic," he says. "But I do believe that our gut microbes affect what goes on in our brains."

Although most of the tests so far have been on mice, Mayer did conduct a study at UCLA using female subjects. The women were divided into groups, one group eating yogurt containing the probiotics thought to have a positive effect on the gut--bifidobacterium, streptococcus, lactococcus, and lactobacillus— twice a day for four weeks, while others did not. Even Mayer himself was surprised at the significant differences between the groups.

Before and after the study, MRI scans looked at the subjects' brains in a state of rest and in response to a series of images reflecting happiness, sadness, anger, etc. The yogurt eaters reacted more calmly to the images than the control group. "The contrast was clear," Mayer said. "This was not what we expected, that eating a yogurt twice a day for a few weeks would do something to your brain." He thinks the bacteria in the yogurt changed the makeup of the subjects' gut microbes, and that this led to the production of compounds that modified brain chemistry.

"Many of us have a container of yogurt in our refrigerator that we may eat for enjoyment, for calcium or because we think it might help our health in other ways," said Dr. Kirsten Tillisch of UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. "Our findings indicate that some of the contents of yogurt may actually change the way our brain responds to the environment."

Sugar Exposed

On Monday, September 12, 2016, researchers published some astounding information. Way back in the 1960s, when some studies were starting to show that sugar was a cause of coronary heart disease (CHD), The Sugar Research Foundation paid Harvard nutritionists to downplay those studies and declare that saturated fats and cholesterol were primarily to blame. Although studies continue to show a correlation between sugar consumption and CHD, the sugar industry steadfastly denies such a relationship. "Sugar does not have a unique role in heart disease," the group (now called the Sugar Association) says.

The primary author of this exposé, Dr. Cristin Kearns of the University of California, San Francisco, is a former dentist who quit her job after the keynote speaker at a dentistry convention stated that there was no evidence linking sugar to chronic disease. She now devotes herself to researching the sugar industry's influence over public policy and science.

Her new paper, which was published in the highly respected Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), discusses how the sugar industry decided in the 19600s to begin a campaign to address "negative attitudes towards sugar." As a part of this effort, the group worked closely with two respected Harvard nutritionists, Dr. Frederick Stare and Dr. Mark Hegsted, paying them to write a literature review that would counter research linking sucrose to CHD. These two men tore apart the studies that implicated sugar and stated that the only dietary modification necessary to prevent CHD was to lower fat and cholesterol intake. Their work was published in 1967 in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, although they mentioned several funding sources for their study, they neglected to state that their initial impetus and funding had come from the sugar industry as a part of their efforts to make sugar more marketable.

Sugar is big business. But it is increasingly important, especially with the abundance of processed food on the market, to look out for our own health and to avoid as much as possible those ingredients, such as sugar, that can have an adverse effect on our health.

Blood Pressure

For years, we've been taught that salt is a substance that contributes largely to high blood pressure. Seniors and people with heart problems have been told to cut down on their sodium intake.

But what if the real culprit is not salt, but another white crystal—sugar?

Actually, neither salt nor sugar, in high amounts, is very good for anyone's heart. And if you already have heart disease or high blood pressure, you should probably keep an eye on both.

But it's sugar we're concerned with at this time. And authors of a recent study in Open Heart argue that sugar consumption may be considerably worse for blood pressure than salt intake. According to study author James DiNicolantonio, a heart disease research scientist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, "Consuming sugar increases insulin levels, which activates the sympathetic nervous system, leading to increases in heart rate and blood pressure." According to the study, high levels of sugar affect a key area of the brain called the hypothalamus which causes the heart rate to quicken and blood pressure to rise.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist and science director of Action on Sugar, a campaign group, said people underestimate the public health risk posed by sugar. He feels there is growing evidence it is an independent risk factor for many diseases.

Another study, from the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, found that people who consume a diet high in fructose, a key ingredient in high-fructose corn syrup, are more likely to have high blood pressure. Drinking 2.5 cans or more of non-diet soda per day increases your risk of hypertension by at least 30 percent.

