I didn't know that the nitrites and nitrates
in lunch meat, bacon, cheese and other foods are linked to Type 2 diabetes,
Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease. Those are the findings of a study
published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2009 JAD - Press Releases. The full press release is below.
I have been voluntarily helping family and friends with diabetes and pre-diabetes to change their diets and hopefully get on the healing path. Until recently, I
thought there were two main types of diabetes. Now it appears that there are
three:
Type 1, or juvenile onset diabetes
Type 2, or adult onset diabetes
Type 3, which is related to Alzheimer’s
Disease
Type 3 diabetes surprised me. Apparently the brain’s production of insulin greatly decreases in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Researchers are learning that treatment of the brain with insulin can help slow or prevent memory loss for those suffering from the disease. This 2009 paper in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1971.full?sid=6c5a5490-f978-4c85-8ed7-3e2db9ee045e reports on the relationship of insulin and Alzheimer’s Disease. The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease JAD - Home contains much of the research around Alzheimer’s as Type 3 diabetes.
Overdoing the Standard American Diet (SAD) leads
to Type 2 diabetes, and Type 2 diabetes is linked to Alzheimer’s Disease. The
number of children suffering from Type 2, or adult onset diabetes, is increasing.
The New England Journal of Medicine has a sobering editorial regarding rates
and prevention: NEJM
-- Are Children
the Future of Type 2
Diabetes Prevention? Here is the first paragraph:
The lifetime risk of type 2
diabetes is now more than one in three in the general U.S.
population, and one in six adolescents is now obese, suggesting that
prevention should start in childhood.1,2
Many consider diabetes and obesity to be "common-source" epidemics
that are rooted in our culture, as evidenced by national trends
toward larger portion sizes and more meals built around calorically
dense fast food, sugar-sweetened drinks, and sedentary behavior.3,4
Fighting such a powerful wave with purely clinical and adult-based
approaches to prevention may seem like pasting a small bandage on a
gaping wound. Rather than focusing on adults who may be set in their
ways, we should perhaps target our youth, who may represent a better
hope for changing the norms, habits, attitudes, and preferences that
define our culture's collective energy balance.
Basically, chronic, long-term diabetes leads
to premature aging and death, with possibly some Alzheimer’s thrown in. For
kids today who suffer from diabetes and who don’t turn it around, I believe
that the rates of Alzheimer’s Disease will be higher for their generation and
the disease will appear earlier. Not only is my son’s generation to have a
shorter lifespan (a first in American history), but they will also suffer much
more. I don’t know of a parent who would wish that for their child, yet so many
children suffer. Here is a great article from the Alzheimer’s Association for
parents of Type 2 diabetic children to consider: Alzheimer's Disease and Type 2 Diabetes.
The bottom line is that my family and friends are now eating
real food and avoiding processed food and most restaurant food.
Now for that article on nitrites, nitrates,
Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Disease. Amazing the paths that a little questioning
will take you on!
6-July-2009 -
Researchers find possible environmental causes for Alzheimer’s, diabetes
Contacts: Nancy Cawley Jean
njean@lifespan.org
+1 401-444-6417
Call for reducing
nitrate levels in fertilizer and water, detoxifying food and water
- Researchers find
link between increased exposure to fertilizer, processed foods and
increased deaths associated with insulin-resistant diseases
- We have become a
“nitrosamine generation” receiving increased exposure to dangerous
compounds, which pose a threat at low levels of exposure
- The prevalence
rates of these diseases have increased exponentially over the past several
decades and show no sign of plateau
Providence, RI – A new study by researchers at Rhode Island
Hospital has found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates
in our environment and food with increased deaths from diseases, including
Alzheimer’s, diabetes mellitus and Parkinson’s. The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Volume
17:3 July 2009).
Led by Suzanne de la Monte,
MD, MPH, of Rhode Island Hospital, researchers studied the trends in mortality
rates due to diseases that are associated with aging, such as diabetes,
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and cerebrovascular disease, as well as HIV.
They found strong parallels between age adjusted increases in death rate from
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetes and the progressive increases in human
exposure to nitrates, nitrites and nitrosamines through processed and preserved
foods as well as fertilizers. Other diseases including HIV-AIDS,
cerebrovascular disease, and leukemia did not exhibit those trends. de la Monte
and the authors propose that the increase in exposure plays a critical role in
the cause, development and effects of the pandemic of these insulin-resistant
diseases.
de la Monte, who is also a
professor of pathology and lab medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of
Brown University, says, “We have become a ‘nitrosamine generation.’ In essence,
we have moved to a diet that is rich in amines and nitrates, which lead to increased
nitrosamine production. We receive increased exposure through the abundant use
of nitrate-containing fertilizers for agriculture.” She continues, “Not only do
we consume them in processed foods, but they get into our food supply by
leeching from the soil and contaminating water supplies used for crop
irrigation, food processing and drinking.”
Nitrites and nitrates belong
to a class of chemical compounds that have been found to be harmful to humans
and animals. More than 90 percent of these compounds that have been tested have
been determined to be carcinogenic in various organs. They are found in many
food products, including fried bacon, cured meats and cheese products as well
as beer and water. Exposure also occurs through manufacturing and processing of
rubber and latex products, as well as fertilizers, pesticides and cosmetics.
