Conventional vs. Organic: It's Not About Getting More, But Getting Less For Your Money. Less Pesticides, Dioxins & Co

Image 1: The Ökomonitoring program took a very different approach to the question whether or not organic products are worth the extra cost, they did not look for the additional edge, but rather the "subtractive edge", if you will, and tried to answer the question: "Can we even produce 'organically' in an increasingly polluted environment"; now ten years after the program started the answer appears to be "Yes!" (MLR. 2012a)

"Organic produce is no better than conventional! You are being ripped off!" Statements like this have made the headlines in the past couple of days and many people (obviously not you, though!) are scandalized or shaking their head haughtily uttering things "I knew it, and that's why I always buy the cheapest..." What both groups are missing, though is the simple fact that the question the scientists posed, or rather the question the journalists put to the forefront, i.e. "Are organically produced fruits and vegetables more nutritious?", is nonsensical, because it would imply that the absence of certain chemical agents and production methods would increase the amount of nutrients a plant puts into its fruit, leaves, roots or whatever. Since I have discussed this with my friend Carl Lanore on yesterday's joint SHR + SuppVersity News Round Up pretty extensively (in fact so extensive that we could not cover the other topics I had lined up - sorry for that, folks!), I won't go into more detail on that here, but simply repeat that the fallacy of this approach was part of my reasoning not to bore you with write-up / comment #5325 published that's been published on the bazillion of blogs within the past couple of days, but rather give you the long and short of a governmentally subsidized program that's been running for 10 years, now, here in Germany: the Ökomonitorin program of in Baden-Württemberg (this is one of the individual states here in Germany).

It's not about what's in there, but about what is not!

The researchers who are mainly working at the University of Stuttgart set out with a whole different research question than most of their colleagues. Rather than trying to answer loosely defined questions such as "What's better: Conventional or organic", they wanted to know whether or not it would even be possible to "produce organic" in an environment that is already profoundly polluted; and though I don't want to give away too much in advance, after 10 years and ten-thousands of samples of organic and conventional fruits, vegetables and animal products being analyzed the answer is "Yes it is!"

"Organic fruits and vegetables had on average 180x lower pesticide content than conventional products; and only 5% of the samples from organic produce were objectionable."

That's the conclusion the researchers in the 10-years special report that has been published in July 2012 (MLR. 2012b). Since I know that you don't content yourself with universalities like this (otherwise you would hardly be here ;-), I would like to invite you to let me walk you through some of the detailed results of the latest data from 2011, although this may not be the exact same goods you have (or haven't) been buying in the course of the last year (I just checked: Only ~6% of you are actually from Germany)

The good the bad and the equally ugly

While the general trend that emerges does in fact speak in favor of the organic products, a brief look at the data in figure 1 should suffice to see that despite the fact that the number of offenders, i.e. products with pesticide residues above the maximally allowed threshold is close to zero, even organic produce is far from being pesticide free.

Figure 1: Percentage of conventionally and organically produced products with detectable (those did not have to be above the allowed threshold levels!) pesticide residues (data based on MLR. 2012a)

Of all the categories I picked when I compiled figure 1 there are however four product categories that caught my eye immediately, because the "organic advantage" as you may call it, is particularly small, here: Wine, plant oils and processed fruit and vegetables (the latter category included frozen, usually relatively pesticide free, but also canned food and dried foods, as well as fruit jars etc.). Intriguingly, in all of those four the pesticides could (and in the case of the Wine, the researchers even proved that) have gotten into the food-chain during the processing / manufacturing process, as well - in other words processed and organic tend to be contrastive pairs.

Figure 2: Percentage of products with pesticide levels above the allowed threshold (data based on MLR. 2012a)

When it comes to the actual "offenders", i.e. those products with levels above what is officially allowed, here in Europe, there are actually seven of which I feel that they really stand out (one for each day of the week, isn't that great?):

Mothercorn, the "abortion fungus" of the middle ages, the first source of LSD and the result of inappropriately stored and subsequently moldy grains / flour being used in the production of breads, is a potential cause of auto-immune diseases and lethal toxicities.

