Batasi Es Teh, Hindari Batu Ginjal

Minuman teh dicampur dengan es sebagai pelepas dahaga di siang hari yang terik tentunya sangat menyenangkan. Namun, bagi Anda yang cenderung mengalami pembentukan batu ginjal sebaiknya berhati-hati. Penelitian terbaru menyarankan, sebaiknya beralih dari es teh ke air putih campur lemon atau jus lemon.

Menurut para ahli, batu yang terbentuk dari kristal di dalam ginjal atau saluran air seni dari ginjal ke kandung kemih mempengaruhi sekitar 10% populasi Amerika Serikat. Pria tercatat memiliki risiko empat kali lebih besar dibandingkan wanita. Risiko pembentukan batu ginjal tesebut biasanya akan meningkat setelah usia 40 tahun.

Kandungan zat oxalate sebagai salah satu kunci pembentukan batu ginjal, terdapat didalam es teh dalam tingkat konsentrasi tinggi.

"Untuk banyak orang, es teh adalah salah satu minuman yang paling buruk. Terutama bagi orang yang memiliki risiko pembentukan batu ginjal, minuman itu sangat berisiko," ujar Instruktur department of urology di Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, John Milner.

Kegagalan untuk menjaga kecukupan cairan dalam tubuh adalah penyebab utama pembentukan gagal ginjal. Tingginya suhu udara dan tingkat kelembaban, sering menyebabkan keringat berlebih dan dehidrasi, didukung oleh tingginya konsumsi es teh, dapat meningkatkan risiko gagal ginjal saat ini.

Tea Association dari Amerika Serikat melaporkan, warganya mengonsumsi sekitar 1,91 miliar galon es teh per tahun. Hal tersebut dilatari dengan keyakinan bahwa minuman tersebut lebih sehat dibandingkan minuman lain seperti soda dan bir.

Milner mengatakan, minum air putih adalah cara terbaik untuk menjaga cairan dalam tubuh. Jika seseorang cenderung terkena batu ginjal, pilihan terbaik adalah minum air putih dengan lemon atau jus lemon.

"Lemon memiliki kandungan sitrat yang tinggi, sehingga dapat mencegah pembentukan batu ginjal. Jus lemon yang tidak dicampur dengan bahan-bahan perasa lainnya, dapat membantu pembentukan batu ginjal terutama bagi orang-orang yang berisiko tinggi," jelas Milner.

Makanan lainnya yang memiliki tingkat oxalate tinggi yang perlu dihindari oleh orang yang memiliki kecenderungan batu ginjal antara lain, bayam, coklat dan kacang.

Selain itu, perlu juga mengurngi konsumsi garam, dan minum air putih yang cukup setiap hari. Serta, makanan dengan kandungan kalsium tinggi yang dapat menetralkan penyerapan tubuh terhadap oxalate. (healtdaynews.com/rin)-http://republika.co.id/launcher/view/mid/19/news_id/1944

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The Inuit: Lessons from the Arctic

The Inuit (also called Eskimo) are a group of hunter-gatherer cultures who inhabit the arctic regions of Alaska, Canada and Greenland. They are a true testament to the toughness, adaptability and ingenuity of the human species. Their unique lifestyle has a lot of information to offer us about the boundaries of the human ecological niche. Weston Price was fascinated by their excellent teeth, good nature and overall robust health. Here's an excerpt from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

"In his primitive state he has provided an example of physical excellence and dental perfection such as has seldom been excelled by any race in the past or present...we are also deeply concerned to know the formula of his nutrition in order that we may learn from it the secrets that will not only aid in the unfortunate modern or so-called civilized races, but will also, if possible, provide means for assisting in their preservation."

The Inuit are cold-hardy hunters whose traditional diet consists of a variety of sea mammals, fish, land mammals and birds. They invented some very sophisticated tools, including the kayak, whose basic design has remained essentially unchanged to this day. Most groups ate virtually no plant food. Their calories came primarily from fat, up to 75%, with almost no calories coming from carbohydrate. Children were breast-fed for about three years, and had solid food in their diet almost from birth. As with most hunter-gatherer groups, they were free from chronic disease while living a traditional lifestyle, even in old age. Here's a quote from Observations on the Western Eskimo and the Country they Inhabit; from Notes taken During two Years [1852-54] at Point Barrow, by Dr. John Simpson:

These people [the Inuit] are robust, muscular and active, inclining rather to spareness [leanness] than corpulence [overweight], presenting a markedly healthy appearance. The expression of the countenance is one of habitual good humor. The physical constitution of both sexes is strong. Extreme longevity is probably not unknown among them; but as they take no heed to number the years as they pass they can form no guess of their own ages.

One of the common counterpoints I hear to the idea that high-fat hunter-gatherer diets are healthy, is that exercise protects them from the ravages of fat. The Inuit can help us get to the bottom of this debate. Here's a quote from Cancer, Disease of Civilization (1960, Vilhjalmur Stefansson):

"They are large eaters, some of them, especially the women, eating all the time..." ...during the winter the Barrow women stirred around very little, did little heavy work, and yet "inclined more to be sparse than corpulent" [quotes are the anthropologist Dr. John Murdoch, reproduced by Stefansson].

Another argument I sometimes hear is that the Inuit are genetically adapted to their high-fat diet, and the same food would kill a European. This appears not to be the case. The anthropologist and arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson spent several years living with the Inuit in the early 20th century. He and his fellow Europeans and Americans thrived on the Inuit diet. American doctors were so incredulous that they defied him and a fellow explorer to live on a diet of fatty meat only for one year, under the supervision of the American Medical Association. To the doctors' dismay, they remained healthy, showing no signs of scurvy or any other deficiency (JAMA 1929;93:20–2).

