Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumWidely used food additives promotes colitis, obesity and metabolic syndrome, shows study of emulsifi
Date:
February 25, 2015
Source:
Georgia State University
Summary:
Emulsifiers, which are added to most processed foods to aid texture and extend shelf life, can alter the gut microbiota composition and localization to induce intestinal inflammation that promotes the development of inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome, new research shows.
emulsifiers, which are added to most processed foods to aid texture and extend shelf life, can alter the gut microbiota composition and localization to induce intestinal inflammation that promotes the development of inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome, new research shows.
The research, published Feb. 25 in Nature, was led by Georgia State University Institute for Biomedical Sciences' researchers Drs. Benoit Chassaing and Andrew T. Gewirtz, and included contributions from Emory University, Cornell University and Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, afflicts millions of people and is often severe and debilitating. Metabolic syndrome is a group of very common obesity-related disorders that can lead to type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular and/or liver diseases. Incidence of IBD and metabolic syndrome has been markedly increasing since the mid-20th century.
The term "gut microbiota" refers to the diverse population of 100 trillion bacteria that inhabit the intestinal tract. Gut microbiota are disturbed in IBD and metabolic syndrome. Chassaing and Gewirtz's findings suggest emulsifiers might be partially responsible for this disturbance and the increased incidence of these diseases.
"A key feature of these modern plagues is alteration of the gut microbiota in a manner that promotes inflammation," says Gewirtz
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150225132105.htm
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)thanks for posting!
duhneece
(4,116 posts)Not food in boxes. Food as naked as it can get...which is great for folks with time (like me), but hard for working families. If we paid our labor better, provided more time off, our citizens would be healthier in so many ways.
haikugal
(6,476 posts)NJCher
(35,706 posts)The students in my evening classes at a community college are often parents, back to work at night on their degrees. I have many students taking four classes, working full-time and being mothers to anywhere from 1-4 children. At least in one case, there is some extended family support, but not in the others. Many, however, are immigrants, so I'm hoping they've not learned to rely on America's processed food ways.
Whenever I broach this topic as a subject for speeches or papers, however, I get "looks." Looks of desperation, like "what now"?
Several years ago, I dropped processed foods from my diet and I now cook everything from scratch. I cannot begin to tell you the time it takes! Fortunately, I enjoy cooking and we recently remodeled our kitchen, so I have a nice space with big counters,windows, and a forest view to look at. I can play my podcasts or watch a DVD while I wash and chop salad greens. I'm pretty sure this is a lot different from the lives of my students, who are probably hounding their kids to do homework while trying to put together an evening meal.
I will take the OPs info, however, and put in my list of topics for public speaking.
Cher
fasttense
(17,301 posts)Even if you can't afford an organic basket, a CSA basket: kind of forces your hand into using local fresh foods.
I always wondered why I couldn't make bread as light and fluffy as they sell in almost any food store. I've come close to it and I really prefer a hard crusty bread. But hubby and the kids like those soft little pillows of dough with their sandwiches. So, I've tried and tried. I have a recipe that's very, very close but it gets stale rather quickly.
I was complaining about it to a chemist friend of mine and she pointed out that dough conditioners used in almost all commercial breads are very close to Silly Putty that we played with as kids. She says that with that in your dough, you can make really fluffy bread.
I've since given up the quest for the perfect fluffy bread and when my family complains, I tell them to hush up or I'll feed them some Silly Putty.
duhneece
(4,116 posts)I live in La Luz, NM. Even our closest 'city' Alamogordo does not have CSA baskets. We do have TWO farmers' markets-in summer and fall. Very limited times and if transportation is a problem...
fasttense
(17,301 posts)As quickly as the local and organic movement took over here in east TN, I'm surprised to hear you folks have no access to farmer's markets and CSA baskets.
We are so rural that we are always the last to get anything. We are dominated by old fogy cattlemen who don't want to try anything new in farming because they know everything. Chemical vegetable growing dominates all the gardening classes. But I guess here in the organic/CNG/CSA arena there was such a huge demand even the cattlemen and chemical farmers couldn't stop it. I'm shocked to tell you we actually got something new before everyone in the country had already tried it and moved on to something else.
I'm a small farmer specializing in free range eggs, pasture raised hair sheep lamb and gourmet mushrooms along with Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) vegetable. I'm just starting a CSA basket for my customers and I went on line to see what other farmer's were offering. Oh my God, everyone and their mothers here in east TN offers CSA baskets ranging from $25 to $50 a basket. I have some very stiff competition but I'm still going to try it.
So sorry to hear you have no access to good wholesome food.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)for the most part I like fruits, fresh raw vegetables and some meat.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)It seems no surprise that substances which are added to stop the break down of food on the shelf also make it harder for our bodies to process and break down these same foods.
Studies like this give further credence to the saying: "A person of modest means who cooks from scratch eats better (healthier) than rich person who does not."
The role of gut bacteria and the mix of such bacteria that should be considered healthy is a subject for further study.
rurallib
(62,433 posts)Mrs. Lib had a horrible bout of aschemic colitis over Christmas. She was in horrible pain and spent 7 days in the hospital followed by a month of recovery at home.
We changed our diet to vegan in June and have maintained it throughout.
Once she recovered, she had a full colonoscopy. The doctor, who says he has seen some 1500 cases such as hers said hers was the worst he had ever seen. He also said he had no explanation for what may have caused hers in particular or any of the others in general.
Her colonoscopy had the doctor muttering to himself. It was clean, totally clean. He said that as bad as she was, she should have had at least some scarring, In her case he was sure she would have had some dead sections of her bowel. Nothing.
He had a computer right across the hall from where I was sitting and he went back one more time to look at it again.
We have no doubt that the healthy eating was instrumental in her recovery. It looks like our eating habits before that may have caught up to her with the colitis.
elias7
(4,024 posts)additionally, she better have made a complete recovery, because if there was dead/necrotic bowel she would have become septic and would have died without surgery. Healthy eating may or may not have contributed to her recovery, but there seems to be some miscommunication going on here.
Ischemic colitis is where there is sudden disruption of blood flow to the gut (similar to a heart attack or stroke), usually from poor circulation, rarely from embolic sources, while inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's or Ulcerative colitis) are just that-- inflammatory-- where one's course waxes and wanes over the years. The article refers to IBD, not ischemic colitis.
The gut doesn't tend to scar, it either dies or heals, so I'm kind of confused by your doctor's response. But either way, I'm pleased Mrs Lib is doing well. Improving cardiovascular risk factors (including diet) would be the best lifestyle change now.
Well the doctor said she recovered completely.
Our diet remains vegan and I am sure will remain so.
ms liberty
(8,591 posts)I like to keep up with these issues. Mr liberty contracted c diff a couple of years ago (long-ish story, it all started with a dog bite!) and so I now feel the need to pay attention to our guts and their health, lol. He's okay now, but he was so sick from it, and it was really scary for quite a while. KR&B.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)NJCher
(35,706 posts)Someone here posted to a page where they had pictures of people from all over the world, standing next to a table of the types of food they ate.
The point is that people from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, etc., were standing next to real food: bananas, rice, legumes, etc. Then you looked at the picture of Americans and everything was in a cellophane bag or a box.
Pitiful.
Cher
nuxvomica
(12,436 posts)It says it is used in gluten-free and low-fat processed foods. People could be buying such products to address the same conditions the emulsifier may actually be worsening.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Thanks for the info