What I’m Reading This Month: Toxic Metals in Protein Powders, Preconception Care, and the Importance of Magnesium When Taking Vitamin D

What I’m Reading This Month: Toxic Metals in Protein Powders, Preconception Care, and the Importance of Magnesium When Taking Vitamin D

 

February 2018

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.

Is Your Protein Powder Contaminated With Toxins?

Yet another source of toxic metal exposure…

Ever since purchasing my Vita-Mix blender 20 years ago, I’ve been making protein smoothies for breakfast, and recommend the same for patients. This information from the Clean Label Project, much like their analysis of baby foods, is vital for those using protein powders regularly.

While important, it’s not enough to know about calories and nutrient content in the foods we eat (as required to be listed on food labels). Understanding chemical contamination, when that information is available, is imperative. These results, and the brands in the worst category, may surprise you, given how heavily marketed and readily available they are in our health food and grocery stores. Also very disappointing is the heavy metal content in some of the organic varieties.

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Securing a Child’s Future Needs To Start During Parents’ Teen Years

I’ve long advocated for “preconception care” for building optimal development of future offspring. To initiate the discussion about healthy lifestyles during pregnancy, as part of “prenatal care”, is too late.

For planned pregnancies, I often see intense focus on “getting pregnant”. A heightened awareness about getting healthy before getting pregnant is an important point of emphasis. This paper talks about looking at specifically mental health, obesity and substance abuse during adolescence.

Outlining truly healthy nutrition and lifestyle habits cannot be overlooked … the sooner the better. Preconception care, not just prenatal care.

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Physician-Industry Relationships Further Cloud Hypertension Guideline

Physicians make treatment recommendations to their patients according to clinical practice guidelines. Those guidelines establish the “standard of care” for any given condition, including high blood pressure. But what if the authors of the guidelines , i.e. expert medical consultants, have been or are paid by the industry that profits from the guidelines becoming established? Then what? The risk occurs when the guidelines are based on bias. That they become established in practice based on false premise. Not following them puts a physician’s medical license at risk, whereas complying may risk a patient’s health. This is not the first time doctors have faced this dilemma, if they dig deeper at all. Most I suspect just toe the line and never question. Patients may suffer, industry profits.

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Low Magnesium Levels Make Vitamin D Ineffective

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It’s Up To Us To Keep Children Safe From Toxins

“Children in the world today are exposed to thousands of environmental toxics, and these toxic chemicals are making our children sick.

More than 85,000 new chemicals have been brought to market by the chemical manufacturing industry since 1950. These are chemicals that never before existed on earth. They can be found today in vast numbers of consumer products that include soaps, shampoos, children’s clothing, toys, car seats, chemical herbicides, neurotoxic insecticides, blankets and baby bottles.”

+ Since the Lead Crisis, Reading Scores in Flint Drop Dramatically

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Metal Concentrations In e-Cigarette Liquid and Aerosol Samples

Smokers can’t win. And a modern source of lead exposure: e-cigarettes.

“A few studies have detected toxic metals such as chromium, nickel, and lead in e-liquid and in the aerosol produced by e-cigarettes. Concern for metal exposure is derived from the serious health effects of metals, including neurotoxicity and cardiovascular disease for lead, and respiratory disease and lung cancer for chromium and nickel.”

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Probiotics May Lower Risk of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

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