Yet another amazing thing about the Inuit was their social structure. Here's Dr. John Murdoch again (quoted from Cancer, Disease of Civilization):

The women appear to stand on a footing of perfect equality with the men, both in the family and the community. The wife is the constant and trusted companion of the man in everything except the hunt, and her opinion is sought in every bargain or other important undertaking... The affection of parents for their children is extreme, and the children seem to be thoroughly worthy of it. They show hardly a trace of fretfulness or petulance so common among civilized children, and though indulged to an extreme extent are remarkably obedient. Corporal punishment appears to be absolutely unknown, and children are rarely chided or punished in any way.

Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Since adopting a modern processed-food diet, the health and social structure of the Inuit has deteriorated dramatically. This had already happened to most groups by Weston Price's time, and is virtually complete today. Here's Price:

In the various groups in the lower Kuskokwim seventy-two individuals who were living exclusively on native foods had in their 2,138 teeth only two teeth or 0.09 per cent that had ever been attacked by tooth decay. In this district eighty-one individuals were studied who had been living in part or in considerable part on modern foods, and of their 2, 254 teeth 394 or 13 per cent had been attacked by dental caries. This represents an increase in dental caries of 144 fold.... When these adult Eskimos exchange their foods for our modern foods..., they often have very extensive tooth decay and suffer severely.... Their plight often becomes tragic since there are no dentists in these districts.

Modern Inuit also suffer from very high rates of diabetes and overweight. This has been linked to changes in diet, particularly the use of white flour, sugar and processed oils.

Overall, the unique lifestyle and diet of the Inuit have a lot to teach us. First, that some humans are capable of being healthy eating mostly animal foods. Second, that some humans are able to thrive on a high-fat diet. Third, that humans are capable of living well in extremely harsh and diverse environments. Fourth, that the shift from natural foods to processed foods, rather than changes in macronutrient composition, is the true cause of the diseases of civilization.

HERBAL UNTUK MENINGKATKAN IMUNITAS TUBUH

Menurut Dr Suprapto Ma'at dari Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Airlangga fungsi sistem imun adalah pertahanan. Intinya menangkal bahan berbahaya agar tubuh tidak sakit. Jika sel-sel imun diganggu, orang rentan sakit. Ia sebagai penjaga keseimbangan komponen tubuh dengan membersihkan sel-sel yang mati. Fungsi lain, sistem imun meronda ke seluruh bagian tubuh. Jika ditemukan sel tubuh yang mutasi-memicu kanker-sistem imun akan membinasakannya 'Sistem imun tubuh melindungi tubuh dari bahaya radikal bebas dalam tubuh,' kata Lukas Tersono Adi, herbalis di Tangerang.

Sistem imun itu terbentuk dari antioksidan yang secara alami sudah terdapat dalam tubuh. Namun, jumlah sistem imun terkikis seiring gempuran bahan kimia dan penyakit. Makanya, untuk memperkuat sistem kekebalan tubuh butuh konsumsi bahan-bahan alami yang mengandung zat gizi lengkap. Dengan begitu keseimbangan hormon pengatur fungsi tubuh tetap terjaga, walau virus, cendawan, dan bakteri menggempur. 'Hidup sehat alami dengan cara memanfaatkan tanaman di sekitar kita,' imbuh Lukas.

Biji anggur yang selama ini kita buang ketika menikmati buah Vitis vinifera, justru kaya antioksidan. Ia berkekuatan tinggi sehingga dapat menembus sel darah dan otak sekaligus meningkatkan kadar oksigen dalam darah dan otak. 'Antioksidan tinggi juga terdapat pada herbal,' kata alumnus Universitas Diponegoro itu. Sekadar menyebut beberapa contoh adalah kumis kucing, meniran, pegagan, sambiloto, temulawak, kunir putih, daun sendok, dan jombang. Herbal itu teruji klinis dan mempunyai aktivitas antioksidan tinggi untuk membentuk sistem imun.

Kerja sama

Senyawa aktif yang terkandung dalam herbal itu memang beragam. Meniran Phyllanthus niruri ampuh menjaga organ tubuh dari penyakit itu. Ia kaya senyawa aktif seperti alkaloid, astragalin, asam karboksilat, brevifolin, dan korilagin. Senyawa-senyawa aktif itu saling bersinergi membentengi tubuh dari penyakit.
Sedangkan sambiloto Andrographis paniculata membantu imunitas tubuh melalui peningkatan daya fagositosis leukosit. Itu diperoleh berkat kerja sama 4 jenis senyawa lakton utama, yaitu deoksiandrografolida, andrografolida, neoandrografolida, dan didehidroandrografolida. Khasiat bakal terasa setelah rutin meminum rebusan 5 gram daun kering sambiloto dalam 2 gelas air. 'Jika menggunakan daun segar, dosisnya 30 lembar daun dan direbus dalam 2 gelas air,' kata Lukas.

Herba yang mujarab menjaga sistem kekebalan tubuh: temulawak Curcuma xanthorriza. Riset Prof Dr Yahya Kisyanto dan Dr Nyoman Kertia, SpPD-KR membuktikan temulawak menurunkan risiko serangan kanker payudara. Xanthorrhizol, senyawa aktif dalam rimpang kerabat kunyit itu memang terbukti antikanker. Selain itu, 'Temulawak juga didukung oleh 100 komponen senyawa aktif yang mencegah penyakit masuk ke tubuh,' kata Prof Nyoman.

Kurkuminoid salah satu di antaranya. Senyawa aktif itu berkhasiat sebagai antioksidan, antiinflamasi, antibakteri, antihepatotoksik, antikolesterol, antikanker, dan sekaligus antiplatelet agregasi. Dosis yang dianjurkan adalah 2 gram temulawak. Mau yang lain? Masih ada pegagan Centella asiatica. Jika rutin mengkonsumsi rebusan pegagan 3 kali sehari- rebus 3 gram dalam 2 gelas air- berbagai jenis kanker menjauh.

