Supplemental vitamin D and calcium reduces risk of diabetes

The incidence of type-2 diabetes is lower among women who get adequate calcium and supplement with vitamin D. Researchers used data from the Nurses Health Study, which includes over 83,000 women, to study the relationship of calcium and vitamin D intake to type-2 diabetes.

After 20 years of follow-up, it was concluded that a combined daily intake of over 1,200 mg of calcium and more than 800 IU of vitamin D was associated with a 33 percent lower risk of type-2 diabetes. Interestingly, dietary vitamin D intake did not appear to provide any statistically significant benefit. But the women who supplemented with at least 400 IU of vitamin D had a 13% lower risk of diabetes when compared to those who took less than 100 IU per day. Both dietary and supplemental calcium resulted in decreased risk of type-2 diabetes, and those with overall intakes above 1,200 mg had a 21% lower risk than those who got less than 600 mg per day.

Elevated intakes of calcium and vitamin D, especially from supplements, are significantly associated with lower incidence of type-2 diabetes.

Diabetes Care 29:650-656, 2006

Fluoride: It's Not Just For Breakfast Any More!

I picked up a tube of Crest toothpaste the other day and read a warning that caught my eye. It said, "If more (toothpaste) than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away." What is this poison? It is a toxic substance that you may be unknowingly ingesting on a regular basis. In their infinite wisdom, your local government may have decided to mass medicate you and your water supply. The Toxic substance is called fluoride.

About 2/3 of the nations water supplies are treated with fluoride products, described by the U.S. Public Health Service as insecticides, rodenticides, and fungicides. In addition, fluoridated toothpastes and mouth rinses are spit into bathroom sinks all over the country to end up in the waste water. Before this water can be discharged into rivers and lakes, it must be treated to remove raw sewage and solid wastes. The fluoride, however, is not removed.

Water fluoridation is a peculiarly American phenomenon. It started at a time when asbestos lined our pipes, lead was added to gasoline, PCBs filled our transformers and DDT was deemed so "safe and effective" that officials felt no qualms spraying kids in school classrooms and seated at picnic tables. One by one all these chemicals have been banned, but fluoridation remains untouched.

For too many decades we heard from scientists who worked for the cigarette companies that cigarettes were not addictive, even in the face of mounting evidence of harm. When I was a child, we had an old black and white television. This was a few years before they came out with color television. I remember watching a TV commercial that featured a doctor in a white lab coat who stood there and said, "Six out of ten doctors prefer Chesterfield cigarettes." No one died from smoking one cigarette, one pack, or one carton. But after twenty years, cancers started to "mysteriously" appear. We were told these deaths were unrelated to smoking.

Now, the American Cancer Society states that, "During 1995, approximately 2.1 million people in developed countries died as a result of smoking." Tobacco use is responsible for nearly one in five deaths in the U.S. Scientists were wrong about tobacco; tobacco was not safe and neither is fluoride.

There are people (ADA) that would have us believe that fluoride in the water system will greatly reduce the amount of cavities in children. After all, there have been many studies that have proven this fact, right? A story always sounds true until you hear the other side. In the largest U.S. study on fluoridation and tooth decay, the U.S. Public Health Service took the dental records of over 39,000 school children and showed that the decay rate of permanent teeth was virtually the same in fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas. The worst tooth decay in the U.S. occurs in the poor neighborhoods of our largest cities, the vast majority of which have been fluoridated for decades. In New Zealand, they found that tooth decay statistics from 60,000 children showed fluoridation has no significant effect on the decay of permanent teeth (Colquhoun, J. Community Dentistry and Oralepidemiologyy 13:37-41 1985). Major dental researchers also concede that fluoride is ineffective at preventing pit and fissure tooth decay, which is 85 percent of the tooth decay experienced by children (JADA 1984; Gray 1987; White 1993; Pinkham 1999). In a 1992, a study of 26,000 elementary school children found that the more fluoride that a child consumes, the more cavities appear in the teeth (Study conducted by University of Arizona headed by professor emeritus Cornelius Steelink).

Click on the following article to read how an ardent supporter of water fluoridation changed his thinking and went from advocate to adversary:
WHY I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT WATER FLUORIDATION

According to the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology , they have concluded that fluoride added to the public water supply, or prescribed as controlled-dose supplements, delivers no discernible health benefit, and causes a higher incidence of adverse health effects. Click here to read and download the article.

So what kind of health effects are we talking about? Fluoride is more toxic than lead and like lead in minute doses, accumulates in and can be damaging to brain/mind development of children, producing abnormal behavior in animals and reducing IQ in humans, especially in conjunction with deficiencies of key nutrients such as calcium, iodine and vitamins. It can also contribute to many disease processes. Because it is almost as toxic as arsenic,fluoridess ability to play havoc in the human body should surprise no one.

Click here to read an article that talks about studies that have shown that fluoride consumption has a link to lowered fertility and brain dysfunction.

Click here to review an article that links excess fluorideconsumptionn to kidney disease.

Fluoride/Arthritis.

Fluoride & the Brain: Impact on Childrens IQ
Fluoride & Pineal Gland: Click here to read article.
Up until the 1990s, no research had ever been conducted to determine the impact of fluoride on the pineal gland - a small gland located between the two hemispheres of the brain that regulates the production of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate the onset of puberty and helps protect the body from cell damage caused by free radicals.