The mothercorn (Claviceps purpurea) content [µg/kg] of multi-grain breads with rye and wholemeal rye bread (please mind the leap on the primary axis; data based on MLE. 2012a)

The ingestion of 2 mg of mothercorn does already lead to adverse reactions which range from nausea over headaches, and cramping to a loss of sensation in the extremities and vascular occlusions (the latter will also arise from chronic low-grade intoxications)- in pregnant women it will induce contractions of the uterus and spontaneous abortion. The ingestion of 5-10g of the ergot-alkaloids from the fungus kill an adult man... not exactly what you want to have in your bread, right? Not even in "harmless quantities" - which is what even the worst offenders would have to be considered, still.

• the processed foods - irrespective of whether you buy veggies or fruit, you can be sure that the contamination raises with every processing step; be smart not lazy and buy whole foods, learn how to prepare them and cook for yourself
• cereals - 3.4% of the "oh so healthy superfoods", of which at total 72% of the conventional and 36% of the organic ones contain pesticides, are also on the list of items even the European officials suggest you should better not eat, if you don't want to become sick
• legumes - another favorite of mainstream dietitians are not just among the worst offenders (24% of the conventionally produced legumes contain pesticides above the tolerable limit), they are also the only product where even the organic variety is not suitable for human consumption in 11% of the cases and as if that was not enough, the number of substances above that threshold amounts to 17 compounds in the conventional and 3 substances in the organically produced legumes
• leafy greens - the health food per se may not be among the worst offenders but in those 6.7% of the samples that had pesticides above the the threshold level, the scientist were able to identify 27(!) different pesticides (note: not all pesticides were found in all samples and the worst offenders were not broccoli & co, but rather salads)
• ginger (=ingwer)- the conventional variety something many people use to improve their health had higher than tolerable levels in 12.5% of the cases; a health food "gone unhealthy", if you will
• berries - they may not be among the worst offenders, but they are "versatile": With 5 different pesticides in the samples the scientists analyzed they can't compare with the processed veggies with 45 different pesticides, but are doing quite "well"
• exotic fruit and citrus fruit - while with them the conventional farmers obviously assume that the consumer would throw away the peel anyway; or, and this segues right into our next topic, there are no governmental controls and regulations in place; after all, you should be aware that Germany is not exactly the country to grow "exotic fruits" ;-)

If we seize on the notion of "it's not us, it's only the others that contaminate their produce, ship it to Europe (or the US) and poison us", we must however realize that things aren't so easy as they seem: While the German organic produce may in fact be the less polluted one, neither the Israelis nor the South Africans or Moroccans, but rather our European friends, the Italians are trying to poison us ;-)

Figure Y: "Worst offenders" statistics for the countries of origin of organic produce (based on MLR. 2012b)

Now, all jokes aside, it is simply not possible and probably also highly un-rewarding to replace one prejudice, i.e. all organic produce is good with another more sophisticated one such as all organic produce from Germany is good and everything from Italy, Egypt and Greece is poison. Therefore, it is probably also not so important that the intricacies of these statistics are meaningless for the majority of you who are (I just checked) US residents and not among the 6% "resident" (=German) SuppVersity students ;-)

Organic = Say no to GMO!?

With the different legislative situation here in Germany, the quantitative data on GMO "contamination" in figure 3 is probably likewise irrelevant for many of you, but with the production of GMO corn being banned, here in Germany, it does give you a sneak peak on what can happen if the government is willing to act on behalf of its people (the majority of Germans is against GMO) instead of the industry (in all fairness it must be said that it is the US and not the European, let alone the German agrar-industry that's constantly trying to push GMO corn and other produce into the German market).

Figure 4: Relative percantage of soy and soyproducts that has been genetically modified (MLR. 2012b)

Even among the conventional produce, the number of outliers was small - roughly 5% of conventional products contained <0.1% corn from genetically modified plants - a result which is probably also to be accounted for by the awareness of the industry that they will have to throw all their produce away once the GMO-skeptic consumers realize that product is contains significant amounts of genetically modified plants.

