We had another great workshop @ ECCM this past weekend on how to do much deserved mini-detox after holiday overindulgence. For those of you who didn’t have a chance to attend, here are the handouts. Post-Holiday Detox Handouts

In this study rats were administered MSG which, in addition to damaging the liver and kidneys, also damages the thymus gland, which is important for your immune system. When rats were administered vitamin C, it counteracted the toxicity in the thymus gland. Now that’s great news except for the fact that the vitamin C was administered in extremely high doses. For an average person, it would involve taking 35 grams of vitamin C per day. I sincerely doubt anyone can ingest that high a quantity of vitamin C without some serious gastrointestinal issues, whether the vitamin C is buffered or not. So I would just consider adding vitamin C to the arsenal and not relying on it as your sole source of counteracting MSG.
 
Bratisl Lek Listy. 2009;110(4):205-9.

In this study, they used an ethanol extract of black pepper (the equivalent of 21g of pepper per day for a 70kg person) and looked at its protective effects against MSG toxicity. They found at that dose (which would be one really powerful peppersteak), there was
 
“significantly reduced level of lipid peroxides in serum, liver and kidney, serum AST activity, serum levels of triacylglycerol and total cholesterol. Though, there was an increase in the level of GSH in tissues it was not significant. However, the treatment failed to reduce the levels of ALT and urea.”
 
So, in other words, it did not provide complete protection but pretty good. So if you are making a pepper steak for example, you have to use a lot of beer with it. My cousin has an amazing beer steak recipe which I would share with you, except that he won’t share it with me, but it looks like he just puts a ton of pepper on there and pours a lot of beer on the steak as it cooks. If your vegetarian its much more likely that you will have MSG toxicity anyways so for vegetarians you could make a beer eggplant or something.
 
Indian J Exp Biol. 2009 Mar;47(3):186-92.

Drug resistance is a huge problem. As you can imagine, if you get a drug resistant strain of anything … as the name implies, it’s quite difficult to get rid of. If that happens to be a candida infection it can cause many problems from allergies to infertility. E. Coli infections can also be extremely problematic and occasionally a really bad strain gets into the food supply and some people die. In this study researchers found that the essential oil of rosemary was able to kill drug-resistant mutants of candida and E. coli as well as some other nasty organisms. If you are ingesting any essential oils you should be under the care of a health care practitioner that has training in herbal medicine. Fat soluble substances can bioaccumulate and become toxic so caution is necessary when taking essential oils internally. Suppositories can also be made from essential oils to treat local problems (such as vaginal yeast infections), however, recurrent yeast infections are rarely limited to the vagina. On the other hand, if you are susceptible to recurrent yeast infections, adding rosemary to your diet on a regular basis could be helpful. But you have to eat the leaves or cook them in oil in order for it to work.
 
Altern Ther Health Med. 2007 Sep-Oct;13(5):54-9.

For those of you who missed our workshop today in our LA office, here are the recipes in PDF form. We wanted to highlight seasonal produce that we can find in our local farmers markets (which we should ALL be shopping at) put into side dishes to serve at our holiday table that are less cloying than traditional holiday fare. Our recipes are vegetarian and do not include dairy. What you missed was a lovely Saturday morning at ECCM, a tasty sampling of Steve’s cooking and unlimited COCONUT BLISS ICE CREAM! We had 6 different flavors and toppings that included cacao nibs, granola, fresh banana, young coconut slivers, chocolate covered goji berries and a yummy red wine persimmon compote. Thank you Luna and Larry’s for our morning of bliss! Now my only hopes are that ants don’t devour our office and that the treatment rooms don’t smell like squash and shallots on Monday.  
Next workshop: My UNOFFICIAL guide to pregnancy and postpartum on December 5. 
 
recipes-fall-09.pdf

A number of studies have now shown that certain viruses (adenoviruses such as Ad-36 and SMAM-1) can cause obesity in humans. This is not new to Chinese Medicine and, in fact, they have herbs that can kill adenoviruses (e.g., Ocimum basilicum). Therefore, if you are overweight and trying everything to lose weight (unsuccessfully), then it could be that a viral infection is part of your problem, and unless you address the infection it may be very difficult to manage. In our practice, Steve Gomberg has a lot of experience treating obesity. He is an herbal medicine specialist and a certified clinical nutritionist.
 
