December 1, 2007
Contents:
- EDITORIAL: Holiday Open House, Special Thanks
- UPDATE: Hurt by Aquaculture Industry
- BOOK REVIEW: Good Calories, Bad Calories
- FEATURE: A Crisis in Education - The Health of Our Children
- FEATURE: Pthalates and Parabens in Personal Care Products
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EDITORIAL: Holiday Open House, Special Thanks
Dear HANS Members and Friends,
Well, we've got a lot of topics to cover in this editorial, and in this e-News for that matter, so I'm just going to just right in.
HANS Holiday Open House - Dec 6th
Do you have this Thursday circled in red pen on your calendar as a reminder to attend our HANS holiday open house? We'd love to see you here. Drop by anytime between 4 pm and 7 pm for some tasty treats and good conversation. Please RSVP first to (604) 435-0512 if you can make it so we know how many people to expect.
Special Thanks to DreamHealer and Danny Jui, ND
In keeping with the season of thankfulness, I'd like to thank Adam DreamHealer (www.dreamhealer.com) and the DreamHealer group for their generous recent contribution to HANS, as well as for the wonderful reception that HANS representatives enjoyed at the DreamHealer workshop on November 25th in Burnaby. Two-hundred plus attendees enjoyed a brilliantly thought-provoking day, before which Frank, Adam's father, introduced the work of HANS to the crowd.
I'd also like to thank Dr. Danny Jui, ND, a HANS Professional member who attended the Second Annual Health Forum of the North Shore Health Research Foundation as a HANS Ambassador. On November 23rd, 52 individuals representing health care professions, groups and companies came together to brainstorm how to make the North Shore the healthiest community in BC.
Some of the other attendees were the Alzheimer Society of BC, Asthma Care Canada, Canadian Reiki Association, North Shore Community Resources, Pfizer Canada Inc and Vancouver Coastal Health. We at HANS were honored to be invited to attend and to offer a holistic perspective on medicinal therapeutics. So, Danny, thanks again! Danny Jui's website is www.drdannyjui.com; phone (604) 697-0397.
Happy reading and warm regards,
Lorna
Founding Member and Executive Director
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UPDATE: Hurt by Aquaculture Industry
by SaveBCsalmon.ca Press ReleaseIn an unprecedented move, a diverse group of BC business people have placed an advertisement in a national newspaper. The ad strongly criticizes current government policy (federal and BC) that supports fish farms to the detriment of the natural environment and wild salmon stocks.
The timing of the advertisement was coincident with the unveiling of the www.SaveBCsalmon.ca website. Citizens can participate in their web-based petition.
Facing a pending government decision about fish farming, this previously unallied group of wilderness tourism operators, sport and commercial fishermen, seafood processors and concerned coastal residents pooled their resources to purchase the full page ad in the National Edition of the Nov 9, 2007,
Globe and Mail.
These businesses and individuals want fish farms moved away from BC's major juvenile salmon migration routes. Science shows that juvenile salmon die with even one or two sea lice. In nature, young and mature salmon (which host sea lice) rarely mingle. Fish farmers and government must respect this natural law if wild salmon are to continue to exist.
For 20 years, business people and residents on the BC Coast have maintained an accommodating attitude toward fish farming. Armed with rapidly evolving scientific evidence that sea lice associated with salmon farms are decimating local salmon stocks, accommodation is turning to anger.
"Fish farming is worth $600 million to the BC economy," said Craig Murray owner of Nimmo Bay Resort. "Wilderness tourism and fishing combined bring in over $1.6 billion to BC and is growing. Tourism is now a 10 billion dollar industry and Premier Campbell has been challenged to double its revenue in the province by 2015. But we can't survive without wild salmon, and government is making us the loser group! There are too many outside interests that compromise tourism and our wild salmon in BC. Both fresh and salt water anglers across BC and beyond should be aware of this injustice."
"Members of our organization have supported research on sea lice and even wild salmon habitat restoration, from their own pockets. We know the problem is real, we are not crying 'Wolf,'" stated Brian Gunn, president of the Wilderness Tourism Association. "We are businesspeople who feel the government is abandoning us, by allowing our lifeblood to drain away. We have had it."
"I contributed to the ad because anglers across BC abide by a long list of conservation measures to protect adult salmon - only to have the young fish killed by sea lice. What a waste," observed Chris Bennett of Blackfish Lodge.
"I just don't get it," says Steve Kelly of Coastal Springs Float Lodge. "When the Department of Fisheries and Oceans say they need to protect wild salmon, they just close us and the season down. But here, with a rising pile of evidence about the danger of sea lice, they allow fish farms to be filled up year after year. This just results in more sea lice killing more baby salmon. Where is the government science on this issue?"
"My family helped buy this ad because we feel that the Minister is taking the Coast the wrong way," says Donna Mackay, of Mackay Whale Watching. "We are very concerned. This summer, the Orca whales (killer whales) that our business depends on were hunting over a huge area of ocean. We believe it was because of a lack of wild salmon. For our business, it was bad news, but worse for the Orca's which are already listed as a threatened species. They cannot survive without wild salmon."
