Monthly Archives: March 2016

NASA Guide To Air-Filtering Houseplants

Do you have house plants? I’ve had them on and off over the years. I tend to get involved in other things (cooking!) and when I’m not watching, my plants take over their pots. But after reading this, I think I’ll be more attentive to them.

See NASA Clean Air Study for a more detailed list of filtering plants, the chemicals they filter, and whether they are toxic to dogs or cats.

New Study Finds Eating High Glycemic Index Diet Increases Lung Cancer Risk. Here’s An Argument For Why It Doesn’t.

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High glycemic index foods such as potatoes, by themselves, don’t promote insulin resistance. Potatoes as part of a high-fat, high-calorie diet do.

There’s a study being passed around on the media that links a high glycemic index (GI) diet to an increase in lung cancer risk. Here’s the study:

Glycemic Index, Glycemic Load, and Lung Cancer Risk in Non-Hispanic Whites, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, March 2016

The mechanism they give is that eating high GI foods (which are carbs that are easily and quickly digested such as potatoes), causes an increase in blood insulin and other growth factors (insulin is a growth-promoting hormone). Those growth factors can promote cancer:

Diets high in GI result in higher levels of blood glucose and insulin, which promote glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, and hyperinsulinemia. Insulin resistance is a pathologic condition, and previous studies suggest that insulin resistance is associated with abnormally high levels of growth factors, adipokines, reactive oxygen species, adhesion factors, and proinflammatory cytokines, all of which have been associated with neoplastic tissue survival and cancer stem cell development. Circulating levels of insulin have also been associated with a variety of different cancers and may modulate cancer risk via perturbations in the IGF axis.

It’s true that if you have insulin resistance, you will have higher insulin levels (as long as your pancreas is working well). And it’s true that insulin and other growth factors can promote cancer. (IGF-1 in dairy food is a growth factor thought to promote cancer.)

It’s not true that eating carbohydrates, even refined carbs such as you find in potatoes and bread, causes or “promotes” insulin resistance and high insulin. (If it was true, then Cubans who consumed a very high-GI diet, mostly sugar and rice, during their Special Period would have had more insulin resistance, more diabetes, and more cancer if you apply this study. In fact, they had lower rates of diabetes and cancer.) Dietary fat promotes insulin resistance. If you eat a lot of fat and eat high-GI carbs on top of it, yes, you will end up with high blood glucose and high insulin. Potatoes alone won’t cause it. You have to look at the whole diet, not a particular nutrient in isolation.

How much fat were the people who ate high-GI carbs, and who had lung cancer, eating? We don’t know because the researchers didn’t measure it directly. At least they didn’t include it in the published analysis. Consequently, they didn’t adjust for it, as far as I can tell.

This is informative:

Cases were more likely to smoke, be heavier smokers, and had lower BMI, physical activity levels, and years of education. Cases had … lower total carbohydrate intake grams per day, and lower fiber intake.

Those who had cancer ate lower-carb, lower-fiber diets. If you eat less carbohydrate, by default you eat more fat and protein. (Fat and protein become a larger percentage of the calories you eat in a day.) What foods are higher in fat and protein? While also being low in fiber? (Fiber is only found in plant food.) You know the answer to that … animal foods. (It did say cases and controls were eating about the same amount of meat, so this could point to dairy food.)

From that CNN article I linked above:

Previous research* has linked a number of other foods, such as red meat and dairy products, with higher rates of lung cancer, while consumption of fruits and vegetables has been associated with lower rates.

* Lung Cancer: Epidemiology, Etiology, and Prevention, Clinics in Chest Medicine, December 2011

Certain dietary items, including red meat, dairy products, saturated fats, and lipids, have been suggested as increasing the risk for lung cancer.151–154 Other foods found to have an adverse effect on lung cancer include items that contain nitrosodimethylamines and nitrites, such as those found in salami and salted and smoked meat products.155,156

Overall, it has been shown that low or no intake of fruits or vegetables has been associated with up to 3-fold risk for lung cancer.

The people in this study who had lung cancer were eating a diet that was lower in total carbohydrates (perhaps lower in fruits and vegetables which are primarily carbohydrates), lower in fiber, and higher in fat and protein, e.g dairy food, than people who didn’t have lung cancer. Any or all of these dietary factors could have contributed to their cancer.

Live Eagle Cam

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I’ve been watching a live eagle cam. The camera is focused on a nest that has eggs which are about to hatch. The male and female bald eagles are taking turns sitting on the eggs. I’m enthralled.

Here’s a short video from Wednesday evening. (See the live stream here.)

The Eagle Cam information chronicles the activities of the eagle nest located on the grounds of the US FWS National Conservation Training Center near the Potomac River in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The nest has been active during nesting seasons starting in 2005. The eagles have fledged a number of juvenile bald eagles over the years.

Update: A close up view of the eggs, from last night, March 12. I love how she arranges the grass close around the eggs and herself:

There Has Been A Dramatic Increase In The Amount Of Glyphosate Herbicide Applied To Crops

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In my last post, I gave evidence that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, was an endocrine disruptor (ED). The Roundup formulation is, in fact, a stronger ED than glyphosate alone, owing to “inert” ingredients that enhance glyphosate uptake. The studies I cited also showed that glyphosate and Roundup disrupt metabolism at levels below that now allowed in food and water.

Here I show that instead of using less glyphosate and Roundup, in light of its risks to public health, farmers are using more.

Trends In Glyphosate Herbicide Use In The United States And Globally, Environmental Sciences Europe, 2 February 2016

Since the mid-1990s, significant changes have occurred in when and how glyphosate herbicides are applied, and there has been a dramatic increase in the total volume applied.

