Take broccoli for example, that green and crunchy vegetable loathed by children throughout the ages. My kids would flatly refuse to eat this nutritional goldmine when they were little. Brocoli is a rich source of a phytonutrient called d-glucarate, with proven powerful anti-cancer qualities, by enhancing the liver’s ability to detoxify toxins and pollutants. Regular intake of broccoli is associated with a reduced risk of lung, gastrointestinal and breast cancers. Another superfood cancer fighter found in this humble green vegetable is sulforaphane. This compound blocks the formation of tumours caused by chemical carcinogens, and actually causes cancer cells to die off. Sulforaphane also supports the important phase II liver detoxification enzyme systems. An even more potent way of receiving these broccoli health benefits is to add broccoli sprouts to your salads daily, as they contain 30 – 50 times more of these protective chemicals compared with broccoli itself.

As we’re talking green things and cancer prevention, we cant go past mentioning the powerfully antioxidant rich green tea as a vital addition to your healthy diet. This traditional dietary staple of the orient is bursting with antioxidant compounds, the most important of which is a polyphenol called EGCG. Test tube studies show that these compounds potently cause cancer cells to self destruct, while leaving healthy cells unaffected. Studies with animals show these same compounds inhibit the formation of cancerous tumours in the skin, lungs, liver, stomach, breasts and colon. That cup of steaming hot green liquid is not only working in the fight against cancer. Green tea is also an ally for your cardiovascular health, as EGCG helps to reduce the oxidation of “bad” LDL cholesterol, and it is this oxidation that increases the likelihood of LDL cholesterol actually sticking to artery walls and causing clogging. The more green tea you sup, the lower your risk of cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure. If you’re worried about your gradually increasing blood glucose levels, start drinking 4 cups of strong green tea a day and you could well see blood sugar begin to drop.

If I’ve convinced you about the merits of green tea, invest in a tea pot and some quality green tea leaves. Don’t use the decaffeinated green tea as it is lower in naturally occurring antioxidants. Make the tea in the pot, ensuring the water is hot, but not boiling. Boiling water will make your tea taste bitter and unpalatable. Pour on your water, pop on the tea cozy and leave to steep for ten minutes before drinking, for maximum health benefits.

ADHD or attention deficit disorder… it’s everywhere!  Kids in their millions are swallowing Ritalin type drugs daily, and in their wake, an ever growing torrent of the newly diagnosed.  Theories about its growing prevalence abound.  Is it modern parenting practice?  Too much TV and screen time?  Too much sugar and processed foods?  I would argue that each of these factors has some impact on childhood behaviour and focus. 

Now there is a new and fairly robust theory, and from my perspective it’s one of the most frightening.  Children whose mothers are exposed to pesticides while they are pregnant are more likely to be destined destined for an ADHD diagnosis.  This recent study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives, shows yet another troubling way in which exposure to organophosphate pesticides can throw the human body into turmoil.

Why do I find this latest finding frightening?  Because organophosphates are everywhere, and it is a rare human being that does not have residues of these powerful chemicals in their bloodstream and tissue.

In this most recent study, researchers tested pregnant women for organophosphate chemicals, and found that the higher the residue in their urine during pregnancy, the more likely their offspring were to have ADHD symptoms at age 5.  A ten times increase in pesticide residues in the mother’s urine, equated to a 500% increase in offspring ADHD by the age of 5.  Interestingly, if the children themselves had organophosphate resides in their urine, but were not exposed in utero, their risk for ADHD still increased, but no as dramatically.  Don’t take too much comfort from this though, as another study demonstrated that children with high organophosphate in the urine were twice as likely as those with undetectable levels to have ADHD.

It hardly seems like rocket science to me.  After all organophosphates are designed to attack the nervous system of bugs, by affecting the neurotransmitters (brain chemicals that carry messages).  One of these affected brain chemicals is acetylcholine, which is vital to the development and function of the human brain.

