Krill and Black Fungus

I bought some dried black fungus (also called cloud ear fungus) and some dried krill from Chinatown. One thing I noticed that the Chinese people (& some other cultures) eat a lot of calorie poor, micro nutrient rich food. In North America, both foods will be considered not worthwhile for consumption (quote-unquote “there is nothing in them”) or too weird.

150 gram of dried krill only contains 80 calories; while a bag of 100 g of dried black fungi contains 200 calories. The former is about 4 servings and the latter is at least 10 servings. In both cases, each serving is about 20 calories.

Krill is a great source of omega-3 fatty acid.

Black fungus has been used in Chinese herbal medicine for increasing the fluidity of the blood and improving circulation. It is given to patients who suffer from atherosclerosis. Recently Western medicine seems to confirm its anticoagulant property. Eat your daily black fungus instead of aspirin.

Compound in plants (Luteolin) reduces age-related memory deficits

Recent study suggests that luteolin improves cognitive health by acting directly on the microglial cells to reduce their production of inflammatory cytokines in the brain (here).

Luteolin is a common flavonoid found in many plants, including carrots, peppers, celery, olive oil, peppermint, rosemary, oregano and chamomile. It is thought to play an important role in the human body as an antioxidant.

"The researchers next turned their attention to the effects of luteolin on the brains and behavior of adult (3- to 6-month-old) and aged (2-year-old) mice. The mice were fed a control diet or a luteolin-supplemented diet for four weeks. The researchers assessed their spatial memory and measured levels of inflammatory markers in the hippocampus, a brain region that is important to memory and spatial awareness.

Normally, aged mice have higher levels of inflammatory molecules in the hippocampus and are more impaired on memory tests than younger adult mice. Aged mice on the luteolin-supplemented diet, however, did better on the learning and memory task than their peers, and the levels of inflammatory cytokines in their brains were more like those of the younger adult mice."

Facts about Sugar (2)

Came across this video through the Daily Lipid regarding fructose.



In my previous blog, I indicated that sugar is bad for us because we ate too much (which leads to fatty acid and triglyceride synthesis) and because refined sugar is empty calorie.

It is still true that excessive sugar is bad for us as when our body have too much of any one of the three dietary monosaccharides (glucose, fructose & galactose), fatty acids and triglycerides will be synthesized. Fatty acids get stored and make us look fat. Too much triglyceride is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

However, according to Dr. Robert Lustig, fructose is simply toxic. While glucose can be metabolized by every cell in the body, fructose can only be metabolized in the liver. Therefore, in this regard, consuming high fructose is like consuming high alcohol, which damages liver. And the byproducts of fructose metabolism are toxic, one being uric acid, the agent in gout. Galactose (mostly found in milk) is also metabolized in the liver, but we usually do not consume excessive amount.

So I stand corrected. Not all sugar is created equal. On the other hand, it is probably too radical to label fructose toxic. If eating whole fruits is healthy, then fructose cannot be toxic.

The importance of gut flora

Some say that you are the average of 5 of your friends. This may be true in social and financial status. When it comes to health, you may be whom you invite to live with. I am talking about microbes that live on your body.

Wikipedia put it this way about the gut flora: “The human body, consisting of about 100 trillion cells, carries about ten times as many microorganisms in the intestines. The metabolic activities performed by these bacteria resemble those of an organ, leading some to liken gut bacteria to a "forgotten" organ. It is estimated that these gut flora have around 100 times as many genes in aggregate as there are in the human genome.”

Studies have linked the microbes in our intestines to beneficial effects, including breaking down fiber into fatty acids; repressing the growth of harmful microorganisms; training the immune system to respond only to pathogens; and defending against some diseases and they are also linked to diseases such as obesity, colon-rectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and colitis. In a study released today, scientists show that gut bacteria in zebra fish modulate an important signaling pathway where colorectal cancer takes root. The pathway happens to be the wnt pathway, which is known to play a key role in the homeostasis of many tissues; furthermore, its signaling via ß–catenin (one of Wnt’s several receptors) is perturbed in a variety of tumors. Now two complementary papers have demonstrated that Wnt may play a causative role in aging (ouroboros).

My mother has this ailment that I always considered it as a neurosis. Whenever she is nervous, upset or tired, she has diarrhea. This disease is passed on to all her four children. Now all of her children are over 40 years of age and no longer suffer from this ailment. I talked to a family practitioner about it 10 years ago and was told that it was pure nonsense. Reading studies about gut flora made me realize that this ailment has something to do with gut flora, since we all acquire our gut flora from our mothers. In my own case, it took about 20 years after leaving home to be rid of this nuisance. Now my gut flora is probably very different from my mother. I have no doubt that gut flora is as important as scientists claim. Therefore, studies should look at long term couples (different genetics, same gut flora) to see what roles genetics play and what roles gut flora play in cancer development and other diseases.

AH, IS THIS NOT HAPPINESS (4)

We had planned a day of driving through the countryside of Vermont just to soak in the beautiful fall weather with the leaves changing. Unfortunately, it rained and will probably rain the whole day.