Fluoride linked to under-active thyroid hypothyroidismm)

Bone Cancer and Birth Defects

Dental Fluorosis - Excessive ingestion of fluoride during the early childhood years may damage the tooth-forming cells, leading to a defect in the enamel known as dental fluorosis.
It has been estimated that 63% of the water systems in the U.S. have fluoride in them. Many communities have been or are beginning to fight this trend. ManyEuropeann countries have succeeded in keeping it out of their water and have experienced a similar (if not better) decline in tooth decay as compared to the U.S. and Canada. Click here to read the whole study.

Countries That Have Banned Water Fluoridation
Austria, Holland, Romania,
Belgium, Hungary, Russia (15%),
China, India, Spain,
Denmark, Japan, Sweden,
France, Norway, Germany,
Greece, Portugal, UK (10%),
Netherlands

If you are still having a hard time making up your mind, click on this last reference and look at the rest of the story.
What Your Dentist Isn't Telling You About Fluoride

The Fluoride Deception

After documenting all the scientific evidence for why fluoridation is a bad idea, a common response has been: "If it's so obviously bad, why do my dentist, the Surgeon General, and my toothpaste company all say it is so wonderful?"

In his book, "The Fluoride Deception," Chrisopher Bryson begins his research as an investigative reporter to discover mountains of scientific evidence that point to a cover-up concerning fluoride's potential for human harm. He uncovers secret government and industry documents showing that the aluminum, steel, atomic weapons, phosphate fertilizer, and other industries all have been aware for more than 50 years that one of the most serious and costly pollutants these industries release is airborne fluorides. The cold war obsession with building ever more nuclear weapons to win the "arms race" cemented cooperation between government and industry to promote fluoridation. The US Public Health Service during the 1940s was still a division of the Department of Commerce and its head was a top attorney for Alcoa. Bryson found meetings and letters between the military, Public Health Service, and industry where the idea of putting a shiny public relations image on fluoride by adding it to water first surfaced.

In an interview with Christopher Bryson, he put it in his own words.

I'm a reporter. I don't know how many modern stories have the same epic reach of history and rich cast of characters as you will find in "The Fluoride Deception."
I stumbled on the story in 1993. I was working in New York as a BBC radio producer and was asked to find "an American angle" on water fluoridation. Ralph Nader put me in touch with a couple of government scientists (William Hirzy at the EPA and Robert Carton at the U.S. Army) who opposed water fluoridation, and explained how the science underpinning the nation's fluoride safety standards was fraudulent.
I met the medical writer Joel Griffiths whose 1992 story in Covert Action Information Bulletin laid out the monumental scale of industrial fluoride poisoning, and explained how industry had long manipulated the public debate over water fluoridation.
I just kept reporting.
I interviewed the famous chemist Philip Sadtler. He told me how he had investigated in the aftermath of the most notorious air pollution disaster in U.S. history, the 1948 Halloween tragedy in Donora, Pennsylvania, in which a couple of dozen people were killed and hundreds were injured. He had measured high levels of fluoride in the blood of local citizens in the disaster aftermath. His work was dismissed at the time, but after Sadtler's death I uncovered a secret autopsy report on one of the Donora dead, performed by Alcoa, which found similar levels of fluoride in the blood. Sadtler had been right, it seems.

With today's increasing revelations about drug industry manipulation of science and government campaigns of deception, maybe the time is ripe for Bryson's book. Some people won't be willing to believe that their own dentist may have been duped. They won't feel comfortable reading this book. But for everyone curious enough to glimpse into the dark side of science manipulated for profit, this book is for them.

Fluoride and Bone Cancer in Boys

The Fluoride controversy has been heating up in the news again this week. It seems that a student at the Harvard Dental school submitted her thesis in which she raised very serious concerns about fluoride's safety and its potential to cause bone cancer in teenage boys. The findings raise fundamental questions about the wisdom of adding fluoride to tap water. Click here to read her 27 page thesis. Her advisor, Dr. Chester Douglas, is alleged to have covered up the facts and/or lied about the results of her work when reporting the results of his federally funded research to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Dr. Douglas is on the payroll of Colgate. Click on the following article to read more:
Harvard Study:
Strong Link Between Fluoridated Water and Bone Cancer in Boys
Department Chair With Industry Ties Misrepresented Results to Federal Authorities

Fox News: Study Links Fluoride to Bone Cancer in Men

Obviously, this is not the first time that someone has tried to make this connection.
Click on the following article from the Taipei Times: Fluoridated water can cause bone cancer in boys - June 2005

Newsweek (2/5/90)Don't Drink the Water? . . . studies indicate that fluoride might be a carcinogen.

The Fluoride Bombshell. Oakland Tribune (2/16/90)

HEALTH EFFECTS: Fluoride & Osteosarcoma (Bone Cancer)

Fluoride Linked To Bone Cancer in Boys

I will be following this story and will let you know what happens next.

Science and Supplement News: Grapeseed Extract to Lower Blood Pressure

Grapeseed extract may reduce both high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. A small study at the University of California at Davis tested grapeseed extract among those with metabolic syndrome, a diagnosis given to patients who have a combination of high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and high blood sugar estimated to affect 40 percent of American adults. Only 24 men and women participated in the study. They were divided into three groups of eight. One group received 150 milligrams of grapeseed extract daily; the second group got 300 milligrams; the third group took a placebo. After one month, blood pressure dropped among both groups taking the grapeseed extract. And LDL (“bad”) cholesterol also dropped in the 300 milligrams group. The cholesterol reductions were greatest among patients whose cholesterol was highest at the outset of the study. The researchers are now testing grapeseed extract on pre-hypertension patients, those with systolic (top number) pressure of 120-139 mmHg, and diastolic (bottom number) blood pressure of 80-89 mmHg.

Sources:
http://www.foodconsumer.org/
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/519079/