21 Possible Causes of Our Hidden Inflammation:

About 10,0000 people turn 65 every day in the US (baby boomers are the generation born between 1946 through 1964). Compared to one generation before, baby boomers show 46% more diabetes, 38% more hypertension, and 5.9 fold more hyper-cholesterol. Can you imagine what the numbers on Generation X (born 1965 – 1976: 51 million) and Millennials (born 1977 – 1998: 75 million) will be? We have advanced medical technologies than one generation before; many people have stopped smoking. What’s causing this mess? Here are my thoughts, in terms of how food may be contributing to these staggering concerns. BPA, PBC, chlorine dioxins, fluoride, bromine, pesticides, lawn chemicals, synthetic fiber carpets, emulsifiers found in soaps and cosmetics, solvents and adhesives.

If you do not have a time to read over this page, at least look at these two links. You will get it what I am trying to say.

Please take a look at this blog – Froot Loops Cereals U.S. version vs UK version 

and this charts from Institute for Responsible Technology

#1 – Fat-Free/Low Fat/No Fat
This diet craze hit in the late 1980s – 1990s. We need to burn fat by eating good fats- like olive oil, coconuts oil, or red palm fruits oil that contain full of essential fatty acids such as Omega 3 and 6 but we were introduced to eat fat-free chocolate cookies, fat-free rice cakes, low-fat yogurt, low-fat macaroni and cheese, 2 % pasteurized milk (pasteurized is another problem). The liver and gallbladder started to get confused because no good fat is coming in. More gallbladder surgeries are one of the end results. When food manufacturers took fat out of their products, they put sugar and/or salt in their products to make their food taste better. Your brain needs fat. Your joints need fat (oil) to function better! By the way, “Olestra”(zero-calorie fat substitute, to make “fat-free” snacks, like fat-free potato chips, are banned in the U.K. and Canada. It causes GI problems as well as weight gain. And avoid using Safflower Oil as well as Canola, Soybean oil. You may read this short article “8 Toxic Seed Oils – What to know“. Here’s the good article about Palm Oil (vegetable oil) – The truth about palm oil: the dark side you probably don’t know. Please read about it. It has listed all “disguised ingredient labels under the different names” using this oil like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Glyceryl, Palmityl Alcohol, Stearate, Ethyl Palmitate, Sodium Lauryl Lactylate etc…

#2 – SUGAR: Introduction of HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) & Artificial Sweetener
The U.S. scored the highest consumption of sugar in the world. 150-170 pounds of refined sugars in one year. That’s a lot of sugar! This goes hand in hand with the fat-free craze. Food companies took good fat out and added HFCS into it so that the taste was sweet and more appealing to the general public and the calorie count was low and no fat. Americans love fat-free salad dressing and used large portions in salads and dips.  Eating sugary food is not good but fake sugar and HFCS have a more damaging effect. The sugar is hidden and can be found in BBQ sauces, bread, baked goods, canned fruits, cookies, crackers, frozen dinners, hot dogs, ketchup, marinades, peanut butter, pickles, a can of soup. Sugar is known to create a significant drop in the ability of White Blood Cells (WBC) to kill bacterias and germs within the body and numb the brain! About the danger of artificial sweeteners, please check my blog. It will make you gain weight, disrupt your gut, make you infertile and more… “The danger of Artificial Sweeteners use”

#3 – Whole Wheat (Gluten) Products + Refined and refortified grains and grain-
based foods
Today’s whole wheat bread is not a made from pure wheat like your grandma used to eat: it is now a crossbred product. Here’s the short article about this. Now, most of the naturally occurring fiber, vitamins, minerals – those good parts we needed to nourish your body – get stripped off. Food industries put “synthetic” versions of vitamins and minerals in them instead. A box of cereal, energy bars, granola – are no longer the REAL FOOD, but all synthetic chemicals. Please read the labels carefully when you are purchasing these products. Please watch this interview with Dr. Perlmutter (neurologist) and Fox News. You will think twice to consume whole wheat again…

#4 – Diet Sodas, Sports/Energy drinks
Those empty calories mess up our body’s chemical balance. These “zero” calories drink are the major cause of many unknown inflammatory autoimmune diseases. After your vigorous exercise or prolonged activity, you think it is a good idea to drink electrolyte drink like Gatorade to stay hydrated. Do you know 20 oz Gatorade contains 135 calories of sugar? It is a whopping 9 teaspoons of sugar. Zero-calorie Gatorade contains artificial sweeteners, which is not good for your health either. How about the bottle of cold green tea? You buy a bottle of cold green with rose hips and ginseng because it sounds very healthy, but most of those drinks contain 20 and more grams of sugar and “natural flavors” of green tea, which means artificial chemical coloring dyes. Even the popular vitamin water contains 2.5 servings (check those labels!) that will come up to 33 grams of sugar. Fanta, Crush – they are all same junk in it. Stay away!!! Looking for a hydrating beverage after a workout? Try coconut water!