Arq Bras Endocrinol Metabol. 2009 Mar;53(2):159-64.
Mayo Clin Proc. 2007 Oct;82(10):1192-8.
Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol. 2005 Oct;32(10):811-6.

Researchers at Cornell University found that apple skins (from Red Delicious apples) had powerful antioxidant (stronger than vitamin C) and anti-proliferative effects. Specifically they tested certain flavanoids from apple skins against certain liver cancer and breast cancer cell lines and found that both were potently inhibited. This may help explain some of the treatment strategies used by certain natural anti-cancer therapies such as Gerson Therapy, or other juicing regimens that include heavy use of apples. One of the problems though is that the skins of the apples also have the most pesticides, so remember to only use organic apples since peeling them takes out most of their anti-cancerous properties. It may be even more beneficial when juicing apples to save the fiber and then eat it later since some of the skin components will not make it into the juice (don’t mix it in with the juice or you may impair nutrient absorption). Hopefully, Steve Gomberg can give us a recipe for how to do this in a palatable way.
 
J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Nov 12;56(21):9905-10. Epub 2008 Oct 2.

Oh how I’ve been waiting for this study. Turns out that arsenic poisoning is a big problem in India due to contamination of the water supply and no alternatives. So researchers from Hamdard University in New Delhi noticed that some people who ate a lot of sugarcane didn’t generally get arsenic poisoning. So they hypothesized that perhaps sugarcane had some protective effects against arsenic poisoning. To test this, they took a bunch of mice and administered arsenic together with sugarcane and compared it to mice fed only arsenic. They found that many of the adverse effects of arsenic were substantially mitigated or entirely prevented by sugarcane. These included enhancing levels of detoxification enzymes, preventing damage to the lungs and substantially reducing inflammatory markers. Keep in mind this is sugarcane juice and not sugar. There is a huge difference between the two. Also, the study did not look at the subsequent dental health of the mice.
 
Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2009 Oct 26. [Epub ahead of print]

A recent study looked at the effects of elderberry extract (Sambucus nigra L.) on the H1N1 virus. They found that the extract prevents the H1N1 virus from infecting host cells (i.e., you), by binding to particular sites of the virus (called virions) that block prevent the virus from either recognizing your cells or from getting in. The researchers noted that the strength of the extract compared favorably to the known anti-influenza activities of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and Amantadine (both are anti-viral drugs). So keep in mind that this can be a safe and effective alternative for prevention. Once you get the virus, it can help slow it down, but doesn’t kill it. Other herbs can do that.
 
Phytochemistry. 2009 Jul;70(10):1255-61. Epub 2009 Aug 12.

MSG is now a well known excito-toxin that is found in everything from Campbell’s soup, to El Pollo Loco, to Fridays, Chilies, soy sauce, fish sauce, Doritos, Cheesy-poofs and every type of asian food imaginable. Researchers have recently begun to look into things that could counteract the negative effects of MSG. In this study, they found that ginger root did the trick, at least in mice, and at least when it was injected into their abdomens at a dose of 100mg/kg. In other words, for a 75 kg person you would need to ingest 7.5 grams of ginger per day (wow). But even at lower doses it probably has some protective effects and may explain why people don’t instantly drop dead when they eat asian food. Vitamin C is another substance that helps protect against the neurotoxicity of MSG, a recent study also found that it can protect the thymus as well.
 
Pak J Biol Sci. 2009 Feb 1;12(3):201-12
Bratisl Lek Listy. 2009;110(4):205-9.