Sebab kandungan asam asetat, betakaroten, betakariofilen, betaelemena, betafarsenen, betasisterol, dan brahminosida dalam pegagan membentengi tubuh dari gempuran penyakit. Yasir Hassan Siddique periset Aligar Muslim University, membuktikan pemberian 50 mg/ kg bobot tubuh/hari ekstrak pegagan selama 14 hari, meningkatkan enzim antioksidan seperti superoksida dismutase (SOD), katalase, glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx), dan antioksidan glutathione (GSH) yang efektif menekan laju pertumbuhan tumor maupun kanker.

Temulawak, meniran, sambiloto, dan pegagan ada di sekitar kita dan mudah didapat. Dengan rutin mengkonsumsi herba itu, berarti memperkokoh pertahanan tubuh. Itulah salah satu cara paling bijak mencegah serangan penyakit maut yang terus mengintai. (Sardi Duryatmo & Vina Fitriani) http://www.trubus-online.co.id/mod.php?mod=publisher&op=printarticle&artid=1136

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Book Review: "The Human Diet: Its Origins and Evolution"

I recently read this book after discovering it on another health site. It's a compilation of chapters written by several researchers in the fields of comparative biology, paleontology, archaeology and zoology. It's sometimes used as a textbook.

I've learned some interesting things, but overall it was pretty disappointing. The format is disjointed, with no logical flow between chapters. I also would not call it comprehensive, which is one of the things I look for in a textbook. Here are some of the interesting points:

• Humans in industrial societies are the only mammals to commonly develop hypertension, and are the only free-living primates to become overweight.
  
• The adoption of grains as a primary source of calories correlated with a major decrease in stature, decrease in oral health, decrease in bone density, and other problems. This is true for wheat, rice, corn and other grains.
• Cranial capacity has also declined 11% since the late paleolithic, correlating with a decrease in the consumption of animal foods and an increase in grains.
• According to carbon isotope ratios of teeth, corn did not play a major role in the diet of native Americans until 800 AD. Over 15% of the teeth of post-corn South American cultures showed tooth decay, compared with less than 5% for pre-corn cultures (many of which were already agricultural, just not eating corn).
  
• Childhood mortality seems to be similar among hunter-gatherers and non-industrial agriculturists and pastoralists.
  
• Women may have played a key role in food procurement through foraging. This is illustrated by a group of modern hunter-gatherers called the Hadza. While men most often hunt, which supplies important nutrients intermittently, women provide a steady stream of calories by foraging for tubers.
• We have probably been eating starchy tubers for between 1.5 and 2 million years, which precedes our species. Around that time, digging tools, (controversial) evidence of controlled fire and changes in digestive anatomy all point to use of tubers and cooked food in general. Tubers make sense because they are a source of calories that is much more easily exploited than wild grains in most places.
• Our trajectory as a species has been to consume a diet with more calories per unit fiber. As compared to chimps, who eat leaves and fruit all day and thus eat a lot of fiber to get enough calories, our species and its recent ancestors ate a diet much lower in fiber.
  
• Homo sapiens has always eaten meat.
  

The downside is that some chapters have a distinct low-fat slant. One chapter attempted to determine the optimal diet for humans by comparing ours to the diets of wild chimps and other primates. Of course, we eat more fat than a chimp, but I don't think that gets us anywhere. Especially since one of our closest relatives, the neanderthal, was practically a carnivore.
They consider the diet composition of modern hunter-gatherers that eat low-fat diets, but don't include data on others with high-fat diets like the Inuit.

There's some good information in the book, if you're willing to dig through a lot of esoteric data on the isotope ratios of extinct hominids and that sort of thing.

Sunscreen and Melanoma

Melanoma is the most deadly type of skin cancer, accounting for most skin cancer deaths in the US. As Ross pointed out in the comments section of the last post, there is an association between severe sunburn at a young age and later development of melanoma. Darker-skinned people are also more resistant to melanoma. The association isn't complete, however, since melanoma sometimes occurs on the soles of the feet and even in the intestine. This may be due to the fact that there are several types of melanoma, potentially with different causes.

Another thing that associates with melanoma is the use of sunscreen above a latitude of 40 degrees from the equator. In the Northern hemisphere, 40 degrees draws a line between New York city and Beijing. A recent meta-analysis found consistently that sunscreen users above 40 degrees are at a higher risk of melanoma than people who don't use sunscreen, even when differences in skin color are taken into account. Wearing sunscreen decreased melanoma risk in studies closer to the equator. It sounds confusing, but it makes sense once you know a little bit more about UV rays, sunscreen and the biology of melanoma.

The UV light that reaches the Earth's surface is composed of UVA (longer) and UVB (shorter) wavelengths. UVB causes sunburn, while they both cause tanning. Sunscreen blocks UVB, preventing burns, but most brands only weakly block UVA. Sunscreen allows a person to spend more time in the sun than they would otherwise, and attenuates tanning. Tanning is a protective response (among several) by the skin that protects it against both UVA and UVB. Burning is a protective response that tells you to get out of the sun. The result of diminishing both is that sunblock tends to increase a person's exposure to UVA rays.

It turns out that UVA rays are more closely associated with melanoma than UVB rays, and typical sunscreen fails to prevent melanoma in laboratory animals. It's also worth mentioning that sunscreen does prevent more common (and less lethal) types of skin cancer.

Modern tanning beds produce a lot of UVA and not much UVB, in an attempt to deliver the maximum tan without causing a burn. Putting on sunscreen essentially does the same thing: gives you a large dose of UVA without much UVB.

The authors of the meta-analysis suggest an explanation for the fact that the association changes at 40 degrees of latitude: populations further from the equator tend to have lighter skin. Melanin blocks UVA very effectively, and the pre-tan melanin of someone with olive skin is enough to block most of the UVA that sunscreen lets through. The fair-skinned among us don't have that luxury, so our melanocytes get bombarded by UVA, leading to melanoma. This may explain the incredible rise in melanoma incidence in the US in the last 35 years, as people have also increased the use of sunscreen. It may also have to do with tanning beds, since melanoma incidence has risen particularly in women.