#5 –  Artificial flavor and food coloring
The next time you buy blueberry muffins, take a look at the small print. Does it say “made with imitation blueberries”, “artificial flavor” or “natural flavor”? In order to make the dark purple the color of blueberry, the artificial flavor red “40”, blue “1”, blue 2” are used. Be sure to read the ingredients: Enriched bleached flour  (all of the natural nutrients are stripped off), palm kernel oil (inexpensive vegetable oil) and all chemicals go with it to make the perfectly beautiful blueberry muffins.  Preservatives are in the food from mashed potatoes flakes (containing BHA), emulsifiers, flavorings, citric acid etc. Do you buy boxed mac and cheese? Yellow food colorings No.5 and No.6 have been shown to cause hypersensitivity in children. These artificial dyes were developed from coal tar but are now made from petroleum products, and are banned in Norway, Finland, and Australia. Please check my blog about “Anatomy of Froot Loop Cereal”. This popular cereal for kids is loaded with food coloring banned in many other countries many years ago.

#6 – Partially hydrogenated oils (soybean oil, known as BVO – brominated vegetable oil), partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, partially hydrogenated rapeseed oil etc…
Those oils are “unstable” oils that harm your organs on the cellular level. They appear everywhere from chocolate chips to baked goods to peanuts butter. Most importantly: margarine – it is not food! Eat real butter like Kerry Gold, Coconuts oil, Olive oil, or Palm Fruit Oil (not Palm Oil). Please stop using the palm spray!

#7 – Imitation Eggs (egg beaters, egg whites in a carton, etc.)
People buy these items because we believe eggs raise cholesterol, but that is not true. I have treated many patients who eat organic eggs every day to every other day, and their cholesterol is much lower than patients who eat no eggs. Imitation egg products are very popular among vegetarians, but they contain natural flavor, vegetable gums, and synthetic vitamins. Please read the labels. If you do not have food sensitivities to them, feel free to eat 1-2 real eggs per day. Buy Pasture Raised eggs not organic nor cage-free.

#8 – Lack of regulation of vitamins and supplements
Yes, we should take multivitamins, vitamin D, fish oil,  B-complex, iron, calcium, etc. But do you know what they are made of? Most of my patients come in with a huge bagful of synthetic vitamins, and they are mostly chemical compounds that can become harmful if you are taking a large amount. For example, B-complex. If you pee neon in 30 minutes later, you are wasting your hard-earned money into the toilet every day – it comes in and goes right out. Did you know that your body is not able to digest more than 250 mg of vitamin C at once? Are you taking 1000 mg or more of calcium pills in order to avoid getting osteoporosis? You need to take magnesium with calcium or it won’t be absorbed properly. Instead of going to the bones and tissues, excess calcium will cause calcium to deposit in the body which may attach to the kidneys (in the form of kidney stones), or other tissues (lymphoma and frozen shoulder).

#9 – Synthetic Hormones rBGH & rBST to animals
This is a huge culprit for poor health in America! These two cancer-causing growth hormones can be found in dairy products, such as yogurt and milk. Check the label for “rBGH-free” when you buy organic milk and dairy products. American farmers have learned how to make more income by injecting hormone (estrogen) to animals to make them grow faster and fatter. Excessive estrogen (estrogen dominance) is the major cause of the fertility issues I see in my clinic. These hormones are totally banned at milk and dairy farms in the European Union, Australia, Canada, Israel, and New Zealand.

#10 –  Chemicals sprayed, injected into our vegetables, fruit, and fish

  • Who do you think about the baby carrots is so toxic? Read this short article before you reach out to the baby carrots at the party!
  • I have had a patient who knows about the scallop fishing industry. One day she brought me a bag full of fresh-caught scallop from Cape Cod Bay. I asked why this scallop tasted so good? This is the taste of the scallop I used to eat when I was in Japan. She said to me that as soon as the fishermen come back from scalloping, they put scallops into the solution for 2 reasons. #1. follow the regulation to avoid getting contaminated and #2. sell scallops at the higher price since scallop swells up quickly as twice the weight.