Your Liver

The liver is a very important organ in the body. There is currently no way to compensate for the absence of liver function, as no one has come up with a way to transplant a liver.

The liver has a lot of functions—about 500. We won't list them all, but here are a few important ones:

• It regulates the amounts of sugar, protein, and fat that enter the bloodstream.
• It removes toxins from the blood.
• It processes most of the nutrients absorbed by the intestines during digestion and converts them into forms that can be used by the body.
• It stores Vitamin A and some minerals, including iron.
• It makes cholesterol, vitamin A, blood-clotting substances, and certain proteins.
• It regulates a wide variety of high-volume biochemical reactions, including the synthesis and breakdown of small and complex molecules, many of which are necessary for normal vital functions.

As you can see from just these few functions, liver is pretty important. Yet millions of people are poisoning their livers day by day through overconsumption of just one little product. You've got it—sugar! And specifically fructose, as in high-fructose corn syrup, also known as HFCS.

HFCS was developed in the 1960s by scientists at the Clinton Corn Processing Company in Iowa. It was approved by the FDA in 1976, at which time it began being used as the sweetener in soft drinks. The reason—it's way cheaper than sugar, and also easier to produce.

In 1982, the FDA decided the recent heavy-duty increase in obesity and cardiovascular disease meant people were eating too much fat, so they began suggesting people limit their fat consumption. Low-fat diets became the craze, but what happened? People were still gaining weight and having heart attacks.

Your Heart

Let's face it. Your heart is a pretty important organ. It stops beating and whammo—unless someone's around who can get it going again—you're dead. Sometimes it stops beating because you're old and it's just worn out and it's time for you to go anyway. But sometimes, it's because your heart is diseased.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US, accounting for almost 1 in every 4 deaths. That's a pretty high number. And it means that YOU have a good chance of dying from heart disease.

So how do you keep your heart from being in that 25%? Well, one of the factors linked to heart disease is obesity. And, as we've shown in other articles, mounting evidence clearly shows that added sugars, and processed fructose particular, is a primary participant in the rising tide of obesity.

Refined fructose damages your liver in the same way as alcohol and can, indeed, cause cirrhosis of the liver. You don't need to be an alcoholic to cause significant damage to your liver. Just be a soda-holic, since most sodas are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Refined fructose is more readily metabolized into fat than any other sugar. The fact that refined fructose is far more harmful to your health than other sugars was recently highlighted in a meta-review published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that there's "a significant relationship between added sugar consumption and increased risk for cardiovascular disease mortality."

Fighting Cancer

We've talked about sugar's deadly effect on the heart, on the liver, blood pressure, blood sugar, candida, even dementia. And there is considerable evidence that sugar, due to its harmful effects on metabolism, can contribute to cancer.

I have lost some really good friends to cancer—two of them just this year alone. It is not a fun disease to deal with. But there are increasing studies that show there are ways to prevent this deadly disease.

One of those ways is to decrease our sugar consumption. I know it's hard. I have a bit of a sweet tooth myself from time to time. But most of us eat way too much of it. Let's face it—it's in pretty much everything. Getting away from it entirely is a bit impossible. But limiting the amount we eat is possible.

First, let's look at how sugar contributes to cancer.

Cancer is characterized by uncontrolled growth and multiplication of cells. One of the key hormones in regulating such growth is insulin. This has led many scientists to believe that elevated insulin levels, due to sugar consumption, can contribute to the growth of cancer cells.

A recent study conducted at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center concluded that the high amounts of dietary sugar in the typical Western diet may increase the risk of breast cancer and metastasis to the lungs.

Boosting Your Immune System

Foods That Boost Immunity

Lifestyle Factors for Immune Health

Candida Albicans

Candida albicans is a yeast that most people have to some degree in their systems. However, overgrowth of candida is something you want to avoid. The overgrowth happens when your immune system is compromised or when you consume large amounts of sugars or other refined carbohydrates. Stress can also cause your candida to get out of control. And diabetics are prone to the problem.

If you are bothered by an overgrowth of candida, there are foods you should avoid and foods you can use to help eliminate it.

First, avoid sugar, refined carbohydrates, alcohol and caffeine.

