Good Fats - What Are Healthy Fats?

Those who say all fats are bad for you are, of course, dangerously incorrect. As it turns out, plant-based fats are powerful cancer fighters, and even saturated fats from plant sources are now being shown to offer extraordinary health benefits.

If you want to prevent cancer, or you're currently battling colon cancer, prostate cancer or breast cancer, it is essential to get plant-based fats into your diet on a daily basis. What kind of plant-based fats are we talking about? What are the healthy fats?

Canola oil is what I consider a neutral fat, meaning it's not necessarily a bad fat, but neither is it considered one of the healthier fats. The healthy fats include extra-virgin olive oil, flax seed oil, and fats from plant sources such as nuts, seeds, avocados, and coconuts. These healthy fats should be consumed with every meal. Failure to include these fats in a meal will result in many of the nutrients consumed during the meal not being absorbed by the body. That's because many nutrients are fat-soluble nutrients. Beta carotene, Vitamin D, and Vitamin E are three such nutrients that require fat in order to be absorbed and used by the human body, but there are many other nutrients that also need fats for human metabolism.

Incidentally, these oils do much more than just fight cancer, they also improve your cardiovascular health and fight weight gain and obesity. The benefits list is a long one.

A fascinating new study published shows that dietary fat is necessary for the absorption of nutrients from fruits and vegetables. In the study, people who consumed salads with fat-free salad dressing absorbed far less of the helpful phytonutrients and vitamins from spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and carrots than those who consumed their salads with a salad dressing containing fat.

This is interesting research, but not necessarily all that surprising. We've known for a long time that healthy fats are a critical part of a healthy diet, and that avoiding fats actually causes chronic disease. The key is in choosing the right kind of fats for your diet and making sure you don't overdo the fats, because fats have a very high caloric density and can add far more calories to your meal than you might expect.

The fact is we all need fats. Fats helps nutrient absorption, nerve transmission, maintaining cell membrane integrity etc. However, when consumed in excess amount, fats contribute to weight gain, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Fats are not created equal. Some fats promote our health positively while other increases our risks of heart disease. The key is to replace bad fats with good fats in our diet.

In other words, if you take super food supplements without fat, you're not getting the same benefit as taking the same supplements with a little bit of fat

The total amount of fat you eat, whether high or low isn't really linked with disease. What really matters is the type of fat you eat.

Cancer Institute Urges Caution With Cell Phones

A prominent US cancer institute has posted a notice on its website urging cell phone users to take precautions when using cell phones because advice from an international panel of experts says cell phones have not been around long enough for scientists to be sure about their safety.

The announcement comes from the Center for Environmental Oncology (CEO), part of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and says that following the advice of an international panel of experts, comprising cancer experts from Europe and the US:

"Electromagnetic fields generated by cell phones should be considered a potential human health risk."

Not enough time has elapsed for us to be sure of the biological consequences of cell phone and cordless phone technology, said the CEO, and until then, people should be careful.

The CEO said that recent studies "which include subjects with a history of cell phone usage for a duration of at least 10 years, show a possible association between certain benign tumors (acoustic neuromas) and some brain cancers on the side the device is used".

Research that estimates the penetration of electromagnetic radiation from cell phones based on age, shows that children are considerably more vulnerable than adults, said the CEO, explaining that the frequency bands used by cell phones (from 800 to 2200 MHz), even below the power threshold required by most safety standards, causes "an increase in the permeability of the blood-brain barrier and an increased synthesis of stress proteins".

Neither the expert panel nor the CEO suggests people should stop using cell phones, which they refer to as "a remarkable invention and a breakthrough of great social importance". One of the experts, a brain cancer survivor, Dr David Servan-Schreiber, continues to use his cell phone.

The message therefore, is that users should take precautionary measures, and especially those who have cancer already.

The CEO suggested this 10-point list of precautions:

1. Children should only use cell phones for emergencies. Organs that are still growing are likely to be the most sensitive to electromagnetic fields.


2. When using your cell phone, keep it away from the body as much as you can. Compared to holding it next to your head, the amplitude of the electromagnetic field drops to 25 per cent at two inches (5 cm) distance and to 2 per cent at three feet (about 1 metre).


3. Use speakerphone, or a wireless Bluetooth headset, as much as possible. These have less than 1 per cent of the emission of a normal cell phone. A hands-free ear piece may also reduce exposure.


4. Using your cell phone in public, crowded places, like a bus, means others are passively exposed to your phone's electromagnetic fields, so avoid using it in these places.


5. Keep your phone away from your body as much as possible - don't carry it on your body. Don't keep it near your body at night (eg under a pillow or on a bedside table), especially if you are pregnant. Put it in "flight" mode, which stops electromagnetic emissions (you can still other functions such as the alarm in this mode).


