August 23, 2005
MORE MONKEY CHOW, PLEASE (via Michael Herdegen):
Folate May Reduce Risk of Alzheimer's Disease (Patti Connor, August 15, 2005, WebMD Medical News)
Diets high in folate may help reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease.During a nine-year study, researchers showed that older adults whose diets were high in folate reduced their risk of Alzheimer's disease by half compared with those whose diets contain less than the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA).
The study appears in the inaugural issue of Alzheimer's and Dementia: the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association. [...]
Folate has also been shown to lower blood levels of homocysteine, a risk factor for heart disease. High homocysteine levels, as well as decreased folate and vitamin B-12 levels, have also been associated with stroke and Alzheimer's disease.
The American Heart Association does not recommend widespread use of folic acid supplements to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. They recommend a healthy, well-balanced diet that includes at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
Foods rich in folate include oranges and bananas, leafy green vegetables, asparagus, broccoli, liver, and many types of beans and peas, as well as fortified bread.
If we'd been smart we'd have stayed apes. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 23, 2005 10:31 PM
Bread and pasta are fortified with the exact same chemical as in the supplements - why not take a pill?
Posted by: pj at August 24, 2005 8:58 AM"If we'd been smart we'd have stayed apes."
And lived on a diet rich in raw monkey?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at August 24, 2005 10:50 AMpj:
Because you get much more than folate from whole fruits and vegetables.
During all of human history, we ate whole grains, whole fruits, whole vegetables.
After WW II, for Americans, we started eating more and more processed foods, to the point where the top three "vegetables" consumed by Americans are tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, and french-fried potatoes.
Adam and Eve were in the "Garden" of Eden, not the Abattoir of Eden.
If we would return to a more natural style of eating, rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's would plummet.
This was also the conclusion of a 1997 report by the World Cancer Research Fund, an international nonprofit group that focuses on the prevention of cancer through diet. It reviewed 4,500 studies on the connection between cancer and nutrition and found that cancer is mostly a preventable disease,
with colon cancer being one of the most preventable.
The WCRF report found that the key ingredient in reduction of colon cancer risk is vegetable consumption.
"Foods rich in folate include oranges and bananas, leafy green vegetables, asparagus, broccoli, liver, and many types of beans and peas, as well as fortified bread."
MMMM. Raw Monkey Liver.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at August 24, 2005 4:58 PM