The data in figure 4 does yet also show that things look different for soy products, most of which are imported from countries where the production of GMO foods is actually allowed (like the US ;-) and even non-GMO crop can be exposed to cross-contamination. If we take a closer look and discard the annual variations, it does yet become obvious that the GMO content of organic products is just as their pesticide content still much lower than it is in conventional ones. What is pretty troublesome, though, is that in 2011 25% of the products that are advertised as "GMO free" contained small amounts (<0.1%) of genetically modified soy - for you, my American friends this means: Having a label alone does not protect you from "GMO fraud" ;-)

Eggs, salmon, animal productts and other notable observations and changes from 2002-2012

Before I'll conclude this post with a couple of notes on trends and general observations the scientists who have been working on the Ökomonitoring program over the past 10 years made and let you make up your own mind of "whether or not you feel that getting less is worth paying more", let me briefly address the issue of dioxin-laden organic eggs Carl and I have been talking about, yesterday, already:

Image 2: If you have not done so, already, I highly suggest you read my previous post "Urban Gardening: 12x More Cadmium in Your Tomatoes Than in the Conventional Produce? Plus: Domestic vs. Foreign - What's Healthier?". After all, your own organic tomatoes and other produce can be effected by the environment in which you grow them, as well.

• Not just organically produced eggs, but also organically produced salmon have on average higher levels of DDT, PCB and total dioxins (TEQ) and HCB, DDT2, PCB 153, Dieldrin, Endosulfan, Chlordan, Toxaphen, Tribromanisol, PBDE, respectively (note: wild salmon is almost free of any of the latter!)
• Those contaminations are not brought about by what the farmers do, but rather what they didn't do, i.e. make sure that their free ranging hens are not running around on toxic soils and their fish are not swimming in a toxic sea - and this is where the initial research question of the Ökomonitoring program, "Can we even produce organically?", must be answered with a somewhat shabby: "It depends" and the one parameter it depends on is the environment, to which the animals (and to a much lesser degree, the crop) are exposed
  

Now, the implications of this are not that all organic animal products are worse than their conventional counterparts (in fact the number of products without any residues is larger for the organic products, unfortunately those products which are contaminated contain much higher levels!), but rather that you have to be choosier and try not to rely on the label "organic", if you know your local farmer and trust him, you may be better off buying his non-organic eggs that those from an organic farm on contaminated land...

Find out if your area has contaminated soil by using the MyEnvironment search engine at epa.gov! Enter your area code and get the result right away. If you type in "Bronx New York", for example, you will learn that the major risk factor from air pollution is formaldehyde, that there are two final NPL sites and so on and so forth (thanks to Carl Lanore and Alisa Profumo for pointing this out on today's Casual Friday).

But enough of that let's wrap it up for today, with a couple of more or less unrelated, but interesting facts, the first of which is so important that I decided to repeat it, although I mentioned it at the beginning of the article, already:

What is Furan? Furan is a heterocyclic compound that has originally been used in the chemical manufacturing industry. It does however also occur during the combustion of coal and is a component of tobacco smoke, as well as in a number of heat processed food items such as canned and jarred foods and coffee (FDA. 2004). Furan is carcinogenic to rats and mice and was classified as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ (International Agency for Research on Cancer, 1995; see as well Cordelli. 2010; Chen. 2012)

• on average 180x lower pesticide residues in organic fruits and veggies - that's the astonishing result after 10 years of Ökomonitoring
• no = ZERO pharamcologically active substances in any of the testes organic produces
• antibiotics residues in organic honey were reduced from 23% to 0% from 2003 to 2005; no complaints thereafter
• the mycotoxin load is about equally high in conventional and organic produce
• No significant differences in terms of organic contamination and pesticide residues exist between animal products; the dioxin load in eggs free ranging hens and organic salmon are exceptions to this rule (while levels spiked in 2009, when "buying organic" really took off over here and more and more farmers started producing "organic eggs", the levels have been slightly declining over the past years)
• the way organic coffee is roasted leads to increased furan levels in organically produced roast coffee
• the amount of acrylamide in cookies is equally high in organic vs. conventional products, the in organic chips is higher and the number of samples with levels above the 1,000µg/kg threshold is higher as well
• no differences were found in terms of trans fatty acids in ready-made meals
• organic softdrinks are free of preservatives
• no artificial colorings in organic sweets

Now it's up to you - organic, yes or no? And remember: We cannot always make everything 100% right, but that does not mean that you should give up trying.