Globally, glyphosate use has risen almost 15-fold since so-called “Roundup Ready,” genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996.

Two-thirds of the total volume of glyphosate applied in the U.S. from 1974 to 2014 has been sprayed in just the last 10 years.

Those are sobering statistics. Why are we using more and not less? One reason, GMO crops are becoming increasingly resistant to glyphosate. Another reason, farmers are finding off-market uses for the herbicide, for example “desiccation”:

Why Is Glyphosate Sprayed on Crops Right Before Harvest?, EcoWatch, 5 March 2016

Farmers there [Scotland 1980s where the practice originated] often had trouble getting wheat and barley to dry evenly so they can start harvesting. So they came up with the idea to kill the crop (with glyphosate) one to two weeks before harvest to accelerate the drying down of the grain,” he [Charles Benbrook PhD, author of that second study above] said.

Joel Ransom, an agronomist at North Dakota State University said, “It does help hasten dry down and controls grain weeds and other material that slows down the threshing practice,” he said. “It has an important role in areas where it’s wet.” … Ransom says the practice has increased in North Dakota, which is the leading wheat-producing state in the U.S., over the past 15 years due to wetter weather.

Gerald Wiebe, a farmer and agricultural consultant said, “I would estimate that 90 to 95 percent of wheat acres in Manitoba are sprayed pre-harvest with glyphosate. … Consumers don’t realize when they buy wheat products like flour, cookies and bread they are getting glyphosate residues in those products,” he said. “It’s barbaric to put glyphosate in food a few days before you harvest it.”

Wiebe believes the use of glyphosate on wheat may be connected to the rise in celiac disease. “We’ve seen an explosion of gluten intolerance,” he said. “What’s really going on?”

Tom Ehrhardt, co-owner of Minnesota-based Albert Lea Seeds said, “Can you imagine the public’s response if they knew that glyphosate is being sprayed on the oats in their Cheerios only weeks before it is manufactured?”

Benbrook: “It may be 2% of agriculture use, but well over 50% of dietary exposure. … I don’t understand why Monsanto and the food industry don’t voluntarily end this practice. They know it contributes to high dietary exposure (of glyphosate).”

You understand why Monsanto and the food industry don’t end this practice, don’t you. It’s profitable. In the hierarchy of priorities, public health falls well beneath profit. If anyone would end this practice, it would be the EPA. Unfortuately, EPA just raised allowable amounts of glyphosate in crops.

Monsanto, in fact, uses desiccation of crops as a selling feature of glyphosate and Roundup. From page 27 of their document:

Monsanto, Review Of The Benefits Of Glyphosate Per Market Use, February 2010

8. Crop desiccation in grain maize and sunflower
Primary benefits:

Desiccation of green material in crop allows more reliable harvesting of evenly ripe crop

Reduced losses and drying costs

Higher price for earlier quality harvest with greater chance of a good harvest

Here’s a photograph from their document:

The photograph shows complete foliar desiccation of grain maize on the right side 14 days after application of glyphosate (Roundup Bioaktiv) … with the untreated visible on the left-hand side.

This sentence is chilling:

Translocated herbicide moves throughout the whole plant providing full desiccation.

How much of this herbicide gets washed away or metabolized by the plant (especially given the plant is being killed) in the 14 days prior to harvest? Benbrook’s statement about crop desication seems credible: “It may be 2% of agriculture use, but well over 50% of dietary exposure.”

Monsanto’s Roundup Disrupts Human Metabolism At Levels Below That Allowed In Food

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Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, is an endocrine disruptor, as is Roundup itself. In fact, the Roundup formulation is more harmful owing to “inert” ingredients that enhance glyphosate uptake:

Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Are Toxic And Endocrine Disruptors In Human Cell Lines, Toxicology, August 2009

In conclusion, according to these data and the literature, Glyphosate-based herbicides present DNA damages and CMR [carcinogen, mutagen and reprotoxic] effects on human cells and in vivo. … These herbicide mixtures also present ED [endocrine disruptor] effects on human cells, at doses far below agricultural dilutions and toxic levels on mitochondrial activities and membrane integrity. These doses are around residual authorized levels in transgenic feed, and this paper is the first clear demonstration of these phenomena in human cells.

Endocrine Disruption And Cytotoxicity Of Glyphosate And Roundup In Human JAr Cells In Vitro, Integrative Pharmacology, Toxicology and Genotoxicology, 2015

Endocrine disruption effects were secondary to cytotoxicity. Roundup was more cytotoxic than the same concentration of glyphosate alone, indicating that the other constituents of the herbicide are not inert. There is a compelling need to conduct in vivo studies to characterise the toxicity of glyphosate in a Roundup formulation, to facilitate re-evaluation of existing public health guidelines.

Cytotoxicity was observed in vitro after exposure to a range of concentrations comparable to the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

So, glyphosate and Roundup are endocrine disruptors, they disrupt metabolism at levels below that allowed in food and water.

You would think our goal then would be to use less glyphosate on crops. Yes? Stay tuned for my next post.

Non Sequitur, March 8

Fracking Wells In Pennsylvania

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I live in PA. I was surprised to see how many wells we had. (That little red target was just me trying to center the map, it doesn’t mean anything.)

Source: National Resources Defense Council:

The use of hydraulic fracturing has opened up oil and gas resources in many parts of the country where drilling was not previously occurring. These wells are drilled near our homes, schools, and offices—but information about them is not always readily accessible or publicly available.

We need to have better information about the effects of drilling on our health, land and quality of life.

The NRDC runs a site called Don’t Get Fracked which publishes impacts to health and the environment. There are many.

Vermont banned fracking in 2012. New York banned it in 2014.