Then, anti-fungal and other Candida fighting foods can easily be added to your daily diet.

Dementia

It is amazing how many parts of the body sugar has a very negative impact on. It affects your blood sugar and blood pressure. It makes cavities in your teeth. And it is really, really bad for your liver—especially fructose, as in high-fructose corn syrup. As if that weren't enough, studies have also found a relationship between sugar consumption and the brain—leading to dementia and Alzheimer's.

A joint Group Health/University of Washington (UW) study of 2,000 Group Health patients age 65+ found that higher blood sugar levels are associated with higher dementia risk, even among people who do not have diabetes.

According to author Paul K. Crane, MD, MPH, an associate professor of medicine at the UW School of Medicine, "The most interesting finding was that every incrementally higher glucose level was associated with a higher risk of dementia in people who did not have diabetes."

Another study found that even if you're not diabetic or insulin resistant, sugar consumption can still disrupt your memory. Long term, sugar can lead to the shrinking of your hippocampus, one of the symptoms of Alzheimer's. Since the brain does not require glucose for energy, researchers feel that excess glucose in the brain is part of the problem, leading to not only dementia, but other brain disorders as well. In fact, Alzheimer's was once termed "type 3 diabetes."

Neurologist David Perlmutter, MD insists that being very strict in limiting your consumption of sugar and non-vegetable carbs is one of the most important steps you can take to prevent Alzheimer's disease. He cites research from the Mayo Clinic, which found that diets rich in carbohydrates are associated with an 89 percent increased risk for dementia.

Sugar and Allergies

Studies show that allergies affect about 20% of people worldwide—up to 50% of people in developed nations such as here in the US. In fact, according to the CDC, allergies are the sixth-leading cause of chronic illness in the US. Now I doubt that pollens are all that different in other countries, so why do we have more allergies? Do you think it could possibly have something to do with our diets?

Allergies result from an immune response to a generally harmless threat—pollen, animal dander, food—that the body somehow sees as dangerous, causing symptoms that range from mildly irritating (runny nose, itchy eyes) to life‐threatening (anaphylaxis). Nobody knows for sure why some people are allergic to one thing and others allergic to something else. But in every case, it is because of a weakened immune system.

One of the best ways to strengthen your immune system is to avoid foods that suppress it, such as processed foods, foods that trigger inflammation, and sugar. These foods can can weaken your immune system over time, making you less able to combat seasonal allergens. According to a study done by Loma Linda University, when you eat 100 grams of sugar, your white blood cells are 40 percent less effective at killing germs. That's about the amount of sugar in a Big Gulp! This can cripple your immune system for up to five hours!

Remember way back in the 1970s when Linus Pauling discovered that white blood cells need Vitamin C to fight bacteria and viruses? Well, the problem is that sugar and Vitamin C are similar in chemical structure, so when you eat sugar, it wants to take up the space in your white blood cells that should belong to Vitamin C. The more sugar you eat, the more it pushes that virus-consuming Vitamin C out, compromising your immune system.

Chicken Soup for Immune Support

Remember when you were little and you had a cold or an upset tummy and your mom would bring you a bowl of fragrant, steamy chicken noodle soup and you'd feel a little better? Well, it wasn't entirely your imagination. Chicken soup is good for you—and can give your immune system a boost.

Way back in the 12th Century, healers started to prescribe "the broth of fowl" for their ill patients. Egyptian Jewish physician and philosopher Maimonides wrote extensively about the benefits of chicken soup, stating, "The meat taken should be that of hens or roosters and their broth should also be taken because this sort of fowl has virtue in rectifying corrupted humours."

But chicken soup's amazing healing power kind of remained an "old wives' tale" right up until the latter part of the 20th Century, when Dr. Stephen Rennard, MD at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, decided he wanted proof that it really did work. He thought that maybe it had some anti-inflammatory action.

So Dr. Rennard tested his theory by adding his wife's homemade chicken soup to white blood cells. He found that chemicals in the soup slowed the white blood cells and were able to clear a stuffy nose by inhibiting inflammation of the cells in the nasal passages.

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