Nitrosamines are formed by a
chemical reaction between nitrites or other proteins. Sodium nitrite is
deliberately added to meat and fish to prevent toxin production; it is also
used to preserve, color and flavor meats. Ground beef, cured meats and bacon in
particular contain abundant amounts of amines due to their high protein
content. Because of the significant levels of added nitrates and nitrites,
nitrosamines are nearly always detectable in these foods. Nitrosamines are also
easily generated under strong acid conditions, such as in the stomach, or at
high temperatures associated with frying or flame broiling. Reducing sodium
nitrite content reduces nitrosamine formation in foods.
Nitrosamines basically become
highly reactive at the cellular level, which then alters gene expression and
causes DNA damage. The researchers note that the role of nitrosamines has been
well-studied, and their role as a carcinogen has been fully documented. The
investigators propose that the cellular alterations that occur as a result of
nitrosamine exposure are fundamentally similar to those that occur with aging,
as well as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Type 2 diabetes mellitus.
de la Monte comments, “All of
these diseases are associated with increased insulin resistance and DNA damage.
Their prevalence rates have all increased radically over the past several
decades and show no sign of plateau. Because there has been a relatively short
time interval associated with the dramatic shift in disease incidence and
prevalence rates, we believe this is due to exposure-related rather than
genetic etiologies.”
The researchers recognize
that an increase in death rates is anticipated in higher age groups. Yet when
the researchers compared mortality from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease
among 75 to 84 year olds from 1968 to 2005, the death rates increased much more
dramatically than for cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease, which are
also aging-associated. For example, in Alzheimer’s patients, the death rate
increased 150-fold, from 0 deaths to more than 150 deaths per 100,000.
Parkinson’s disease death rates also increased across all age groups. However,
mortality rates from cerebrovascular disease in the same age group declined,
even though this is a disease associated with aging as well.
de la Monte notes, “Because
of the similar trending in nearly all age groups within each disease category,
this indicates that these overall trends are not due to an aging population.
This relatively short time interval for such dramatic increases in death rates
associated with these diseases is more consistent with exposure-related causes
rather than genetic changes.” She also comments, “Moreover, the strikingly higher
and climbing mortality rates in older age brackets suggest that aging and/or
longer durations of exposure have greater impacts on progression and severity
of these diseases.”
The researchers graphed and
analyzed mortality rates, and compared them with increasing age for each
disease. They then studied United States population growth, annual use and
consumption of nitrite-containing fertilizers, annual sales at popular fast
food chains, and sales for a major meat processing company, as well as consumption
of grain and consumption of watermelon and cantaloupe (the melons were used as
a control since they are not typically associated with nitrate or nitrite
exposure).
The findings indicate that
while nitrogen-containing fertilizer consumption increased by 230 percent
between 1955 and 2005, its usage doubled between 1960 and 1980, which just
precedes the insulin-resistant epidemics the researchers found. They also found
that sales from the fast food chain and the meat processing company increased
more than 8-fold from 1970 to 2005, and grain consumption increased 5-fold.
The authors state that the
time course of the increased prevalence rates of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and
diabetes cannot be explained on the basis of gene mutations. They instead
mirror the classical trends of exposure-related disease. Because nitrosamines
produce biochemical changes within cells and tissues, it is conceivable that
chronic exposure to low levels of nitrites and nitrosamines through processed
foods, water and fertilizers is responsible for the current epidemics of these
diseases and the increasing mortality rates associated with them.
de la Monte states, “If this
hypothesis is correct, potential solutions include eliminating the use of
nitrites and nitrates in food processing, preservation and agriculture; taking
steps to prevent the formation of nitrosamines and employing safe and effective
measures to detoxify food and water before human consumption.”
Other researchers involved in
the study with de la Monte include Alexander Neusner, Jennifer Chu and Margot
Lawton, from the departments of pathology, neurology and medicine at Rhode
Island Hospital and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
The study was funded through
grants from the National Institutes of Health. Two subsequent papers have been
accepted for publication in the near future that demonstrate experimentally
that low levels of nitrosamine exposure cause neurodegeneration, NASH and diabetes.
de la Monte, Suzanne M.,
Alexander Neusner, Jennifer Chu and Margot Lawton. “Epidemilogical Trends
Strongly Suggest Exposures as Etiologic Agents in the Pathogenesis of Sporadic
Alzheimer’s Disease, Diabetes Mellitus, and Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis.” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease
17:3 (July 2009) pp 519-529.
Wow, the connection on sugar and brain makes more and more sense. At the beginning of my 40s I can clearly see that I probably been heading to the Type 3 diabetes for a few years. My lost of memory is incredible.
I got Dr Morehead's diagnostic of Insulin resistance last month, he said that every time I don't process sugar properly I'm starving my brain!! Is finally all making sense. What's helping me now? My recent increase in intake of good type of fat along with natural supplements to help my adrenal glands and for my body to process insulin. Bone broth, home made Kefir and removal of process foods have set the stage. I'm so trusting that this finally will help me improve my quality life to the level I envision.
Thanks Laura for your valuable information.
Posted by: Noel9i | March 17, 2010 at 11:10 AM