August 2010

Dear Readers,

My newsletter has been absent for several months, for good reason: I got totally absorbed in writing a new book about which I am very excited!

RX from the Garden: 101 Food Cures You Can Easily Grow will be published by Adams Media in January. You’ll hear lots more about it between now and then. It’s a wonderful and quirky marriage of my love for healthy food and gardening.

I’m also very pleased to announce a new work-in-progress that you’ll be able to see as we go along. Let the Sun Shine In: The Miracle of Vitamin D will give you everything you need to know about this truly indispensible nutrient. I am partnering with the amazing Dr. Tranquility, Lydia Belton, Ph.D. on this project that we plan to publish in increments with lots of fascinating additional material and as a full book from Take Charge Books in 2011.

If that isn’t enough, I joyfully announce that Take Charge Books will be publishing two new books in September:

Path of Dreams: An American Woman’s Journey in to Esoteric Buddhist Japan by Sherry Shepherd, Ph.D. It’s the story of an extraordinary dream sequence that led this Jungian psychologist to Japan, to an out-of-the-way monastary and to her path as a Shingon Buddhist priest.

Life and Spirit in the Quantum Field by Doug Bennett offers an exceptionally clear explanation of quantum physics (never fear if you are science-phobic like I am) and how the connection of all things relates to your life and your spirituality.

Now you understand why there hasn’t been a newsletter for a few months. A few things had to be put to one side. You should see my garden, er, jungle.

I hope your summer has been full and fruitful,
Kathleen

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Let the Sun Shine In:
The Miracle of Vitamin D

by
Dr. Tranquility Lydia Belton, Ph.D.
and
Kathleen Barnes

Vitamin D is a miracle nutrient. We can say that without any hesitation.

A century ago, we might have been accused of peddling snake oil when we say that keeping your vitamin D levels optimal can:

• Prevent at least 16 kinds of cancer
• Protect your heart and lower blood pressure
• Keep blood sugars steady and prevent diabetes
• Alleviate depression
• Prevent obesity
• Keep bones and joints strong
• Prevent kidney disease
• Improve digestive health
• Relieve menopausal symptoms
• Prevent autoimmune diseases
• Lengthen your life span

See what we mean? You might think these widely varying conditions couldn’t possibly be related to a deficiency of one little vitamin. But there is good, solid medical science to prove the widespread health value of optimal vitamin D levels.

Low vitamin D levels are epidemic

We all need vitamin D and lots of it. We need much more than most of us get.

Boston University professor of medicine Michael Holick, M.D., Ph.D., is at the forefront of vitamin D research. In Dr. Holick’s opinion, 95% of all North Americans are deficient in vitamin D in the winter and the majority of us are deficient year-round.

Why in winter? Because vitamin D is synthesized through our skin from the ultraviolet radiation (UVB rays) produced by natural sunlight.

That’s right: Just the rays of the sun can give our bodies all the fuel we need to produce vitamin D. For obvious reason, most of us don’t get enough sun exposure in the winter because we’re bundled up against the cold and little of our skin is exposed to the much weakened sun’s rays. What’s more, the farther we live from the equator, the weaker the sun’s rays and the lower our vitamin D production.

If you’re lucky enough to live in Florida or California or other warm, climates, you have available to you the sunlight necessary for your body to produce the vitamin D you need for a host of scientifically validated health benefits, including an overall longer life expectancy.

But Dr. Holick notes that even those who live in tropical climates are often deficient in vitamin D because they don’t spend much time outdoors.

In addition, when we do spend time in the sun, we’ve been conditioned to wear sunscreen for fear of getting skin cancer. While those cautions are valid, skin cancer risk is not a factor for the small amount of time we need to be in the sun to spark vitamin D production.

The National Academy of Sciences now says that those of us who regularly and properly practice skin protection may be at risk for vitamin D deficiency.

Most of us need exposure of arms, face and legs for 20 minutes three times a week to build up our vitamin D stores. Even very fair-skinned people will not burn in that amount of time.