Instead, Husband plastered the ceiling where there was water damage and I repaired and altered an old jersey shirt. I have been repairing old cotton clothes recently as they are so much more comfortable just before they get worn out.

AH, IS THIS NOT HAPPINESS!!!

New way of counting calories

Instead of counting daily calories, I just tabulated the last 100 days of food by weight from grocery bills.

On average two of us ate 3700 calories per day with 38% fat, 44% carbohydrates and 17% protein. Omega 6 to 3 ratio is around 3, not taken into consideration of occasional spoonful of flax oil.

My BMI is at 18.8 and Richard is at 22.1; most people “hate” us because we look so thin.

Here are some of the foods we ate:

25 kg of fish
108 eggs
9 kg of nuts
18 kg of cheese
46 kg of grapes
32 kg of apples
Over 100 kg of vegetables
22 liters of red wine
3 kg of chocolate
& etc.

Looking at the amount of foods we ate, I would assume that we are over-eating. In reality, we are 10 to 20% caloric restricted.

I would like to pad myself on the back and say “Keep up the good diet”.

Branched-Chain Amino Acid (BCAA) supplements promote longevity in middle-aged mice

Branched-Chain Amino Acid (BCAA) supplements promote longevity in middle-aged laboratory mice according to the article published in October's Cell Metabolism.

BCAA includes leucine, isoleucine and valine. All three are essential amino acids, which means that our body cannot synthesize them and therefore must be taken in through our diet.

Consuming BCAA supplements is different from consuming proteins containing these three amino acids, as the former enters directly into the blood stream and the latter needs to be digested first.

BCAA are already marketed for human consumption. I would think that it is safe for older males who show signs of sarcopenia. However, one must be careful about the balance of things. Previous studies have shown that protein and methionine restriction increase maximum longevity in rodents, whereas neither carbohydrate nor lipid restriction seem to change rodent longevity.

Additional note regarding this research is that data was compiled on male mice only.

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Optimum Nutrition Instantized Bcaa 5000 Powder, 336 Grams (11.8 Oz)

It's time to phase out codeine

Scientists say that it is time to phase out codeine.

However, only 20 days ago, codeine was handed out to every single patient in a day-surgery ward. Even though RMD vomitted out the 2 pills of codeine (in Tylenol 3 format) and was in extreme pain, he was totally ignored until it was time to kick him out as he became hindrance to workers wanting to go home. He was then given a shot of morphine and was pushed out of the hospital. The beauty of public health care - money saved and life not endangered.

I Am Grateful (1)

Last Friday morning getting up at 8:30, the first thing I went to check was the basement. I had my episode of “Oh, Is this not happiness” already written in my mind. 65 mm of rain had fallen over the night and not a drop of water in the basement; this was what I had imagined. Instead, water over spilled from the gutter. Any water collected by the gutter was supposed to drain down to the city sewer. However, one year the city sewer backed up into our basement and we had water 2 feet deep. So we blocked the exit to the sewage and had not installed a sump pump.

The gutter would not have had collected any water if we had sealed it with a special cement. Installing a sump pump is easy; it is digging a hole deep enough to put the sump pump that is difficult, but feasible.

Therefore, I am still grateful. I am grateful because we have a basement and it can be made sturdy, dry and beautiful.

Richard opened up the connection to the sewer, so water ran down the drain in seconds and moist was dried in a day with a fan.

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“You cannot exercise much power without gratitude because it is gratitude that keeps you connected to the power. … The grateful mind is constantly fixed upon the best, therefore it will receive the best”.

Wallace Wattles The Science of Getting Rich

Cancer drug imatinib may be used to treat Parkinson's Disease

Interesting research by Johns Hopkins scientists ( Parkinson's Disease: Excess of Special Protein Identified as Key to Symptoms and Possible New Target for Treatment with Widely Used Anti-Cancer Drug) shows that a widely used anti-cancer drug imatinib (currently marketed as Gleevec by Novartis) may be effective in controlling symptoms of Parkinson's Disease.

The interesting point is that a single drug is being used to treat different cancers, but now a cancer treating drug is also implicated in Parkinson's disease, which is a degenerative disorder of central nervous system. Of course, most cancers and Parkinson's disease are age related. Ageing as a disease needs to be widely accepted before all age related diseases can be cured.

Another example of multi use cancer drug under clinical trial is Ipilimumab by Bristol & Myers Squibb.

Saturated fat not as bad as previously thought

New evidence shows that saturated fat intake has only a very limited impact on Cardiovascular Disease risk -- causing many to rethink the "saturated fat is bad" paradigm ( via eurekalert).

This probably partly explains the French Paradox, that French people suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats.

This in turn causes me to wonder why cheese is so much more expensive in North America than in Europe. I suspect that it is due to low demand caused somewhat by the propaganda that we have been hearing for over 30 years that saturated fat is a major culprit of cardiovascular disease.