I was watching KQED last night when a program came on in regard to the plight of the sea otters, so I decided to see what they had to say. I have to say that I was glad that I did and wanted to share it with you.
It seems that a California Democratic Assemblyman (Dave Jones) and his family took a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium not too long ago. During their visit, they were made aware of the fact that 200 + dead sea otters were showing up on the coastal shores. In case you are not aware of this already, sea otters are on the endangered species list, so to have that many show up dead is not good news. Autopsies were performed and one thing kept coming up in common with almost all the dead sea otters.
The common thread is a parasite called Toxoplasma gondi, and is a resilient and cunning one-celled freeloader that forms cysts within its host, usually in the brain and muscles. Here is where the problems occur. In its egg-like condition, the parasite is very strong and sturdy and withstands just about anything. In fact, Pat Conrad, a professor of parasitology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, says you can soak them in pure bleach for hours and hours and they still come out fit and ready to move on to other things.
The next topic of conversation blew me away because I was guilty of the crime and didn’t even know what I was doing was causing a problem. How many of you flush your cat poop down the toilet? I know I did. I would scoop out the cat feces so that the cat had a clean place to go and flushing it down the toilet seemed the most appropriate thing to do. Well, here is the rest of the story. When you flush your cat feces down the toilet, it actually survives all the chemical treatments your sewage plant has to offer and arrives alive and ready to find a host in our oceans. That has been a grim consequence for sea otters, which have not been doing so well anyway. A team that was led by Pat Conrad, examined 305 dead sea otters and 257 live ones between 1998 and 2004. Of the dead ones, 52% were infected with Toxoplasma and 38% of the live ones as well.
First of all, I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to Calfornia Assemblyman Dave Jones, his Son Will and Assemblyman John Laird for the following assistance they have given to help the plight of the sea otters. A bill was approved by lawmakers, signed by the governor and went into effect January 1st that establishes a voluntary check-off on state income tax returns to raise funds for the otter protection and research. In addition, the bill requires that cat litter sold in California carry a label suggesting that cat poop be put in the garbage rather than down the toilet.
I for one, will never put my cat poop down the john again, and I am hoping that you will do the same.
I am a big fan of the hormone melatonin, but I was surprised to read about a particular downside to this particular supplement. If you have asthma that takes a turn for the worse at night and is keeping you from getting any sleep—melatonin is not the answer.
Our bodies manufacturer the hormone naturally (a lot more when you are younger), and a study done by the researchers at the National Jewish Medical Center in Denver, found that people with nighttime asthma have a tendency to manufacture more of it as their symptoms intensify. In addition, studies also revealed that melatonin increased inflammation in animal studies of asthma. Considering that airway inflammation is one reason people with asthma have a hard time breathing, then using this particular hormone sounds like a bad idea. The same researchers measured the melatonin levels round the clock for 7 days using three different groups of people with asthma. The first group had asthma whose symptoms worsened at night, the second were asthma sufferers that had it worse during the day, and the last group did not have asthma. What they found was all three groups had melatonin levels that were the highest at night, but the asthma sufferers whose attacks were mostly nocturnal had the highest numbers of all. According to the researchers, "these findings suggest that naturally produced melatonin increases inflammation in the airways and makes lung function worse." (This may explain why melatonin supplements appear to worsen sleep apnea, too.)
The hormone that is secreted by the pineal gland in the brain is critical in regulating the circadian rhythms in the body, and in particular—sleep. It is delivered to the right places at night, generally at the onset of the evening hours before bedtime, peaking half-way through the night, and ending up just about the time you wake up. I use it every night, and think it is just wonderful for a restful, deep sleep, but then again—I don’t have asthma.
The best way for nighttime asthmatics to sleep better, says pulmonologist and lead study author E. Rand Sutherland, is to treat the asthma itself. As far as a supplement that will help you sleep without the hormone, try a good herbal extract that incorporates herbs such as valerian root, lemon balm, and hops flowers.
One night not too long ago, I was watching TV when they released a few tidbits about what was coming up on the news at ten. When they mentioned that Peter Coyote was going to do a bit for The Breast Cancer Foundation, I decided to stay up and watch what one of my favorite actors had to say. I was surprised when he announced that he had agreed to have his body tested for toxic substances and proceeded to let us know what they had found. Among a list of heavy metals and assorted chemicals that I will write about at another time, the one that peaked my interest was Teflon. Being a former non-stick cookware user, I was curious to see what they had to say…
According to what I learned from the 10 o’clock news and my research is that manufacturers of nonstick cookware have known for years that heating their products past 600 degrees may cause fluropolymers in the coating to break down. And guess what?—as these chemicals degrade, they release toxic gases, some of which can generate a temporary flu-like condition and some of which are carcinogenic, into your air. What did DuPont (the maker of Teflon) have to say about that? Well, they recommend that you cook at temperatures at or below 500 degrees. Well, we can all do that, right? Not quite.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), an environmental watchdog, stated that their study revealed a generic nonstick frying pan left empty on an electric burner set at high heat, reached 736 degrees in just 3 minutes and 20 seconds; a Teflon pan topped 700 degrees in 5 minutes.
The EWG appealed to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to insist on a warning label on nonstick cookware, but alas, you can all guess where that went.
“If you use them, it’s going to introduce something into your body that has the potential to cause adverse effects when it’s not necessary," says Diane Henshel, an associate professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs who focuses on sub-lethal health effects of environmental pollutants.
"DuPont is saying ‘Oh, it doesn’t break down like that,’ but that’s not true," she says. "Under ideal laboratory conditions, it is very slow to degrade, but no one would ever call a cooking situation an ideal lab situation.
"Everything breaks down with time and those coatings are going to be more likely to break down as they are being scraped, which happens in cooking situations, or when they are being used to heat something that could promote the breakdown of acids such as those in tomatoes, wine, or alcohols."
You know what I did when I found out? First I had myself tested to see what I did have in my body, and yes, Teflon was just one of the culprits. I then went out and bought myself a set of cast-iron cookware and geared up to detox, detox and detox.