In my opinion, the best way to treat your skin is to tan gradually, without burning. Use clothing and a wide-brimmed hat if you think you'll be in the sun past your burn threshold. If you want to use sunscreen, make sure it blocks UVA effectively. Don't rely on the manufacturer's word; look at the ingredients list. It should contain at least one of the following: titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, avobenzone (Parsol 1789), Mexoryl SX (Tinosorb). It's best if it's also paraben-free.

Fortunately, as an external cancer, melanoma is easy to diagnose. If caught early, it can be removed without any trouble. If caught a bit later, surgeons may have to remove lymph nodes, which makes your face look like John McCain's. Later than that and you're probably a goner. If you have any questions about a growth, especially one with irregular borders that's getting larger, ask your doctor about it immediately!

Keladi Tikus. Satu lagi alternatif pengobatan dari alam

Selama ini kanker masih menjadi istilah medis yang menakutkan bagi sebagian orang, namun saat ini kanker bukanlah penyakit tanpa obat. Seperti halnya penyakit berat lainnya, bukan berarti ‘tidak ada obatnya’, tetapi ‘belum ditemukan’. Setiap penyakit (akan) ada obatnya, ini suatu keniscayaan yang harus kita yakini. Sementara perihal kesempatan mendapatkan obat ini, adalah bergantung kepada usaha dan kehendak yang Maha Kuasa. Sementara Tuhan tidak pernah berbuat dzolim pada hamba-hamba-Nya.
Kanker merupakan penyakit mematikan kedua setelah jantung. Kanker merupakan sel tidak normal yang bercokol dalam tubuh. Pertumbuhannya selain cepat juga tidak segan menyakiti jaringan lain, atau bersifat invasif, dan beranak sebar (metastasis) melalui pembuluh darah serta pembuluh getah bening.

Dengan berbagai pengalaman dan penelitian mengenai keladi tikus sebagai alternatif pengobatan kanker, tak pelak lagi keladi tikus langsung muncul dalam jajaran tanaman berkhasiat obat di negara kita. Literatur tanaman ini masih sebatas hasil dari malaysia dan penelitian lebih lanjut masih terus dilakukan. Meskipun tidak bisa diklaim sebagai obat dewa, kehadirannya telah banyak memberikan banyak arti bagi penderita kanker.

Tanaman keladi tikus (Typhonium flagelliforme) adalah tanaman sejenis talas setinggi 25 cm hingga 30 cm, termasuk tumbuhan semak, menyukai tempat yang lembab yang tidak terkena matahari langsung. Tanaman berbatang basah ini biasanya tumbuh di tempat terbuka pada ketinggian 1.000 meter di atas permukaan laut. Bentuk daunnya bulat dengan ujung runcing berbentuk jantung. Warnanya hijau segar. Umbinya berbentuk bulat rata sebesar buah pala.

Hasil Uji Empirik

Dari uji empirik (berdasarkan pengalaman) pengobatan kanker, beberapa jenis kanker yang mampu disembuhkan dengan menggunakan keladi tikus diantaranya : kanker payudara, kanker testis, kanker prostat, kanker usus besar, kanker tulang, kanker paru-paru dan kanker hati.

Keladi tikus sebagai tanaman obat dapat digunakan keseluruhannya, mulai dari akar, umbi, juga daunnya. Penggunaan yang paling umum adalah dengan mengonsumsi seluruh bagian tanaman dalam bentuk jus segar dan segera diminum setelah diolah. Hal ini dimaksudkan untuk sedapat mungkin mempertahankan khasiatnya.

Jus keladi tikus dapat dengan mudah dibuat sendiri, sebanyak 3 herba keladi tikus dengan bobot sekitar 50g dicuci dan dibersihkan lalu direndap dalam air matang yang telah didinginkan selama sekitar 30 menit. Kemudian ditumbuk dengan alat penumbuk obat (mortar-stamfor) lalu peras dengan kain penyaring dan langsung diminum. Dosis yang dianjurkan adalah 1-3 kali sehari, 1 jam sebelum makan, untuk terapi. Bagi yang memiliki masalah lambung, dianjurkan diminum setelah makan. Apabila setelah meminumnya tenggorokan terasa gatal, dapat diatasi dengan meminum air gula/madu. Walaupun akan hilang dengan sendirinya setelah beberapa saat, demikian menurut Dr. Henry Nalan (ahli bedah tumor).

Menurut Yellia Mangan (herbalis), keladi tikus membantu sekali melawan kanker. Fungsinya sebagai pencegah timbulnya kanker setelah dioperasi bisa diandalkan. Di samping itu, fungsi lainnya adalah sebagai penghilang efek buruk kemoterapi. Mereka yang mengonsumsi keladi tikus secara teratur terbukti sesudah menjalani kemoterapi akan mendapatkan nafsu makannya kembali, rambut tidak mudah rontok dan rasa sakit di badan berkurang.

Hasil Riset

Tanaman ini pertama kali di diriset sebagai tanaman obat oleh ahli dari Malayia, Prof Dr.Chris K.H.Teo, Dip Agric (M), BSc Agric (Hons)(M), MS, PhD yang juga pendiri Cancer Care Penang, Malaysia. Sejak tahun 1995 Prof. Chris Teo meneliti tanaman ini, hasilnya menunjukan Ekstrak Typhonium Flageffiforme dan campuran bahan alami lainnya membantu detoxifikasi jaringan darah. Ramuan ini akan semakin baik bila diberikan bersama-sama dengan bahan herba lain, seperti sambiloto, temu putih dan rumput mutiara. Ramuan ini mengandung ribosome inacting protein (RIP), zat antioksidan dan zat antikurkumin. Kombinasi ketiga zat dalam campuran ramuan tersebut memproduksi mediator yang menstimulasi penguatan sel dalam sistem kekebalan tubuh untuk memberantas sel kanker.