Darker skinned people may actually need much longer exposure in most North American climates, perhaps 20 to 30 times as much, which translates to an unrealistic several hours a day if you live in a sun-challenged latitude like Toronto.

Even sunscreens at the lowest levels like SPF 8 block UV rays necessary to produce vitamin D. If you want to spend a day in the sun and you’re worried about burning, bring along your sunscreen and only apply it after you’ve taken your vitamin D sunbath.

Powerful vitamin D research

Dr. Joseph Mercola, a leading natural health advocate, estimates that vitamin D deficiency is the cause of more than 1 million deaths worldwide each year, including 150,000 cancer deaths in the U.S. alone. That’s a shocking figure considering that the solution is so simple and that sunlight is free.

Here’s a synopsis of some of the most powerful research on vitamin D deficiency:

• People with low vitamin D blood levels were 40% more likely to die of heart disease and more than double the risk of dying of any cause over an eight-year period as those with normal D levels.
• For cancer alone, there are more than 800 studies confirming its D’s effectiveness in treatment and prevention.
• Vitamin D deficiency doubles the risk of Alzheimer’s.
• People with low D levels had a higher risk of clinical depression.
• Obesity impairs the ability to use vitamin D in the body, so obese people need twice as much vitamin D as others.
• Type 2 diabetes is aggravated by D deficiency.
• Schizophrenia has been strongly linked to D deficiency.
• Vitamin D is considered a standard treatment for psoriasis.
• 80% of nursing home patients are vitamin C deficient.
• 60% of all hospital patients are D deficient.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is caused by a melatonin imbalance resulting from inadequate exposure to sunlight.
• The risk of developing diabetes and cancer is reduced as much as 80% with unprotected exposure to sunlight tow to three times weekly. Hormonally related cancers (prostate, breast, ovarian) are particularly linked to vitamin D levels.
• In people with lymphoma and colon cancer, people with normal vitamin D levels were twice as likely to die as those who had normal D levels.

How to get Vitamin D

This is a simple one: Few foods contain any significant amount of vitamin D, so forget the idea of getting your vitamin D needs from food.

You’ll find small amounts of vitamin D in egg yolks, beef liver and cheese. You can get a fairly respectable amount of D from cod live oil (yuck) and cooked salmon, mackerel and mushrooms that have been exposed to sunlight. Many other foods are vitamin D fortified, including milk, some fruit juices and cereals.

You’d need to drink ten glasses of vitamin D enriched milk a day just to get the minimal vitamin D requirements. Many experts suggest our real need for vitamin D is tens of times greater that the RDA of 200 IU a day for children and adults, 400 IU daily for those over 50 and 600 IU daily for those over 70.

That leaves us with three options: taking supplements, light boxes and tanning beds.

The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine now recommends a daily dose of 1000 IU of vitamin D for those at risk for vitamin D insufficiency which is most of us.(emphasis ours).

Supplements are simple and inexpensive. Be sure you’re getting vitamin D3—cholecalciferol.

If you are dark skinned and particularly if you are African-American, there is little chance that you are getting adequate D intake. You need hours of sun exposure daily to produce the vitamin D you need to be healthy. This is a likely cause of the epidemic of certain types of cancer in African-Americans, particularly prostate cancer in black men.
For these reasons, vitamin D supplementation is highly recommended for dark-skinned people.

Light boxes

Light boxes are an excellent alternative that is now coming to light (pardon the pun) by giving you the benefits of natural sunlight, particularly to stimulate brain chemistry (and melatonin production) without tanning the skin.

This is a tool Dr. Tranquility has long used in her practice when patients were referred to her with SADD (Sunlight Attention Deficit Disorder, different from SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder, wintertime depression believed to be related to lack of sunlight).

Granted, we all get a little “blue” after the winder holidays, especially here in NYC when the pristine snow turns to unending months of sludge. Accordingly. we all get a bit sunny from the first blast of sun and just a tinge of warmth on our faces, knowing spring is coming (a memory we’d do well to remember come mid-August.