On May 16, 2007, the Special Legislative Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture (SCSA) tabled their report. After traveling the length of British Columbia to hear about the fish farm controversy, the SCSA made a daring recommendation - move the fish farming industry from open net pens into closed containment within 5 years to protect wild salmon. Pat Bell, the BC Minister of Agriculture and Lands in charge of fish farm siting has been silent on responding to the Report, but he has approved four more open net pen sites since May 2007.
For further information, contact:
Donna Mackay, Mackay Whale Watching, 250-956-9865
Craig Murray, Nimmo Bay Resort, 250-956-3297
To view the advertisement or a map of salmon farm locations, go to SaveBCsalmon.ca
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BOOK REVIEW: Good Calories, Bad Calories
by Dr. Abram HofferIn his recent book
Good Calories, Bad Calories (Knopf, 2007) Garry Taube debunks the hypothesis that a low-fat diet is the solution for good health. This severe case of mistaken consensus, Taube explains, was foisted on us by a process called "cascade" in which a few highly placed individuals with sufficient self-confidence and clout are able to establish ideas that lack sufficient evidence.
Decades ago, it was predicted that switching away from fats and replacing them with carbohydrates would solve most of our cardiovascular problems such as heart disease, hypercholesterolemia, obesity and more. This view became one of 10 commandments of modern nutrition enshrined in Canada's food rules, which also emphasized cutting back on meat and fat, and increasing carbohydrates. But the massive evidence reviewed by Taube in his book shows that none of these goals have been realized. Instead, we have an even worse pandemic of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. But why is this surprising? If you need 2,000 calories a day yet follow low-fat eating regime, you have to make up these calories by eating other foods and these will usually be carbohydrates: sugars and products derived from refined flour.
The low-fat diet favored by medical institutions in the United States and Canada has increased the average intake of sugar and refined carbohydrates but has not eliminated disease. To the contrary, the evidence is massive that the major villain in degenerative disease and weight gain was and always will be sugar and refined foods that are converted into sugar in the body too quickly and absorbed too quickly. The modern diet is also characterized by too few of all important nutrients.
How could such a massive error have been made and imposed on the world? This is what makes Taube's book so interesting and valuable; it traces from the beginning the influences that led to this debacle. There was a relatively small clique of nutritionists, who, according to Taube, were neither scientists nor clinicians yet spearheaded the low-fat diet movement. The group included Professor Fred Stare from Harvard who once wrote that people would be much healthier if they doubled their average sugar intake from 125 to 250 pounds per person per year. Dr. Stare received very large annual grants from food industry giants whose products contained huge amounts of sugar. This clique also included Professor Jean Mayer, who, along with Dr. Stare, was violently opposed to orthomolecular medical concepts. These two doctors were as incorrect in their ideas about orthomolecular medicine as they were about the "benefit" of sugar-enriched diets.
In contrast to the low-fat theory that eventually became entrenched, prior to 1940, clinicians usually advised that one should decrease the amount of sugar and refined carbohydrates such as white flour and polished rice. Dr. TC Cleave was one such advocate; he was emphatic that a sugar-rich diet was responsible for a variety of conditions that he called "The Saccharine Disease". Taube provides an excellent review of Cleaves research and adds to it, referring to sugar's connection to the metabolic syndrome that is now so common.
Ever since reading Dr. Cleave's book many years ago, I have advised my patients to follow a sugar-free, refined-carbohydrates-free diet. If we all followed the dietary concepts of Drs. Stare and Mayer - two leaders in the nutrition field at that time - we would be eating tons of sugar, white flour and white rice; we would eat little beneficial fats and rarely any vitamins or minerals. Our chronically sick population would increase, the current financial sickness crises would get worse, and I would be even busier at my orthomolecular consulting practice.
Dr. Hoffer, now in private practice as a consultant at the Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre in Victoria, BC, was recently awarded the inaugural Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine for his work using nutrition and vitamins to treat disease. www.orthomolecularvitamincentre.com
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FEATURE: A Crisis in Education - The Health of Our Children
by Pamela ProctorFor a number of years, standardized tests have been legislated in schools throughout North America, as they have been here in BC. Many people, themselves not trained in educational practice or learning theory, see the administering of such tests as a necessary and a relatively simple way to check on school progress. However, I know from my own experience and from what teachers say now that the tests are unhealthy and potentially downright dangerous. I join with many other concerned educators in raising an alarm.
Feeling pressure for their students to do well on these tests, teachers focus on the 3 Rs - reading, writing, and arithmetic - for prolonged periods each day. Some schools even shorten the lunch period to make more study time for these subjects. Physical education, art, music and other creative activities can take a backseat to what is deemed more important academic work.
The fallout is harmful in terms of children's physical, mental, emotional and social growth and health in the following ways:
Children are more sedentary. Their physical health is affected when they sit for long periods with few opportunities to move about in the classroom and also by less physical activity, including quality physical education and playtime.
When conformity replaces spontaneity, learning is less effective. Dr. Judy Willis, an experienced neurologist and now a teacher, states that 'When joy and comfort are replaced by homogeneity, students' brains are distanced from effective information processing and long-term memory storage." Spoon-fed and detached from the learning process, children are more likely to lose interest and learn less.