#11 – Over-prescribing antibiotics and vaccination
Please read this short article (10/03/2013) and this chart and my blog.

#12 – GMO (Genetically Modified Organism)/Canola Oil 
Produce with a PLU# sticker starting 8xxxx is telling you that it is genetic material that has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. Please visit the Healthy Living – Diet Page. The biggest culprit for GMOs is Canola Oil. Do you know Canola stands for “Canadian Oil Low Acid”? The Canadian government subsidizes the production of this oil (developed from the rapeseed plant), making it extremely cheap to produce. Rapeseed oil is the source of mustard gas, and on its own, it causes emphysema, respiratory distress, anemia, constipation, irritability, and blindness. But through the beauty of genetic modification, we now sell it as edible oil. 75% of GMO crops are engineered to tolerate herbicides. Glyphosate is Roundup’s active ingredient. EPA estimates that 300 million pounds – nearly 800,000 full bathtubs – are sprayed on crops and lawns in the US per year.

#13 – Soy (Synthetic Processed Soy)
Many foods contain soy and corn because these two are very inexpensive to produce. Just like wheat, this 
company produces GMO seeds. If you like to eat Tofu, this company produces Non-GMO Tofu.

#14 – Dairy Product 

think about where the dairy product comes from? Do you think you get high-quality milk, butter and cheeses from cows got injected Antibiotics and eat unhealthy grains? Buy organic butter from Iceland or Ireland, eat imported cheese. Milk – I recommend hemp, almond, oats, or coconuts milk instead.

#15 – Non-Stick Cookware (PFOA/perfluorooctanoic acid) and Microwave Oven

This is a big problem. Almost everybody uses it when you make eggs and pancakes. Every single restaurant uses it. Here are articles talks about the danger of using non-stick cookware

#16 – Mold Toxins

(Aflatoxin) from Peanuts, we eat!!! You can easily be measured by the test like Greater Plains’ Mycotoxin Test.

#17 – Toxins in Drinking Water

Chlorine, Fluoride, Lead, Mercury, PCBs, Arsenic, Perchlorate etc… Toxic Blue Algae due to increasing usage of Glyphosate

#18 – Preservatives & Environmental Toxins includes Flame Retardants and OP (Organophosphate)
These “hormone disruptors” are a big cause of poor health and one that can find its way into your world without you knowing. Products you use every day, thinking they don’t have an effect, can have major effects on your health. Here is the Washington Post article about “84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States”. These are the most common types of flame retardants and the study done at Oregon State University in 3/17 “Flame retardant chemicals may affect social behavior in young children”. Please see the chart on the right (courtesy of University of Washington) with red to see how OP (Organophosphate) is blocking the receptors. It is the major problem!!!

  • Brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs)
  • Organophosphate-based flame retardants (OPFRs)
  • Organophosphate Poisoning article – Pharm.D Aid

 

#19 –  EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) Exposure

#20 –  Toxic Chemical in your Personal Care Products

  • Parabens – deodorant, lotion, hair products, and cosmetics. Paraben is a hormone disruptor mimicking the action of estrogen.
  • BHA and BHT – preservatives in makeup and moisturizers. There are also endocrine disruptors.
  • Synthetic Colors – labels as FD&C or D&C. These colors are derived from coal tar or petroleum sources. Many countries banned many years ago.
  • Fragrance – Synthetic chemical cocktails used as the scents in fabric softener (sheets), perfumes, shampoos, body washes etc…
  • Formaldehyde-Releasing Preservatives – used in a variety of cosmetics. Watch out!!!
  • SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Sodium Laureth Sulfate) – in cleaning products, personal care products to make forms – check your shampoo and conditioner to see if it contains SLS or not.
  • Toluene – made from petroleum (coal tar). It is used in nail polish and synthetic fragrances.
  • Triclosan – the antibacterial ingredient found in toothpaste (Colgate total for example) is a major endocrine disruptor.
  • Propylene Glycol – used for skin conditioning agent like sunscreen, shampoo, hairspray, moisturizers and believe or not used in e-cigarettes! This chemical is very toxic to the skin, liver, and kidney causes neurological symptoms.

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