There some of us who slide into a true depression from lack of sun and there is now tremendous data on the aftermath of remaining completely sun-free and the harmful effects the lack of vitamin D can cause our bodies, especially those suffering from SADD.
Lack of sunlight can cause SADD and other health problems for people of color.

As a woman of color, Dr. Tranquility is well aware of the cultural ramifications of sun exposure and darkening already dark skin, especially for women, so that need not be discussed.

However, there is an alternative: the light box for men and women of color including Asian, middle Eastern, Hispanic and Blacks. Actually, people of color are those with anything but pink-toned Caucasian skin. If you are yellow or olive to coffee-colored to black, you are considered a person of color and it takes more sun exposure to absorb the sunlight necessary to make sufficient quantities of vitamin D. For this specific group given its cultural biases against tanning, let’s look at the light box as an excellent alternative.

For anyone suffering from SADD or SAD, a light box with 20,000 lux is best.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, that lovable TV doc, recommends using a light box with 10,000 lux for good vitamin D levels for almost anyone.

Tanning beds

Safe tanning beds are effective at delivering the UVB rays necessary to stimulate the production of vitamin D in our body. However, most beds are set to deliver more of the browning UVA rays (that don’t help with D production) and fewer of the potentially UVB rays that cause sunburn with too much exposure. The beds can be calibrated to deliver more UVB rays, but it is a tricky, expensive and potentially risky alternative to simple supplements.

How much is safe?

The Institute of Medicine sets a safe upper limit on vitamin D supplementation at 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) a day.

However, a fair skinned person can make about five times that amount or 10,000 IU in just 20 minutes sitting on the beach. (Dark-skinned people take longer to make the same amount). In an average beach session, many people take in 30,000 or 40,00 IU with no harmful effects. There have never been any reports of vitamin D toxicity.

Vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight, so you’ll probably need to take supplements for several months to get your blood levels back up to where they should be. When you get to the optimal level, you’ll need to keep taking vitamin D since few of get adequate exposure. Exceptions: If you work outside year around, you probably get enough sunlight to manufacture the D you need.

Why hasn’t the word been spread?

Perhaps we sound a little cynical, but since sunlight can’t be patented, the drug companies aren’t interested either in letting folks know there is a free source of enormous health benefits or in encouraging them to get more sunshine in order to avoid buying expensive and potentially harmful pharmaceuticals.

Simple solutions are often slow to catch on and despite the growing body of research that confirms the immense value of vitamin D, most doctors are not up to date on the current research.

It’s even more rare for a doctor to order a test for vitamin D levels in the blood – one that could save your life.

That’s why patients need to become more proactive. We need to ask our doctors for a test of calicidol (blood vitamin D) levels.

Recommended blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D are 50ng/ml (this is the major indicator). The average adult needs to take 4,000 to 8,000 IU of vitamin D from all sources in order to achieve these blood levels, although some people may need to take as much as 20,000 IU to achieve the optimal level.

All of the boils down to one simple idea: Vitamin D supplements may literally save your life. Take them faithfully and, combined with a healthy lifestyle, you live happier, healthier and longer.

Look for our next chapter to when we survey some of the best light boxes manufacturers. We’ll share with you the most reasonably priced with optimum benefits.

This introduction is based on our forthcoming book, Let the Sun Shine In: The Miracle of Vitamin D.

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Fructose causes high blood pressure

Most of us now understand that table sugar is detrimental to our health, not only to our waistlines, but in myriad other ways, including causing inflammation that leads to a host of health problems including high blood pressure and diabetes. I don’t need to go all the way down the list because I know I’m preaching to the choir for most of you.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a comparative Johnny-come-lately to the sugar dangers radar screen and it’s a subject that bears closer examination.

Table sugar is composed of fructose and glucose. You might say,
“But fructose is a natural fruit sugar!”

You’d be right. The glucose molecule is needed for energy by the human body, so it is a necessary nutrient. No, it’s not necessary in the form of table sugar, but it’s found naturally in virtually all carbohydrates, in varying amounts depending on whether you’re looking at a piece of broccoli or a serving of white rice.

