According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 106.7 million Americans age 20 and older have total blood cholesterol levels of 200 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) and higher. That is 35% of the population of the United States! The epidemic of high cholesterol is mainly due to the fats used in packaged and commercial foods. Cholesterol can be lowered by avoiding hydrogenated fats and eating polyunsaturated fats found in fish, walnuts, and sunflower seeds. Unfortunately, essential fatty acids turn rancid rapidly, and manufacturers avoid them to prevent packaged foods from spoiling while they sit in supermarket shelves.

The worst fats for your health are hydrogenated fats because they increase Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), the “bad” cholesterol, and they decrease the High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), the “good” cholesterol. Saturated fats like those found in coconut oil and palm kernel oil increase cholesterol levels powerfully, but these are the fats that are used by manufacturers because they do not get stale.

The chart above shows the effects of individual dietary fatty acids on Total Serum Cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and HDL cholesterol when 1% of the energy from carbohydrates in the diet is replaced by 1% of energy of the specific fatty acids. The chart shows cholesterol increases from lauric acid (C12:0), myristic acid (C14:0), and palmitic acid (C16:0) which are found in coconut oil, palm oil, and butter. Elaidic acid (trans-C18:1), which is present in hydrogenated fats, is the worst because it increases LDL and decreases HDL. The saturated fatty acid stearic acid (C18:0), the monounsaturated oleic acid (C18:1), and the polyunsaturated linoleic acid (C18:2) decrease LDL and increase HDL to various degrees.[1] Here are some steps to lower cholesterol:

• Avoid all hydrogenated fats (they are very common in commercial fried foods and baked goods)
• Reduce sources of saturated fats (butter, coconut oil, palm oil, fat from meats, chicken skin)
• Increase consumption of polyunsaturated fats (fish oil, walnut oil, flax seed oil, grape seed oil)
• Add soluble fiber to your diet (oatmeal, legumes)

Unfortunately, many of the oils available commercially are highly processed. The best thing is not to eat them. Meet your essential fatty acid requirements by eating foods that have the oils, e.g., fish, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc. Olive oil does not lower cholesterol; it is basically neutral. The reason why olive oil receives a lot of positive promotion is because it is used in the Mediterranean diet, and the Mediterranean diet is associated with lower incidence of cardiovascular diseases, although this is not necessarily because of the oil.

The hardest part in normalizing your cholesterol will be avoiding the vast number of commercial foods that have hydrogenated fats and saturated fats. They include shortening, margarine, butter flavor popcorn, hash browns, french fries, biscuits, baked apple pies, chocolate chip cookies, taco shells, and the list goes on and on. Pay close attention to the food labels.

Learn how to lower your cholesterol

[1] Martijti B Katan, Peter L Zock, and Ronald P Mensink, Effects of fats and fatty acids on blood lipids in humans: an overview, Am J Cli. Nutr., 1994;60(suppl):1017S-1022S.

The British complain that Americans haven’t spoken English for years, and of course, Americans even spell the language differently. Americans spell theatre as theater and colour as color. How horrible! Americans got rid of senseless transpositions and unpronounced extra letters; they also changed the “ise” verb endings to “ize”.   Not content with improving the English language, Americans are now trying to change Spanish by using nouns as verbs in TV commercials.

Hispanics now comprise approximately 15% of the population of the United States. The demographics of the United States have changed since its founding through acquisition of territories and immigration. In the past, the U.S. has been a great melting pot where eventually everyone has ended up speaking English and blended with the rest of the population. It has been different with Spanish speakers.

The major part of the southern United States was Spanish territory at one time. With the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, the U.S. took control of Florida which had been a province of the Captaincy General of Cuba under Spanish rule. The oldest city in the U.S. is St. Augustine, Florida which was established by the Spaniards in 1565. The U.S. acquired approximately 80,000 Spanish speakers from Mexico when it took over the territory that included California, Nevada, Utah, Texas, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. In 1917, the United States gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans. About 31,000 Puerto Ricans moved to New York from 1946 to 1950. The 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story portrayed some of the friction between the Spanish and Anglo cultures of the time. From 1947 until 1964, the U.S. had the Bracero Program which allowed the importation of temporary contract laborers from Mexico to the United States. In 1959, a large Cuban exodus started when Fidel Castro won control of Cuba. From 1960 to 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans left Cuba to start a new life in the United States, mainly in Florida. Many Americans traveled to Mexico during the 1968 Summer Olympics and discovered Mexican food. Soon afterward, Mexican restaurants started appearing throughout the U.S. and many of the waiters and cooks were of Hispanic origin. Another wave of 125,000 Spanish speakers came in the early 1980s from Central America to the U.S. to escape natural disasters or to seek political asylum. The U.S. also has over 11 million illegal residents who, for the most part, are Spanish speakers from Mexico.

