Let's say you're trying to lose 20 pounds or boost your immunity or increase your ability to fight covid, or even cancer. Well, the amazing thing is with the right diet. You are well on your way to achieving these vital health goals. Welcome to the nutrition facts podcast. I'm your host. Dr. Michael Greger. Today. We have more information about the mycotoxins found in our food supply and as it turns out the overall cost benefit ratio for
Depends on which food is contaminated.
Ochratoxin has been described as toxic to the immune system developing fetus kidneys and nervous system as well as being carcinogenic, but that's in animal studies. Ochratoxin causes kidney toxicity in certain animal species. There's little documented evidence of adverse effects in humans. That's why it's only considered a possible. Human carcinogen big agrisure is that current ochratoxin levels are safe. Even among those who eat a lot of
Intimated Foods, the worst case scenario may be young children eating a lot of oatmeal base cereals, but even then, their lifetime cancer risk is considered negligible with those arguing against regulatory standard suggesting. You can eat more than forty two cups of oatmeal a day and not worry about it. Where did they get these kinds of estimates? They determined the so-called Benchmark dose in animals, the dose of the toxin that gives a 10% increase in pathology and then because you want to err on the side of caution you
Find that those by 500 is kind of safety. Fudge factor to develop the tall bald alien take for cancer risk. You can find that tumor dose, the dose that increases tumor instance in lab animals by 5% and extrapolate down to the negligible. Cancer risk in take effectively incorporating a five thousand fold safety Factor. Seems kind of arbitrary, right? But what else you got to do? I mean, you can just intentionally feed people to stuff and see what happens though.
So I look at people eat it all the time. Can we just follow people and their diets out over time and see if people who eat more whole grains? Like oats for example are more likely to have cancer or live shorter lives. What is the association between whole grain and taken all cause cardiovascular and cancer mortality? Every additional ounce of whole grains. A day is associated, not only with a lower risk for cancer, but also a lower risk of dying from all causes put together. Bottom line is that you don't find adverse.
Confirmed in these population studies. This is not to say ochratoxin is necessarily harmless, but any such risk, it does pose doesn't outweigh the known benefits of whole grain consumption. And in fact healthy constituents of the whole grains themselves, like the antioxidants May directly reduce the impacts of mycotoxins by protecting cells from damage. So eating lots of fruits and vegetables may also help either way a healthy diet can play a significant role in mitigating the risk in summary.
He foods like whole grains are good, but not as good as it could be because of ochratoxin. Whereas Less healthful Foods, like wine and pork are worse because the mycotoxin ochratoxin was detected. For example, in 44 percent of tested pork.
In our next story. We ask is toxic mold syndrome, a real thing. And what do we do about toxic mold contamination of food
in recent years? Mold has been blamed for all sorts of vague, sir.
Active symptoms, we have little scientific evidence that molds has anything to do with them. However, this concept of toxic mold Syndrome has permeated the public Consciousness, perpetuated by disreputable predatory practices by those making money testing homes for mold spores, or testing people's urine or blood. But all these tests are said to just further propagate misinformation and inflict unnecessary. And often exorbitant costs on patients desperate for a diagnosis, the continued
Belief in this myth is perpetuated by those charlatans who believe that measles vaccines cause autism, that Homeopathy Works in that fluoride, in the water, should be removed. Mold, toxic contamination of food. However, has emerged as a legitimate issue of serious concern, perhaps, even more important than other contaminants, that might make their way into the food supply, hundreds of different types of been identified, but only one has been classified as a known human carcinogen and that's aflatoxin the ochratoxin, I talked.
For is a possible human carcinogen, but we know aflatoxin causes cancer in human beings. In fact, aflatoxins are amongst the most powerful carcinogens. We know about. For example, it's been estimated that about a fifth of all liver cancer cases, may be attributable to aflatoxins and since liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths, worldwide and kills. So rapidly after diagnosis, the contribution of aflatoxins to this deadly cancer, quite significant and once it makes it into food, there's almost nothing you can do to her.
Remove it cooking, for example, doesn't help. So once it makes it into crops or the meat Dairy and eggs from animals consuming. Those crops. It's too late. So we have to prevent contamination in the first place and that's what we've been doing for decades in this country because of government regulations companies are almost always sampling for aflatoxin resulting, in nearly a billion dollars in losses every year, which may get worse if climate change worsens aflatoxin contamination in the midwest Corn Belt.
So when a consumer level, it's really more of a public health problem in the less industrialized World, such as African countries. Where conditions are ripe and Farmers, can't afford to throw away. A billion dollars worth of crops. Indeed aflatoxin remains a public health threat in Africa, rural China, southeast Asia affecting more than half of humanity, which explains why the prevalence of liver cancer in those areas may be 30 times higher, but it is not a major problem in the US or Europe.
For example, only about 1% of Americans have detectable levels of aflatoxins in their bloodstream. Why even one percent though? Well, the FDA Works to ensure that the levels of exposure to. These toxins are not kept as low as possible, but instead as low as practical, for example in California, there's been an increase in unacceptable, aflatoxin levels and pistachios almonds, and figs unacceptable in Europe. That is so it affects our ability to export but not necessarily unacceptable for us consumers.
As we allow twice as much aflatoxin contamination, things are unique. Since they're allowed to dry on the tree. This makes them particularly susceptible to aflatoxin production. It would be interesting to know about the Fig consuming habits of the 1% of Americans who turned up positive for the toxin. If things were to blame, I'd encourage people to diversify their dried fruit consumption, but nuts are so good for us, that we really want to keep them in our diet, the cardiovascular health benefits.
Way the carcinogenic effects preventing thousands of strokes and heart attacks for everyone case of liver cancer. Thus the population health benefits, provided by increased nut consumption clearly outweigh the risks associated with the increased aflatoxin exposure. So, we're left with aflatoxin being mostly a problem in the developing world and because of that, it remains a largely in rather shamefully ignored Global health issue where attention has been paid. It's been largely driven by the need to meet
Agent import regulations in the Richard nations of the world, rather than protect the billions of people exposed on a daily basis.
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