Dr. Gordon’s Comments: You are not taking enough fiber to keep your intestinal flora happy unless you are on Beyond Fiber. With the epidemic of food sensitivities today just consuming a great probiotic is not enough, as you must feed the new flora. I hope you will learn more about stabilized rice bran with artichoke and EDTA, as found in Beyond Fiber!

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Link: http://www.nhiondemand.com/hsjarticle.aspx?id=958&utm_source=NHI+OnDemand+Newsletter+List&utm_campaign=3dc63070d1-HSJ_Dec7_2010&utm_medium=email 

Excerpt:

Cardiovascular disease or heart disease is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels (arteries and veins). There are several risk factors for cardiovascular disease that are essentially immutable. These are older age, male gender, and a family history of CVD. Additionally, three major risk factors identified include cigarette smoking, dyslipidemia (high cholesterol), and hypertension. Other identified factors associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease include physical inactivity, sleep problems, diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity, excessive intake of alcohol, thrombotic and fibrinolytic factors, elevated homocysteine levels, certain infections and inflammation, exogenously administered estrogens and androgens, certain psychosocial factors, increased fasting glucose. and frequency of migraines. The synergism of the presence of multiple risk factors must also be considered.

Dietary fiber is a general term that refers to a wide variety of compounds from plants that are resistant to the digestive enzymes produced by humans. Because dietary fiber is resistant to digestive enzymes, it is not broken down or absorbed, which means it does not provide calories or energy to the body. In general, high fiber diets are associated with significantly reduced risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all cause mortality. It is generally recommended that Americans should strive to achieve a total dietary fiber intake of 25 to 30 grams/day, which should preferentially come from foods, not supplements. However, dietary surveys indicate that dietary fiber intake among adults in the United States averages about 15 grams/day, or approximately half the recommended amount.

Dear Sherrel,

Thank you for your note.  As I told you by phone we have been getting 
quite a few reactions from Truvia.  Pure stevia is fine but Truvia is 
made by Coke, and has chemicals.  It is sweetened with Erythritol and 
has added an ingredient of stevia only.  In fact, I did an expose on 
it which was shown in France.   You can be sure if Coke and Pepsi 
have anything to do with sweeteners we have no way of assuring 
safety.  Here is an email I wrote about 
it:  http://www.mpwhi.com/health_problems_and_truvia.htm and an 
investigation by Arthur Evangelista who use to work for the FDA.

Also, what worries me is aspartame and MSG are hidden in artificial 
and natural flavors.  As a heart patient you have  to be absolutely 
sure you never get aspartame.  It even damages the cardiac conduction 
system and causes sudden death: 
http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_and_arrhythmias.htm and 
http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_msg_scd.htm  They know that aspartame 
is addictive and sells lots of pop.  So unless somebody analyzes 
Truvia we have no idea what is causing people to have all these 
reactions from it.  The reactions you describe are exactly like 
aspartame which causes chemical hypersensitization.  One man got off 
it and got well, and then later was given a cookie sweetened with 
aspartame and had tachycardia, fast heart rate, so bad they had to 
stop his heart to save his life.

I would stay away from artificial sweeteners.  Just Like Sugar is 
okay because its food and not additives, just chicory used 70 years 
to improve the health of diabetics.  There have been no reactions to 
it or complaints.  Stevia that you get from a health food store is 
fine as long as it does not  contain additives.  In Brazil they even 
add aspartame to it.  Until aspartame is removed from planet earth we 
can’t be sure where its hidden.  Somebody needs to analyze Truvia 
because there are far too many complaints.  I’m glad you have not 
knowingly used aspartame.  Below my signature is the Aspartame 
Resource Guide with detox and other information.  The knowledge will 
prove useful to you.  The detox is very helpful.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Full article: http://www.fliqz.com/aspx/permalink.aspxvid=75c53ffb47df42fb85809973823b249d

Excerpt:

Nova
A Tale of Two Mice
In this audio slide show, Dr. Dana Dolinoy of Duke University explains the role that the epigenome, a sort of second genome, plays in regulating the expression of our genes. As Dolinoy notes, we can no longer say with certainty whether genetics or the environment have a greater impact on our health, because the two are inextricably linked through the epigenome.

Posted: July 1, 2008
CHAPTER 1: THE AGOUTI SISTERS

DANA DOLINOY: Hi, I’m Dr. Dana Dolinoy, a post-doctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Randy Jirtle at Duke University. In our laboratory we study epigenetic gene regulation, or how environmental exposures interact with the epigenome to affect long-term health and disease.