For two centuries, there has been a steady stream of Hispanic people who brought their culture, traditions, and the Spanish language to the U.S. The U.S. is home to more than 45 million Hispanics, making it the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking community after Mexico. Large enclaves of Spanish speakers and radio and national television channels that broadcast in Spanish such as Univision and Telemundo have made it possible for immigrants and their U.S.-born children to retain their language skills and have prevented the melting pot effect.

In a recent visit to New York, I noticed that the Metro cards for the New York Subway were written completely in Spanish.  This is an adaptation to the reality that Hispanics comprise a large segment of our society and contribute substantially to the U.S.  economy.  Advertisements for cellular telephones that can send text messages have introduced new verbs on Spanish television such as “textear” or “mensajear” instead of using the traditional Spanish grammatical constructions “enviar mensajes de texto” or “enviar mensajes”. Children who grow up listening to these neologisms will eventually adopt a new American version of Spanish. So how will these new verbs be conjugated?

Textear:
yo texteo, tú texteas, él textea, nosotros texteamos, vosotros texteáis, ellos textean. Estoy texteando.

Mensjear:
yo mensajeo, tú mensajeas, él mensajea, nosotros mensajeamos, vosotros mensajeáis, ellos mensajean. Estoy mensajeando.

Learn English Grammar

 
Mechanism of apoptosis and a toe with gout

When body fluids, such as urine, become very acid, solids dissolved in the fluids crystallize within the body and can cause gout and create tophi in the cooler parts of the body. The pain of uric acid deposits from gout can be excruciating.  The conventional treatment for gout consists of avoiding alcohol, foods high in purines, and some medications like niacin.  Many of the prescription medicines used to treat gout have undesirable side effects.

As if the suffering from gout were not bad enough, a study published in 2009 linked the occurrence of gout to increased incidence of cancer and concluded that “hyperuricemia may be an early manifestation of the carcinogenic process”.[1]  The study found that gout patients had increased incidence of all types of cancer, including cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, colon, liver and biliary tract, pancreas, lung, skin (melanoma and nonmelanoma), endometrium and kidney, as well as of malignant melanoma.

Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) is frequently used as a home remedy for gout. Sodium bicarbonate works by alkalizing body fluids to increase the solubility of uric acid and permit its elimination through the urine.  It is possible that this alternative medicine treatment for gout could also reduce the risk of cancer.

In 2007, researchers identified cellular signaling pathways that become active under alkaline conditions by removing amide functional groups from key cellular proteins (Bcl-xL) thus promoting the death of cancerous cells through apoptosis.[2]  German biochemist Otto Warburg initially proposed in 1966 that abnormal energy metabolism caused cancer. He showed that tumors have an acidic extracellular environment, and suggested that a switch from oxidative respiration to glycolysis, which produces lactic acid, starts the cell transformation toward cancer. Warburg’s work stimulated interest in the possibility that there was some kind of link between pH and cancer.  The latest findings raise hope that inducing alkalinization may prove an effective strategy to treat a range of cancers.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if cancer could be prevented simply by regularly drinking some baking soda dissolved in water to keep body fluids from becoming too acidic?

[1] Boffetta P, Nordenvall C, Nyrén O, Ye W., A prospective study of gout and cancer.
Eur J Cancer Prev. 2009 Apr;18(2):127-32, PMID: 19337060

[2] Gross L (2007) Manipulating Cellular pH Suggests Novel Anticancer Therapy. PLoS Biol 5(1): e10

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey database from 2001 to 2004 showed that the average intake of added sugars for all Americans was 22.2 teaspoons or about 355 calories per day.  “Added sugars” are sugars and syrups that are added during processing or preparation of foods as well as sugars and syrups that are added at the table, they do not include the sugars that are naturally present in fruits and whole grains.

In August 2009, The American Heart Association (AHA) issued a recommendation to cut the intake of added sugars.[1]  The publication gives consumers detailed guidance of the upper limit of added sugars in the diet.  The AHA recommendations emphasize a healthy lifestyle and a diet that is rich in fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, high-fiber whole grains, lean meat, poultry and fish. In addition to consuming an overall healthy diet, the guidelines emphasize the importance of a healthy body weight to avoid metabolic abnormalities and adverse health conditions such diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The problem with added sugars is that they are refined carbohydrates without any vitamin or mineral content.  Sugars are just “empty calories” without any nutritive value.  If you don’t exercise enough to burn them off, the body converts them to fat.

Most American women should consume no more than 100 calories of added sugars per day; most men, no more than 150 calories. That corresponds to about 6 teaspoons of added sugars a day for women and 9 for men.  Soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages are the greatest source of added sugars in the American diet. A 12-ounce can of regular soda contains about 130 calories from 8 teaspoons of sugar or high fructose corn syrup.  This means that even one can of soda per day is too much for the average woman, and this does not count all the other sources of added sugars such as salad dressing, spaghetti sauce, candy, and baked goods.

Learn about weight control and healthy diet

[1] Dietary Sugars Intake and Cardiovascular Health. A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association, Circulation, 2009 Aug 24, PMID: 19704096 [link]