References:

• Chen T, Williams TD, Mally A, Hamberger C, Mirbahai L, Hickling K, Chipman JK. Gene expression and epigenetic changes by furan in rat liver. Toxicology. 2012 Feb 26;292(2-3):63-70.
• Cordelli E, Leopardi P, Villani P, Marcon F, Macrì C, Caiola S, Siniscalchi E, Conti L, Eleuteri P, Malchiodi-Albedi F, Crebelli R. Toxic and genotoxic effects of oral administration of furan in mouse liver. Mutagenesis. 2010 May;25(3):305-14.
• Food and Drug Administration. Exploratory Data on Furan in Food, vol. 2011. 2004 < http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/∼dms/furandat.html >
• International Agency for Research on Cancer. Summaries & Evaluations, vol. 2011. 1995. 
• Ministerium für Ländlichen Raum, und Verbraucherschutz Baden-Württemberg (MLR). Ökomonitoring. Ökomonitoring Bericht für das Jahr 2011. June 2012b.
• Ministerium für Ländlichen Raum, und Verbraucherschutz Baden-Württemberg (MLR).Ökomonitoring. 10 Jahre Ökomonitoring. 2002 – 2011. Jubiläumssonderausgabe. June 2012b.

Rodent Study Confirms: GMO Soybean Oil is Pro-Inflammatory & Induces DNA Damage! Extra Virgin Olive Oil to the Rescue!

GMO Soybean oil? Better for cars only.

I am pretty sure there will be rebuttals to the results of this study... although, it's published in the OpenSource journal Nutrients and was conducted by scientists from Saudi Arabia and the UK who probably don't have the media-connections the scientists who conducted the GMO-corn study back in the day had.

Against that background it's unlikely that non-SuppVersity-readers will even hear about the paper El-Kholy et al. published in the June edition of Nutrients (El-Kohly. 2014) -- Well, that is - unless you spread the word, obviously ;-)

You better take creatine than ecdysteroids if you want to build muscle

Foods, not Macros Count!

Olive Oil Flavor is Healthy

Argan Oil as Test Booster

Oleic Acid ⇄ Microbiome

Tocotrienols? Red Palm Oil!

SAD Diet Analysis

Let's take a look at the methods and results, now. Needless to say that we are talking about preliminary rodent data, here - data from 40 adult male albino rats, to be precise. The rats were used in this study and divided into four groups.

• The control group of rodents was fed basal ration only. 
• The second group was given basal ration mixed with extra virgin olive oil (30%). 
• The third group was fed basal ration mixed with soybean oil from GM-soy (15%).
• The fourth group survived on a combination of EV olive oil, GM and the basal ration.

All rodents were kept on the respective diets for 65 consecutive days. On day 65, blood samples were collected from each rat for antioxidant enzyme analysis.

Figure 1: Lipid oxidation and glutathione levels (El-Kohly. 2014)

"In the group fed on basal ration mixed with GM soyabean (15%), there was a significant increase in serum level of lipid peroxidation, while glutathione transferase decreased significantly. [...] the amount of DNA and NCE were significantly decreased. [...] We can conclude that adding EV olive oil to the diet of rats appears effective in inhibiting oxidative damage and may act as a protective agent against chronic diseases such as liver fibrosis, hyperlipidemia and diabetes. In addition, EV olive oil may also have a protective function against carcinogenic processes." (El-Kohly. 2014)

That's an intriguing result and one of which I am asking myself if you'd see it with regular soybean oil, as well.

"True or False? Adding Fat to A Carby Meal Lowers Insulin Response. Muscle Hypertrophy Impairs Oxygen Diffusion. Reducing Carb Intake Improve Muscular Insulin Sensitivity" | more

Bottom line: Now, although we cannot tell for sure, whether it's the "GM", i.e. the genetic modification, or simply the fact that soy is devils excrement and not suitable for mammalian consumption *don't take this excursion to seriously*, we do know two ways to protect our DNA from the vegan assault:

1. Avoid soybean oil like a plague - easy for all of us who follow the SuppVersity-no-processed foods principle, but more or less impossible for everyone who buys products from the "food" industry
2. Add extra virgin olive oil to our diet  - the addition of EVO is simple and effective, but will only alter "the tested parameters towards normal levels" 

For me, personally, "towards normal" is not convincing enough. If you asked me, I'd thus suggest you chose option (1) - the switch to a "zero" processed foods diet is going to have a whole lot of other beneficial effects on your health, physique and performance, anyways.