Keladi tikus juga mampu menekan efek negatif dari proses pengobatan modern (kemoterapi), seperti rambut rontok, nafsu makan hilang, rasa mual dan rasa nyeri di tubuh. Di Amerika Serikat, tepatnya di Cancer Institute of New Jersey, sebuah tim yang dipimpin oleh Dr. Khaw Voon Chin, Associate Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, melakukan penelitian dan membuktikan bahwa ekstrak keladi tikus efektif berfungsi sebagai anti-tumor dan anti virus.

Di Cina tanaman ini di teliti oleh Zhong Z, Zhou G, Chen X, dan Huang P dari Guangxi Institute of Traditional Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nanning. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk mengetahui efek farmakologisnya. Diketahui bahwa ekstrak air dan alkohol dari Typhonium flagelliforme mempunyai efek mencegah batuk, menghilangkan dahak, analgesik, bersifat sedatif dan antiinflamasi, dan bersifat sedatif. Pada konsentrasi 720 g/kg ekstrak air, 900 g/kg ekstrak alkohol dan 3240 g/kg ekstrak ester tanaman ini dapat meracuni tubuh.

Lain lagi menurut Choo CY, Chan KL, Takeya K, dan Itokawa H. dari
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University Sains Malaysia, ekstrak Typhonium flagelliforme memang mengandung zat anti kanker namun konsentrasinya lemah. Hasil penelitiannya ini pernah di publikasikan di jurnal kesehatan Phytotheraphy Research pada Mei 2001: 15 (3) : 260-2.

Sumber :
Lesly Septikasari - Bandung.
Majalah HERBA, April 2002
http://www.kabarinews.com/article.cfm?articleId=2630
http://www.wikimu.com/News/DisplayNews.aspx?id=5084

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Grains and Human Evolution

[Update 8/2011: as I've learned more about human genetics and evolution, I've come to appreciate that many Europeans actually descend from early adopters of agriculture more than they descend from the hunter-gatherers that previously occupied Europe.  Also, 10,000 years has been long enough for significant genetic adaptation.  Read The 10,000 Year Explosion for more information].

You've heard me say that I believe grains aren't an ideal food for humans. Part of the reason rests on the assertion that we have not been eating grains for long enough to have adapted to them. In this post, I'll go over what I know about the human diet before and after agriculture, and the timeline of our shift to a grain-based diet. I'm not an archaeologist so I won't claim that all these numbers are exact, but I think they are close enough to make my point.

As hunter-gatherers, we ate some combination of the following: land mammals (including organs, fat and marrow), cooked tubers, seafood (fish, mammals, shellfish, seaweed), eggs, nuts, fruit, honey, "vegetables" (stems, leaves, etc.), mushrooms, assorted land animals, birds and insects. The proportion of each food varied widely between groups and even seasons. This is pretty much what we've been living on since we evolved as a species, and even before, for a total of 1.5 million years or so (this number is controversial but is supported by multiple lines of evidence). There are minor exceptions, including the use of wild grains in a few areas, but for the most part, that's it.

The first evidence of a calorically important domesticated crop I'm aware of was about 11,500 years ago in the fertile crescent. They were cultivating an early ancestor of wheat called emmer. Other grains popped up independently in what is now China (rice; ~10,000 years ago), and central America (corn; ~9,000 years ago). That's why people say humans have been eating grains for about 10,000 years.

The story is more complicated than the dates suggest, however. Although wheat had its origin 11,500 years ago, it didn't become widespread in Western Europe for another 4,500 years. So if you're of European descent, your ancestors have been eating grains for roughly 7,000 years. Corn was domesticated 9,000 years ago, but according to the carbon ratios of human teeth, it didn't become a major source of calories until about 1,200 years ago! Many American groups did not adopt a grain-based diet until 100-300 years ago, and in a few cases they still have not. If you are of African descent, your ancestors have been eating grains for 9,000 to 0 years, depending on your heritage. The change to grains was accompanied by a marked decrease in dental health that shows up clearly in the archaeological record.

Practically every plant food contains some kind of toxin, but grains produce a number of nasty ones that humans are not well adapted to. Grains contain a large amount of phytic acid for example, which strongly inhibits the absorption of a number of important minerals. Tubers, which were our main carbohydrate source for about 1.5 million years before agriculture, contain less of it. This may have been a major reason why stature decreased when humans adopted grain-based agriculture. There are a number of toxins that occur in grains but not in tubers, such as certain heat-resistant lectins.

Non-industrial cultures often treated their seeds, including grains, differently than we do today. They used soaking, sprouting and long fermentation to decrease the amount of toxins found in grains, making them more nutritious and digestible. Most grain staples are not treated in this way today, and so we bear the brunt of their toxins even more than our ancestors did.

From an evolutionary standpoint, even 11,500 years is the blink of an eye. Add to that the fact that many people descend from groups that have been eating grains for far less time than that, and you begin to see the problem. There is no doubt that we have begun adapting genetically to grains. All you have to do to understand this is look back at the archaeological record, to see the severe selective pressure (read: disease) that grains placed on its early adopters. But the question is, have we had time to adapt sufficiently to make it a healthy food? I would argue the answer is no.

There are a few genetic adaptations I'm aware of that might pertain to grains: the duplication of the salivary amylase gene, and polymorphisms in the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) and apolipoprotein B genes. Some groups duplicated a gene that secretes the enzyme amylase into the saliva, increasing its production. Amylase breaks down starch, indicating a possible increase in its consumption. The problem is that we were getting starch from tubers before we got it from grains, so it doesn't really argue for either side in my opinion. The ACE and apolipoprotein B genes may be more pertinent, because they relate to blood pressure and LDL cholesterol. Blood pressure and blood cholesterol are both factors that respond well to low-carbohydrate (and thus low-grain) diets, suggesting that the polymorphisms may be a protective adaptation against the cardiovascular effects of grains.