Emotional development is affected by high stress levels, compounded by the absence of play and creative activity. There is a blow to the self-esteem of many children who struggle with tests that do not take into account individual differences in terms of learning styles and rates. These children may become restless, insecure, discouraged or worse.
A lack of conversation, collaboration and cooperation among the children in the classroom affects their social growth. Children who feel alienated are more likely to engage in anti-social behaviours. Once ingrained, negative feelings form the basis for growth into adolescence and may lead children into gang membership, bullying, violence and other law-breaking activities.
Rating, grading and comparing the public schools in the press exacerbates the problems, undermining the work of teachers and hurting the students, particularly the most vulnerable. Many parents, who are concerned, are able to home school their children while others send theirs to private schools. For those who haven't the means, public schools are the only option. In order to have a healthy children and a healthy society, we need to uphold holistic, child-centred practices in public schools, which includes instituting integrated assessment procedures rather than imposing tests.
In the words of Dr. Gary Pennington, Professor Emeritus of UBC "We should consider establishing new priorities in health and fitness that have major implications in terms of how school programs are run." He also says that we need to challenge children, to give them choice, to help them set goals and to do their best, valuing and nurturing their play. And Willis says, "There is a need for the school to become a place where the imagination and spirits of the children are embraced."
In order to dispel what I see as a crisis in education, I echo those thoughts and offer support for change in my book,
Honouring the Child: Changing: Ways of Teaching, which is available at www.honouringthechild.com and at Odin, Duthies and UBC bookstores.
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FEATURE: Pthalates and Parabens in Personal Care Products
by Dr. Jim ChanNDP MLA Gregor Robertson recently made headline news about a future bill that mandates the disclosure and sets limits for toxic substances in food and personal care products. Robertson listed a variety of different compounds including PCBs, formaldehyde and phthalates. Of great concern however, is the omission of parabens.
The catalyst for Robertson's interest in this issue was his children s participation in a study conducted by Environment Defence of Toronto: Polluted Children, Toxic Nation (June 2006). This study found that his children were contaminated with the known carcinogen PCB. The dangers of PCBs and formaldehyde are well known and clearly, the government will not allow formaldehyde in our food chain or personal care products.
Phthalates are compounds used to make plastic materials more flexible and allow them to be moulded. Phthalates are emitted from these plastics in the form of vapours. There is little that can be done to prevent the emission of these vapours unless all plastics are removed and one uses only glass containers.
Parabens however, are an entirely different matter. Parabens are preservatives that are used in most shampoos, toothpastes, creams, sunscreens, lotions and baby wipes, to name a few.
Phthalates and parabens, due to their common chemical structure, mimic estrogen and are therefore xeno-estrogens. These foreign estrogens are also found in the birth control pill, herbicides, pesticides and PCBs. Once they latch onto the body's own estrogen receptors, the level of estrogen in the body rises. High levels of estrogen are linked to an increase in breast cancer, lowering of sperm counts, premature maturation of teenage girls, development of breasts in middle aged men, increase in the prevalence of premenstrual syndromes, early onset of menopause, greater incidence of prostate cancer and a rise in endocrine or hormone disorders. Could all of these be a result of the increasing paraben uptake by our body as well as all the other possible xeno-estrogens in our environment?
Interestingly enough, parabens have been found in breast tumour tissues and have been shown to have estrogenic effects on breast cancer cell lines (Journal of Applied Toxicology 2004, Critically Reviewed Toxicology 2005). As parabens are a preservative, the percentage required in a cream or lotion is about 0.2 to 0.3 percent. If one was to imagine a person having gone through life putting an average of 32 fluid ounces of personal care products on their body each month, one may predict a lifetime exposure of more than 1,000 times the amount of parabens found in breast cancer tissues.
In other countries, natural preservatives such as Natamycin and Nicin are used rather than parabens. Under the jurisdiction of Health Canada, the Cosmetic Regulations of the Food & Drugs Act lists a variety of allowable non-medicinal ingredients. Curiously, this list allows parabens but omits all natural preservatives.
If the Canadian government mandates the use of parabens in our personal care products, out only choice is to avoid using products such products, a very painstaking and difficult task. Since their avoidance is so difficult, attention can be paid to their elimination from the body. Infrared saunas have been shown to break down parabens, which then allows them to be eliminated.
An effective detoxification program should include regular far infrared saunas (weekly or even daily); improving liver detoxification capacity and elimination; daily intake of six to eight glasses of water; colon hydrotherapy and massage therapy to help with lymphatic drainage and elimination.
Continuing to lobby and educate the Canadian government about these toxic substances may result in their removal from our products altogether. Until that time, avoiding and eliminating parabens remains a safe and health choice.
Dr. Chan has been practising as a naturopathic physician since 1989. At his Richmond clinic, he, along with his dedicated staff, are committed to helping his patients get well and stay well. For an appointment to see Dr. Chan, please call 604-273-4372 or visit our website at: www.drjimchan.com.