The good news (yes there is some!) is that swapping to an organic diet during pregnancy, and feeding your children organic fruits and vegetables, will radically decrease organophosphate exposure.  A study in Environmental health Perspectives (2006: 114) looked at pesticide levels in children living in Seattle USA.  For the first five days the children ate their usual shop bought, spayed diet.  For the next five days they ate only organic foods; and finally went back to another 5 days of sprayed foods.  Not surprisingly, researchers found that pesticide residues in their urine were high in the two “conventional food” phases, and virtually non-existent in the organic phase. Take home message?  Organics protect our kids (and us) from damaging and toxic pesticide residues.

In New Zealand the Total Diet Survey has for years demonstrated that our pesticide exposure is many times greater than in other countries.  The 1998 survey estimated Kiwi kids to have organophosphate exposure twenty times greater than their American counterparts! Forget the “clean, green NZ” propaganda.  The truth is that our food and our environment is contaminated with a plethora of agricultural chemicals harmful to our nervous system and hormonal health.

Children actually come out worse off than adults when it comes to pesticide residues, as they eat proportionally more food than adults, and they also tend to eat more fruits and vegetables for their body size.   The latest Total Diet Survey (2003/4) shows that young children get twice as much pesticide in their food compared with adult men.

What to do about all this bad news?  It’s simple really.  Make the choice to pay the extra, and convert your kitchen to organics.  If you can’t go the whole hog, at least convert to organics for the foods most likely to contain organophosphate residues -  bread and wheat products; pears, apples, nectarines, tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce.

It’s October again.  That means we will be washed away in a sea of pink… pink sky tower, pink lapel ribbons, pink t-shirts.  Our pink overdose all in the name of supposedly saving women from breast cancer.  The funds raised to go towards more research into this disease… it’s early detection and “cure” through western medicine.

While the intention of reducing the suffering of women and their families yet to be effected by this terrible disease is indeed noble, it never fails to engender a huge bucket loads of frustration and cynicism for me.

I am frustrated by the almost exclusive citation of the “early detection” mantra… and the glaring absence of real information on the subject of breast cancer PREVENTION.  This frustration which peaks around this time of the year, every year, is a big part of my decision to write my latest book, “Wellbeing”.  The hundred pages I have devoted to the subject of breast cancer, is all about what we know about prevention, and making different choices on a daily basis, for our future breast health.

The truth is there is much we have yet to discover about what triggers the development of breast cancer…. but there is much we already know, or strongly suspect about how our lifestyle and environment play a part in its development.  We’re starting to realise that lowering our breast cancer incidence is not as simple as just teaching adult women a healthier way of living.  The relatively new science of epigenetics suggests that lowering our risk involves teaching women about diet, nutrition and a clean environment while they are pregnant, in order to lower the future risk of their yet unborn child.  Our maternal responsibility doesn’t stop there – the diet a baby girl is exposed to as she grows from infancy to womanhood may well play a significant part in switching on the genes which allow the uncontrolled breast cell division of breast cancer.

I feel especially frustrated when I hear the hundreds of millions of dollars of money poured into breast cancer research, alongside the deafening silence from the breast cancer elite, surrounding the subject of environmental toxicity.  Instead of spending hundreds of millions on the next great way of detecting breast cancer early, what about spending some of that money cleaning up the toxic environment we live in.

Many of the chemicals routinely used in agriculture and industry are potent endocrine disrupters.  They are chemicals which even in trace amounts are able to disrupt our hormonal system.  Some of these chemicals are also frank carcinogens.  Women are especially at risk from endocrine disrupters.  We absorb them more easily then men, and once in our body, they take up residence in our greater mass of fat tissue (including breasts), and stay there indefinitely.

Our supposedly “clean, green” New Zealand in fact caries a shameful legacy of environmental pollution. As an agricultural country, our use of endocrine disrupting agricultural chemicals is high.  Only last year we finally banned the use of the powerful endocrine disrupting herbicide Endosulfan.  This is a chemical banned for decades in other countries because of its known ability to disrupt the hormonal system, and potentially lead to the development of cancer.

I could go on for hours on this subject.  It makes me very hot under the collar!  So this October, I may well not be wearing a pink ribbon in my lapel, but you can bet I will be out there speaking, teaching, writing, and letting women know the truth about what they can do to help themselves.

To Your Wellbeing…

Lynda Wharton

lynda@lyndawharton.com
www.lyndawharton.com