The fact that up to 1% of people of European descent may have full-blown celiac disease attests to the fact that 7,000 years have not been enough time to fully adapt to wheat on a population level. Add to that the fact that nearly half of genetic Europeans carry genes that are associated with celiac, and you can see that we haven't been weeded out thoroughly enough to tolerate wheat, the oldest grain!

Based on my reading, discussions and observations, I believe that rice is the least problematic grain, wheat is the worst, and everything else is somewhere in between. If you want to eat grains, it's best to soak, sprout or ferment them. This activates enzymes that break down most of the toxins. You can soak rice, barley and other grains overnight before cooking them. Sourdough bread is better than normal white bread. Unfermented, unsprouted whole wheat bread may actually be the worst of all. 

Another China Tidbit

A final note about the Chinese study in the previous post: the overweight vegetable-eaters (read: wheat eaters) exercised more than their non-vegetable-eating, thin neighbors. So although their average calorie intake was a bit higher, their expenditure was as well. 

Although I speculated in the last post that affluent people might be eating more wheat and fresh vegetables, the data don't support that. Participants with the highest income level actually adhered to the wheat and vegetable-rich pattern the least, while low-income participants were most likely to eat this way.

Interestingly, education showed a (weaker) trend in the opposite direction. More educated participants were more likely to eat the wheat-vegetable pattern, while the opposite was true of less educated participants. Thus, it looks like wheat makes people more educated. Just kidding, that's exactly the logic we have to avoid when interpreting this type of study!

PEGAGAN

Pegagan (Centella asiatica) merupakan tanaman liar yang banyak tumbuh di perkebunan, ladang, tepi jalan, pematang sawah ataupun diladang yang agak basah. Tanaman ini berasal dari daerah Asia tropik, terssebar di Asia tenggara, termasuk Indonesia, India, Tiongkok, Jepang dan Australia kemudian menyebar ke berbagai negara-negara lain. Nama yang biasa dikenal untuk tanaman ini selain pegagan adalah daun kaki kuda dan antanan. Sejak jaman dahulu, pegagan telah digunakan untuk obat kulit, gangguan syaraf dan memperbaiki peredaran darah. Masyarakat Jawa Barat mengenal tanaman ini sebagai salah satu tanaman untuk lalapan.

Nama Lokal
pegaga (Aceh), daun kaki kuda (Melayu), antanan (sunda), gagan-gagan, rendeng (jawa), taidah (bali) sandanan (irian) broken copper coin, buabok (Inggris), paardevoet (Belanda), gotu kola (India), ji xue cao (Hanzi).


Jenis Pegagan
Pegagan merupakan tanaman herba tahunan yang tumbuh menjalar dan berbunga sepanjang tahun. Tanaman akan tumbuh subur bila tanah dan lingkungannya sesuai hingga dijadikan pennutup tanah. Jenis pegagan yang banyak dijumpai adalah pegagan merah dan pegagan hijau. Pegagan merah dikenal juga dengan antanan kebun atau antanan batu karena banyak ditemukan di daerah bebatuan, kering dan terbuka. Pegagan merah tumbuh merambat dengan stolon (geragih) dan tidak mempunyai batang, tetapi mempunyai rhizoma (rimpang pendek). Sedangkan pegagan hijau sering banyak dijumpau di daerah pesawahan dan disela-sela rumput. Tempat yang disukai oleh pegagan hijau yaitu tempat agak lembab dan terbuka atau agak ternaungi. Selain itu, tanaman yang mirip pegagan atau antanan ada empat jenis yaitu antanan kembang, antanan beurit, antanan gunung dan antanan air.

Kandungan
Pegagan yang simplisianya dikenal dengan sebutan Centella Herba memiliki kandungan asiaticoside, thankuniside, isothankuniside, madecassoside, brahmoside, brahmic acid, brahminoside, madasiatic acid, meso-inositol, centelloside, carotenoids, hydrocotylin, vellarine, tanin serta garam mineral seperti kalium, natrium, magnesium, kalsium dan besi. Diduga glikosida triterpenoida yang disebut asiaticoside merupakan antilepra dan penyembuh luka yang sangat luar biasa. Zat vellarine yang ada memberikan rasa pahit.

Sifat dan Manfaat
Pegagan berasa manis, bersifat mendinginkan, memiliki fungsi membersihkan darah, melancarkan peredaran darah, peluruh kencing (diuretika), penurun panas (antipiretika), menghentikan pendarahan (haemostatika), meningkatkan syaraf memori, anti bakteri, tonik, antispasma, antiinflamasi, hipotensif, insektisida, antialergi dan stimulan. Saponin yang ada menghambat produksi jaringan bekas luka yang berlebihan (menghambat terjadinya keloid)
Manfaat pegagan lainnya yaitu meningkatkan sirkulasi darah pada lengan dan kaki; mencegah varises dan salah urat; meningkatkan daya ingat, mental dan stamina tubuh; serta menurunkan gejala stres dan depresi. pegagan pada penelitian di rsu dr.soetomo surabaya dapat dipakai untuk menurunkan tekanan darah,Penurunan tidak drastis, jadi cocok untuk penderita usia lanjut.

(http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegagan)

SehatHerbal.Com menyediakan Kapsul Extract Pegagan dan Teh Pegagan. Info lebih lanjut bisa sms 081310343598 atau email : sehatherbal@gmail.com

Wheat in China

Dr. Michael Eades linked to an interesting study yesterday on his Health and Nutrition blog. It's entitled "Vegetable-Rich Food Pattern is Related to Obesity in China."