So today I’d like to introduce you to two Agouti mice. And as you can see, the yellow mouse is quite obese, and she is also prone to diabetes and cancer. But on the other hand, the brown mouse remains slender and lean and also has a lower risk of developing disease.
But what’s really amazing about these two mice are that they are genetically identical — they are two identical twin sisters from the same mother. So what makes them look so different?

CHAPTER 2: THE EPIGENOME

DANA DOLINOY: Well, it turns out that there’s a second genome called the epigenome. Epigenome literally means, in addition to, or above, the genome, and while the recently completed human genome project identified approximately 25,000 genes, these genes still need instructions for what to do and when to do it and where to do it, and that’s where the epigenome comes into play.

A useful analogy is to think of the epigenome as the software that directs the genomic hardware of a computer. All of our cells contain the same DNA and genes, but it is the epigenome that decides how these genes are expressed and determines how a cell becomes a heart cell, a liver cell or even a hair cell.

Epigenetics consists of molecular switches and markers, such as DNA methylation, that help control gene regulation in which a quartet of atoms called a methyl group attaches to DNA and shuts down genes. And as you can see the red balls here are attaching to the DNA and turning off the gene.

CHAPTER 3: THE ELUSIVE AGOUTI

DANA DOLINOY: So back to the Agouti sisters. In the yellow obese mouse, the Agouti gene is unmethylated and turned on all the time, while in the brown mouse, the gene is completely methylated and shut down. There are also other mice that appear mottled in which half of the cells are methylated and shut down, and the other half are unmethylated and turned on, and these mice appear to be yellow and brown. So the coat colors of these Agouti mice acts like a sensor for the amount of DNA methylation present.

We used the Agouti mice to study how maternal nutrients and environmental factors affect the epigenome. Specifically, we wanted to know whether a mom’s exposure to a contaminant found everywhere in the environment can alter the fetal epigenome, and eventually the long-term fate of her offspring.

In the study, pregnant mothers were exposed to a common chemical found in certain plastics. This chemical is called bisphenol-A, or BPA for short, and it’s present in many commonly used products, including food and beverage containers, baby bottles, dental sealants and the lining of food cans.

About four years ago, the CDC studied approximately 400 people, and in 95 percent of these 400 people, they measured detectable levels of bisphenol-A. And when we fed the pregnant mothers, the mice, BPA, we noticed that the number of offspring with the yellow obese coat color increased dramatically, and we also saw that maternal exposure to this chemical decreased DNA methylation in the offspring and turned this Agouti gene on when it is supposed to be off.

CHAPTER 4: BREEDING HEALTHY PUPS

DANA DOLINOY: So we started a second study in which pregnant mothers were exposed to BPA plus nutritional supplementation such as methyl donors like folic acid or genistein, which is a common ingredient found in soy products. The level of soy that we provided is similar to what a person who eats a high soy diet or an individual living in Asia might eat.
And once we did this, we observed that the offspring were no longer predominantly yellow and more obese, and that there were more offspring with the slender brown coat color phenotype. This indicates that maternal nutrient supplementation can counteract the negative effects of exposure to that chemical.

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS

DANA DOLINOY: The traditional thinking about human health and disease is that it is affected by genetics and the environment, and whenever identical twins have different disease status, this was often attributed to the environment or different behavioral choices such as smoking status.

But with epigenetic gene regulation, we can see that we can no longer say whether genetics or the environment have a bigger impact, because it may be not only what you were exposed to, but what your mother and potentially grandparents were exposed to as well. And maybe even your father.

These studies with the agouti mice show us that we can no longer say whether genetics or the environment have a greater impact on our health, because the two are inextricably linked through the epigenome. This work suggests in the future that we may be able to protect individuals from negative epigenetic profiles, either by modifying the diet or developing drugs that can affect epigenomic profiles, although we’re several years away from doing this.

Excerpt:

MANY things make us stand out as individuals, from our fingerprints to our iris patterns. Now scientists have discovered another – the viruses in our gut.

People who are closely related tend to have similar bacteria in their intestines. But a study of the viruses in people’s faeces has found that even identical twins have uniquely different populations of these tiny tenants.

Florent Angly, a biologist at the University of Queensland and a co-author of the study, said the findings showed that factors such as health and diet were the biggest influence on the kinds of viruses people harboured.

”Twins have an identical genome, so including twins in the study was designed to find out what is more important: nature or nurture,” he said.

The significant association of plaque Lp-PLA2 with plaque macrophages and C. pneumoniae suggests an interactive role in accelerating inflammation in atherosclerosis. A possible mechanism for C. pneumoniaein the atherogenic process may involve infection of macrophages that induce Lp-PLA2 production leading to upregulation of inflammatory mediators in plaque tissue. Additional in vitro and in vivo research will be needed to advance our understanding of specific C. pneumoniae and Lp-PLA2 interactions in atherosclerosis.