Beware of fructose

Fructose, on the other hand, is converted into a range of waste products in the human body within minutes, including uric acid.

Uric acid is a major inflammatory compound that, among other things, causes high blood pressure, a major contributing factor for heart attack and stroke.

Without getting too technical, let’s say that high uric acid levels in the body cause lower nitric oxide levels, constricting blood vessels and raising blood pressure. Uric acid excess also contributes to kidney disease, fatty liver, all types of cardiovascular disease and pre-eclampsia in pregnant women.

Let’s focus on hypertension for today.

Sugar consumption translates to high rate of hypertension

It’s not coincidental that, as our natural per capita sugar consumption increases, our national levels of high blood pressure have increased in tandem.

In 1800, sugar was a luxury with the average person eating less than four pounds a year. Today, it is an obsession with the average person eating an astounding 153 pounds a year. Worse yet, our national sugar addiction increased by 20 percent in just ten years, two percent a year!

On the same time frame, our national rate of hypertension went from 5% of the population in 1900 to 31% today. The connection is obvious.

If sugar isn’t bad enough, manufacturers began to substitute high fructose corn syrup for sugar in many products beginning in the mid 1970s. Your average can of Coke has 40 grams of sugar—now all of it HCFS.

HCFS is everywhere

HCFS is now found in all kinds of products, not surprisingly on the sweet ones like the breakfast cereals and breakfast pastries to which most kids are addicted, but also in some products you’d never imagine would have added sugar.

How about breads, mayonnaise, catsup (bottled BBQ sauce is even worse!), hotdogs and lunch meats, peanut butter, salad dressings, kids’ packaged snacks, spaghetti sauce and canned soups? Here’s a link to a site with many name brands that contain HFCS.

HFCS is a stealth ingredient in many, if not most, processed foods. It’s cheaper than sugar and the manufacturers care much more about their bottom line than about your health.

The easy answer is to avoid processed foods. The harder answer is that most of us do use them from time to time.

Be a label reader

I’ve often urged you to become an avid label reader. That skill is more important now than ever. There are bottled and canned foods that do not contain HFCS. You’ll do pretty well if you select organic store brands.

The best article I’ve read on this subject was written by Dr. Joe Mercola.

This article is definitely worth a close look, including the chart showing the natural fructose in fruit and his suggestions to limit your intake of fructose through fruit to 15 grams a day. That’s less than half a mango or just a little more than a cup of seedless grapes, much more of the less-sweet fruits like citrus fruits, most berries, apples and melons.

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Simply Brilliant Weight Control Aid

In my wanderings through Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim last month, I came across Measure Up Bowls, the most brilliant weight control tools I’ve seen.

Recognizing portion size

The idea is ridiculously simple: You achieve portion control by eating your food out of one of two attractive white ceramic bowls that have subtle measurement markings. That’s it.

Now I’m guilty of the sin of failing to recognize correct portions. How much is a ½ cup serving of cereal (not to speak of ice cream)? Like most of us, I overestimate the size of the portions I’m eating, so this simple and effective tool is reining me back in.

Bowl creator lost 80 pounds

It certainly did the job for Heather Harvey, creator of the bowls. After the birth of her first child, Heather was eager to shed those extra baby pounds. Inspired by her personal trainer to take careful note of her portion sizes, Heather began a search of attractive bowls that would help her measure her food without having to wash a separate measuring cup. She looked for measuring bowls that wouldn’t call attention to her diet plan, but there were none on the market.

So Heather took the bull by the horns, developed her own bowls and got a patent for them. The rest is history. She shed 80 extra pounds and created a lucrative business with this simple idea.

A set with a large bowl holding up to 2 cups and a smaller one that holds up to ¾ cup sells for around $30. The Measure Up team is currently developing a non-toxic version with snap-on lids for portable purposes

I love this idea because of its simplicity, elegance, inventiveness and practicality. Thanks for the gift of a set, Heather. I’m using them!