It's one of these epidemiological studies where they try to divide subjects into different categories of eating patterns and see how health problems associate with each one. They identified four patterns: the 'macho' diet high in meat and alcohol; the 'traditional' diet high in rice and vegetables; the 'sweet tooth' pattern high in cake, dairy and various drinks; and the 'vegetable rich' diet high in wheat, vegetables, fruit and tofu. The only pattern that associated with obesity was the vegetable-rich diet. The 25% of people eating closest to the vegetable-rich pattern were more than twice as likely to be obese as the 25% adhering the least.

The authors of the paper try to blame the increased obesity on a higher intake of vegetable oil from stir-frying the vegetables, but that explanation is misleading. A cursory glance at table 3 reveals that the vegetable-eaters weren't eating any more fat than their thinner neighbors. Dr. Eades suggests that their higher carbohydrate intake (+10%) was partially responsible for the weight gain, but I wasn't satisfied with that explanation so I took a closer look.  Dr. Eades also pointed to their higher calorie intake (+120 kcal/day), which makes sense to me.

One of the most striking elements of the 'vegetable-rich' food pattern is its replacement of rice with wheat flour. The 25% of the study population that adhered the least to the vegetable-rich food pattern ate 7.3 times more rice than wheat, whereas the 25% sticking most closely to the vegetable-rich pattern ate 1.2 times more wheat than rice! In other words, wheat flour rather than rice was their single largest source of calories. This association was much stronger than the increase in vegetable consumption itself!

All of a sudden, the data make more sense. Wheat seems to associate with health problems in many contexts. Perhaps the reason we don't see the same type of association in American epidemiological studies is that everyone eats wheat. Only in a culture that has a true diversity of diet can you find a robust association like this. The replacement of rice with wheat may have caused the increase in calorie intake as well. Clinical trials of low-carbohydrate diets as well as 'paleolithic diets' have shown good metabolic outcomes from wheat avoidance, although one can't be sure what role wheat plays from those data.

I don't think the vegetables had anything to do with the weight gain, they were just incidentally associated with wheat consumption. But I do think these data are difficult to reconcile with the idea that vegetables protect against overweight.

Cancer in Other Non-Industrialized Cultures

In Cancer, Disease of Civilization (1960), Wilhjalmur Stefansson mentions a few cultures besides the Inuit in which large-scale searches never turned up cancer. Dr. Albert Schweitzer examined over 10,000 traditionally-living natives in Gabon (West Africa) in 1913 and did not find cancer. Later, it became common in the same population as they began "living more and more after the manner of the whites."

In Cancer, its Nature, Cause and Cure (1957), Dr. Alexander Berglas describes the search for cancer among natives in Brazil and Ecuador by Dr. Eugene Payne. He examined approximately 60,000 people over 25 years and found no evidence of cancer.

Sir Robert McCarrison conducted a seven year medical survey among the Hunza, in what is now Northern Pakistan. Among 11,000 people, he did not find a single case of cancer. Their diet consisted of soaked and sprouted grains and beans, fruit, vegetables, grass-fed dairy and a small amount of meat (including organs of course).

VCO, Penyembuh Flu dan Pengering serta penyembuh Luka

Penyembuh Flu

Flu adalah penyakit ringan, namun kadang menjengkelkan dan mangganggu aktivitas keseharian. Kini, dengan VCO, Anda bisa terbebas dari gangguan akibat flu. Simak pengalaman pemakaian minyak VCOsebagai obat flu ini.

Berbagai merek obat anti influenza yang dijual bebas telah diminum oleh Budi Laksono. Namun, bersin-bersin, demam, hidung berair dan tersumbat belum juga hilang. Wirausahawan di Yogyakarta itu alergi debu sehingga influenza menjadi penyakit langgananya. Atas saran teman, pria 36 tahun itu minum virgin coconut oil 2 kali sehari masing-masing satu sendok makan. Sepuluh menit kemudian gejal influenza itupun hilang.
(sumber : trubus sept 2005)

Minyak Kelapa Murni, Pengering dan Penyembuh Luka

Minyak VCO (minyak kelapa murni) terbukti dapat mengeringkan luka.Baik luka akibat komplikasi ataupun luka lainnya. Baca pengalaman pemakai minyak kelapa berikut ini (untuk penyembuh luka)

Duduk santai di beranda jadi kegemaran Jisman Tambunan (59 tahun). Ditemani segelas air putih yang baru mendidih, pengidap diabetes mellitus itu asyik mendengarkan alunan musik dari sebual kanal radio. Celakanya air itu tumpah dan jatuh didekat mata kakinya hingga menimbulkan luka tak kunjung sembuh. Tiga bulan luka selebar koin ratusan lama itu menganga sehingga menyulitkan jika ia bersepatu. Ia menuruti saja kemauan putrid keduanya untuk mengoleskan VCO diatas lukanya. Sepekan berselang, luka pun kering dan sembuh (Sumber Trubus Sept 2005)

SehatHerbal.Com menyediakan VCO sudah dalam bentuk kapsul, harga Rp. 90.000/45 kapsul.

Mortality and Lifespan of the Inuit

One of the classic counter-arguments that's used to discredit accounts of healthy hunter-gatherers is the fallacy that they were short-lived, and thus did not have time to develop diseases of old age like cancer. While the life expectancy of hunter-gatherers was not as high as ours today, most groups had a significant number of elderly individuals, who sometimes lived to 80 years and beyond. Mortality came mostly from accidents, warfare and infectious disease rather than chronic disease.

I found a a mortality table from the records of a Russian mission in Alaska (compiled by Veniaminov, taken from Cancer, Disease of Civilization), which recorded the ages of death of a traditionally-living Inuit population during the years 1822 to 1836. Here's a plot of the raw data:

Here's the data re-plotted in another way. I changed the "bin size" of the bars to 10 year spans each (rather than the bins above, which vary from 3 to 20 years). This allows us to get a better picture of the number of deaths over time. I took some liberties with the data to do this, breaking up a large bin equally into two smaller bins. I also left out the infant mortality data, which are interesting but not relevant to this post:


Excluding infant mortality, about 25% of their population lived past 60. Based on these data, the approximate life expectancy (excluding infant mortality) of this Inuit population was 43.5 years. It's possible that life expectancy would have been higher before contact with the Russians, since they introduced a number of nasty diseases to which the Inuit were not resistant. Keep in mind that the Westerners who were developing cancer alongside them probably had a similar life expectancy at the time. Here's the data plotted in yet another way, showing the number of individuals surviving at each age, out of the total deaths recorded:


It's remarkably linear. Here's the percent chance of death at each age:


In the next post, I'll briefly summarize cancer data from several traditionally-living cultures other than the Inuit.