6. If you have to carry it on your body, keep the keypad toward you and the back of the phone pointing away from you so more of the transmitted electromagnetic field moves away from you rather than toward you.


7. For long conversations use a landline with a corded phone, not a cell phone or a cordless phone, since both use similar electromagnetic emitting technology.


8. Alternate right and left ear when using your cell phone, to spread the exposure. Wait until the person you are calling answers before placing the phone next to your ear. In other words, do everything you can to cut your exposure time with the phone close to your body.


9. Avoid using your phone when travelling at speed, such as on a train, or when the signal is weak. The phone will be trying to connect to a new relay antenna, and uses higher power to do this.


10. Text rather than call, as much as you can. This limits exposure in two ways: less time on the phone and the phone is further away from your body.


11. Choose a phone with the lowest possible Specific Absorption Rate (SAR, a measure of the strength of the magnetic field absorbed by the body). Use the keyword phrase "sar ratings cell phones" to search on the Internet.

There has been a somewhat sceptical reaction to the CEO announcement in the press today, with many reports saying there is a considerable body of research that has found no risk to health from cell phone usage.

The National Cancer Institute website says that studies have so far failed to show a link between brain tumours and cell phone use.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says on its website that:

"The available scientific evidence does not show that any health problems are associated with using wireless phones. There is no proof, however, that wireless phones are absolutely safe. "

In research, there is a saying "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", which perhaps urges us all to consider this news carefully and make up our own minds.

Gates And Bloomberg Unite In Global Fight Against Tobacco

Two of the world's richest philanthropists, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg pledged on Wednesday to spend 500 million dollars to make people all over the world stop smoking. They announced the news together at a press conference at the TheTimesCenter in Midtown Manhattan.

Michael Bloomberg is mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg LP, a giant financial software services, news and data company. Through Bloomberg Philanthropies he has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars for research and interventions in health; recipients include the Johns Hopkins University, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Lung Foundation and the World Health Organization. Under the Bloomberg Initiative, grants are awarded for projects aiming to cut tobacco use.

Bill Gates is leaving his post as chairman of Microsoft, the giant software company that he co-founded with Paul Allen in 1975, to become a full time philanthropist and do more collaborative work. He and his wife Melinda founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has to date spent more than 3 billion dollars in fighting AIDS and malaria, much of it in Africa. Yesterday's announcement is Gates' first initiative in the anti-smoking field.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco is going to kill 10 times more people in this century than it did in the last century, with figures suggesting up to a billion deaths, most of them in developing countries like Bangladesh and middle-income countries like Russia, reported the New York Times.

Bloomberg's plans include a pledge of 250 million dollars over the next four years. This is in addition to 125 million dollars he gave two years ago. The Gates' will be pledging 125 million dollars over the next five years. These donations will give an enormous boost to the current 20 million dollars a year spent on antismoking efforts in these countries, according to figures from the WHO.

The joint donations will form part of a campaign announced by WHO director Dr Margaret Chan and Bloomberg in February this year. Called MPOWER, the campaign brings together efforts from the WHO, the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the World Lung Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the CDC, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The campaign will lobby governments to raise tobacco taxes, stop smoking in public places, ban advertising to children, promote anti-smoking initiatives, and give tools and resourcers to help people quit. There will also be US-based workshops and training for specialists, newswriters, government and health officials, on topics ranging from how to catch smugglers to how to help people quit.

Blomberg welcomed the Gates' involvement in the campaign:

"I'm delighted Bill and Melinda Gates are supporting one of the most important public health efforts of our time. Our commitments will help governments confront the tobacco epidemic by implementing the proven MPOWER package."

"This means assuring well-staffed tobacco control programs, raising tobacco taxes, running hard-hitting public information campaigns, creating comprehensive smoke-free public places and banning tobacco advertising," added Bloomberg.

Gates said that:

"Tobacco-caused diseases have emerged as one of the greatest health challenges facing developing countries."

"The good news is, we know what it takes to save millions of lives, and where efforts exist, they are working. We are pleased to join with Mayor Bloomberg, who has made the fight against tobacco a priority in New York City and around the world," he added.

As mayor, Bloomberg has been instrumental in introducing anti-smoking measures to New York City and raising taxes on tobacco.

Information from an accompanying press statement gave some facts about the tobacco crisis in those parts of the world the campaign will focus on:

• The poorest households in Bangladesh spend almost 10 times as much on tobacco as on education.


• China has 350 million smokers, about a third of the world's total, and suffers a million deaths a year from tobacco.


• Indonesians spend on average 2.5 times more on tobacco than on education, and 3.2 times more on tobacco than on health.


• In India, where many people smoke "bidis", deaths due to tobacco-related causes are expected to rise from 700,000 a year to 930,000 a year by 2010.