Reference:

• El-Kholy, T.A.; Hilal, M.A.; Al-Abbadi, H.A.; Serafi, A.S.; Al-Ghamdi, A.K.; Sobhy, H.M.; Richardson, J.R.C. The Effect of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Soybean on DNA, Cytogenicity and Some Antioxidant Enzymes in Rats. Nutrients 2014, 6, 2376-2386.

Yerba Mate, Yohimbine & Yucca - Potent Fat or Unhealthy Money Burners? Tea Catechins Were Yesterday, Saponins Are the Future! GMO Rice "Safe for Human Consumption"?

Are you living in one of the hotspots of diabesity and laziness? Check out the map in the bottom right of my little collage and find out what the CDC data from 2008 can tell you about the regional differences in the US. Which are the top (=healthy & active; violet) and which the flop (=diabetic and sedentary; blue) counties in the US?

58%, that's not just the SuppVersity Figure of the Week it is also statistical testimony to the superiority of lifestyle interventions over drugs. Why? Well it is the rate by which even the CDC admits the diabetes risk of the average US citizen would drop, if he or she lost 5-7% of body weight (I know, I would likewise prefer a body fat number) and increased their "exercise" level to 150min of brisk walking (or more intense exercise) per week.

I know this is nothing new to you, but we all know one of these people who are subservient to "authorities" and like to get their (often oversimplyfied) advice right from the feds. So I suggest you just email the introduction to this article along with the picture on the right to this person... in 99% of the cases it won't help, but who knows, maybe he or she asks you if you can help!?

I am pretty sure that a diligent student of the SuppVersity as you are will have no problem whatsoever with getting him / her set up for a healthier and consequently longer life - right?

The SuppVersity short news for calender week 24 | read all previous installments

A-Z Supplement Review - "Y" as in Yerba Mate, Yohimbine & Yucca (Godfrey. 2013) -- If you have been following the SuppVersity Facebook News for more than just the past 3 weeks, you will have heard about the "A-Z Supplement Review" series, the British Journal of Sports Medicine has been running for years, now. Meanwhile they have arrived at "Y" (for thematic reasons they did not stick to the A-Z sequence with every article in the past, though); and in this issue S.J. Stear, RJ Godfrey and MW Laupheimer have compiled mini-reviews on the usefulness of yerba mate, yohimbine and yucca, respectively.

"In sport, yohimbine is perceived to reduce body fat and mobilise lipid, as well as to enhance endurance. Accordingly, it is often used in bodybuilding and other aesthetic sports, and in sports where there is a significant aerobic component. However, despite these claims, research findings actually refute any ergogenic benefit for sport (Ostojic. 2006; Herda. 2008) In addition, [...] adverse effects have been established."

I know, I know the highly questionable fat loss in the Ostjic study would speak a different language, but it has never been replicated in another trial. In fact, a previous study in 43 men using dosages of 41(!) mg/day did not observe any effects on body composition (Sax. 1991). And a more recent review by Climolai et al. states "There is no conclusive evidence for this drug to be of benefit in bodybuilding, exercise tolerance, physical performance, or desirable alterations of body mass." (Climolai. 2011)

Did you know that mate has about the same amount of caffeine than coffee? 150ml = 75mg; according to Stear for coffee that's what you get from ~250ml with most roasts... I have my doubts about that, and would rather believe that the content is about identical (usually the caffeine content of coffee is said to be 55-85mg/100ml). Still, being rich in chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid mate could probably serve as a replacement for regular coffee, for those who don't like the taste of coffee.

Don't despair, we do still have two other supplements in the review, so let's see... what about yerba maté? Being made of dried leaves of the Ilex paraguariensis tree this tea has been widely consumed in South America for centuries. Maté tee contains numerous active phytochemicals of which chlorogenic acid and the xantines caffeine and obromine are the most abundant ones. It does yet also contain alkaloids (caffeic acid, 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid), flavonoids (quercetin, kaempferol and rutin), amino acids, minerals (phosphorus, iron and calcium) and vitamins (C, B₁ and B₂).