Cancer Among the Inuit

I remember coming across a table in the book Eat, Drink and Be Healthy (by Dr. Walter Willett) a few years back. Included were data taken from Dr. Ancel Keys' "Seven Countries Study". It showed the cancer rates for three industrialized nations: the US, Greece and Japan. Although specific cancers differed, the overall rate was remarkably similar for all three: about 90 cancers per 100,000 people per year. Life expectancy was also similar, with Greece leading the pack by 4 years (the data are from the 60s).

The conclusion I drew at the time was that lifestyle did not affect the likelihood of developing cancer. It was easy to see from the same table that heart disease was largely preventable, since the US had a rate of 189 per 100,000 per year, compared to Japan's 34. Especially since I also knew that Japanese-Americans who eat an American diet get heart disease just like European-Americans.

I fell prey to the same logic that is so pervasive today: the idea that you will eventually die of cancer if no other disease gets you first. It's easy to believe, since the epidemiology seems to tell us that lifestyle doesn't affect overall cancer rates very much. There's only one little glitch... those epidemiological studies compare the sick to the sicker.

Here's the critical fact that modern medicine seems to have forgotten: hunter-gatherers and numerous non-industrial populations throughout the world have unusually low cancer rates. This idea was widely accepted in the 19th century and the early 20th, but has somehow managed to fade into obscurity.  Allow me to explain.

I recently read Cancer, Disease of Civilization by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (thanks Peter). Stefansson was an anthropologist and arctic explorer who participated in the search for cancer among the Canadian and Alaskan Inuit. Traditionally, most Inuit groups were mostly carnivorous, eating a diet of raw and cooked meat and fish almost exclusively. Their calories came primarily from fat. They alternated between seasons of low and high physical activity, typically enjoyed an abundant food supply yet also periodically faced famines.

Field physicians in the arctic noted that the Inuit were a remarkably healthy people. While they suffered from a tragic susceptibility to European communicable diseases, they did not develop the chronic diseases we now view as part of being human: tooth decay, overweight, heart attacks, appendicitis, constipation, diabetes and cancer. When word reached American and European physicians that the Inuit did not develop cancer, a number of them decided to mount an active search for it. This search began in the 1850s and tapered off in the 1920s, as traditionally-living Inuit became difficult to find.

One of these physicians was captain George B. Leavitt. He actively searched for cancer among the traditionally-living Inuit from 1885 to 1907. Along with his staff, he claims to have performed tens of thousands of examinations. He did not find a single case of cancer. At the same time, he was regularly diagnosing cancers among the crews of whaling ships and other Westernized populations. It's important to note two relevant facts about Inuit culture: first, their habit of going shirtless indoors. This would make visual inspection for external cancers very easy. Second, the Inuit generally had great faith in Western doctors and would consult them even for minor problems. Therefore, doctors in the arctic had ample opportunity to inspect them for cancer.

A study was published in 1934 by F.S. Fellows in the US Treasury's Public Health Reports entitled "Mortality in the Native Races of the Territory of Alaska, With Special Reference to Tuberculosis". It contained a table of cancer mortality deaths for several Alaskan regions, all of them Westernized to some degree. However, some were more Westernized than others. In descending order of Westernization, the percent of deaths from cancer were as follows:


Keep in mind that all four of the Inuit populations in this table were somewhat Westernized. It's clear that cancer incidence tracks well with Westernization, although other factors could be involved in producing this result (such as poorer diagnosis in less Westernized regions). By "Westernization", what I mean mostly is the adoption of European food habits, including wheat flour, sugar, canned goods and vegetable oil. Later, most groups also adopted Western-style houses, which incidentally were not at all suited to their harsh climate.

In the next post, I'll address the classic counter-argument that hunter-gatherers were free of cancer because they didn't live long enough to develop it.

Cancer and the Immune System

My understanding of cancer has changed radically over the past few months. I used to think of it as an inevitable consequence of aging, a stochastic certainty. The human body is made of about 50 trillion cells, many of which replicate their DNA and divide regularly. It's only a matter of time until one of those cells randomly accumulates the wrong set of mutations, and loses the molecular brakes that restrict uncontrolled growth.

Strictly speaking, the idea is correct. That is how cancer begins. However, there's another check in place that operates outside the cancer cell itself: the immune system. A properly functioning immune system can recognize and destroy cancerous cells before they become dangerous to the organism. In fact, your immune system has probably already controlled or destroyed a number of them in your lifetime.

I recently read a fascinating account of some preliminary findings from the lab of Dr. Zheng Cui at Wake Forest university. His group took blood samples from 100 people and purified a type of immune cell called the granulocyte. They then evaluated the granulocytes' ability to kill cervical cancer cells in a cell culture dish. They found that it varied dramatically from one individual to another. One person's granulocytes killed 97% of the cancer cells in 24 hours, while another person's killed 2%.

They found some important trends. Granulocytes from people over 50 years old had a reduced ability to kill cancer cells, as did granulocytes from people with cancer. This raises the possibility that cancer is not simply the result of getting too old, but a very specific weakening of the immune system.

The most important finding, however, was that the granulocytes' kung-fu grip declined dramatically during the winter months. Here's Dr. Cui:

Nobody seems to have any cancer-killing ability during the
winter months from November to April.

Hmm, I wonder why that could be?? Vitamin D anyone??

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