What I’m Reading This Month: Aluminum and Autism, NAC for Cancer Treatment, and Science Manipulation by the Sugar Industry

November 2017

The sheer volume of health, wellness, and medical news and commentary available on the internet can be overwhelming. Every month, get a taste of what integrative medicine leader Dr. John Gannage finds interesting (and digestible) on the web.

1. How Targeting Gut Bacteria and Fungi Interactions May Help Manage Chronic Intestinal Inflammation

This one new review focusing on the “mycobiome” as part of the microbiome and its role in gut inflammation validates so much of how Integrative Medicine can be practiced. The testing and treatment of fungal activity in conditions that involve a GI tract inflammatory component have been a centerpiece of Functional Medicine forever, and the concepts discussed need to go mainstream. We are seeing a surge of research in support of the “leaky gut” hypothesis, and the gut-microbiome-brain axis as well. They all tie together. Add addressing fungal activity and you have a recipe for success.

“Based on the observation that bacteria and fungi cooperate in exacerbating intestinal chronic inflammation, the use of antifungals and probiotics could be a potential new treatment for restoring the balance of beneficial microorganisms.”

2. Aluminum in Brain Tissue in Autism

The gun is starting to smoke? Some metals are neurotoxic. Singly or together they can trigger neuroinflammation and brain pathology. A biologically plausible explanation for brain disorders. What are the sources of exposure? Any good clinical results when they’re removed? Follow the science, do some research, and find practitioners that are long experienced in this critical area of environmental/integrative medicine.

3. Cancer Cell Growth Halted with NAC

In the good news category! A common antioxidant, available over the counter and with a long history in integrative medicine, may play a role in treating cancer. A new study in women with breast cancer showed reduction in biomarkers associated with cancer aggressiveness after combined use of intravenous and oral NAC, based on before and after biopsies.

“These findings indicate that treatment with NAC could be an inexpensive, non-toxic way to stop cancer cell growth and division.”

4. Sugar Industry Sponsorship of Germ Free Rodent Studies Linking Sucrose to Hyperlipidemia and Cancer: An Historical Analysis of Internal Documents

Right out of the tobacco playbook … the “let’s add lead to gasoline and get away with it” playbook … the “RoundUp ready” crop playbook …

“The kind of science manipulation that the tobacco industry engaged in is exactly the same kind of behavior that we’ve documented in these papers from the sugar industry.”

“In 1965, the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) secretly funded a review in the New England Journal of Medicine that discounted evidence linking sucrose consumption to blood lipid levels and hence coronary heart disease (CHD).”

“The sugar industry did not disclose evidence of harm from animal studies that would have (1) strengthened the case that the CHD risk of sucrose is greater than starch and (2) caused sucrose to be scrutinized as a potential carcinogen.”

#TaxSoda #TaxSugar #IndustryManipulatesScience

5. Letter: Toronto Star Influenza Vaccine Claims Not Supported by Evidence

You can listen to the commercials if you wish. You can read the posters at the pharmacies and grocery stores that advise getting the shot. On the surface that recommendation appears sensible and innocuous. But if you have the time and the interest (I suggest developing both), you should read this piece. It’s evidence-based and researched … what we all need more of. Facts.

Still hungry for information? Find previous month’s picks here.