That certainly sounds promising, unfortunately the evidence on its ergogenic effects is not conclusive and while it has been shown to be hypocholesterolaemic, hepatoprotective, a central nervous system stimulant, diuretic, antioxidant, of benefit to the cardiovascular system, and associated with both the prevention and increased risk of some types of cancers (Heck. 2007), Stear is right that the high amount of active ingredients will also increase the risk of unwanted side effects - or as my friend Carl likes to say: "The good thins is that yerba maté works, the bad thing, on the other hand, is that it works [and thus has effects and side effects]" ;-)

A major problem about yucca, the last item on the list is probably that there is no such thing as a specific yucca plant. The term "yucca" refers to a whole series of 40–50 medicinally potent plant species that generally thrive in arid parts of southwestern USA and Mexico. As Laupheimer points out:

While yucca is actually one of the few supplements I have not yet covered on the SuppVersity, you may want to read up on the leptin sensitizing effects of yerba maté in a previous article (read more)

"The yucca extract is widely used as an animal feed additive to increase growth rate, improve feed conversion efficiency and to ease joint pains in horses and dogs. Yucca has also been shown to have antioxidant, anticancer, antidiabetic, antimicrobial and hypocholesterolaemic properties. [...] Yucca saponins are precursors to cortisone. Yuccaols and resveratrol, which are mainly found in the yucca bark, are known to have a variety of actions, including inhibitors of the nuclear transcription factor κB (NFκB) and thus anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and free radical scavengers In addition, resveratrol has been shown to have an influence on muscle fibres, strength and possible ergogenic effects."

As usual there is yet insufficient evidence to formulate scientifically warranted dose recommendations and  evidence of ergogenic benefit in sports performance is missing.

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Bottom line: From the three "Y"s in the latest installment of the Supplement Review, maté is probably the one with the best scientific support for it's ergogenic effects. If nothing else, the high caffeine content alone would classify the South American tea as a performance booster. The most promising agent may in fact be the yucca extracts, but it is certainly premature to recommend taking respective supplements.

And what about yohimbine? It's if anything useful during a fast on a very hard diet + exercise regimen to further the release of fatty acids from the "stubborn fat areas", where alpha- instead of beta receptors are the main mediators of FFA release. If you want still want to try it, make sure you use the clean HCL version - with the extracts you have no idea what it is you are actually getting.

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Catechins are so yesterday, tea saponins are the future (Yu. 2013) - You will be aware that we have long ascribed the beneficial health effects of green, black, white and other teas to the catechins (e.g. EGCG, ECG, etc.) they contain. A recent study from the University of Wollongong in China does now suggest that we may have been missing an important part of the natural (not proprietary ;-) anti-obesity blend in the Camellia sinensis (that's the scientific name of the "tea plant") brews we have been making for centuries.

Figure 1: The restored leptin sensitivity is probably the reason why the rodents did not overeat and thus returned to and maintained a relatively normal body weight (Yu. 2013)

Tea saponins! This is a term by which the researchers refer to a whole class of triterpenes that are present in different concentrations in various types of tea. These molecules are natural antagonist of the NF-kB signaling and have anti-inflammatory potential.

No wonder Yu et al. suspected that they could be used to treat diet induced obesity. To validate this hypothesis they fed a group of mice a high fat diet for 40days. At the end of that period all rats were obese, inflamed, insulin and leptin resistant. Another 21 days and thus 21x 10mg servings of 96% pure tea saponins from Aladdin Chemistry Co. Ltd, China, later 50% of the mice were not exactly lean, but had achieved a new, lower maintenance weight (see figure 1).

Based on the data they have, the scientists concluded that these benefits were brought about by the rostoatin of brain leptin sensitivity that went hand in hand in with increases in insulin sensitivity... hold on insulin sensitivity? Yeah that's right and you are not mistaken, both, leptin and insulin were in the news today, before. In the face book news, to be precise: "There is no such thing as 'leptin resistance'" (read more)

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Wrong! Fat does not ameliorate, but potentiate the insulin response to carbs (learn more)

Bottom line: If we take the decreased inflammation, the ameliorated weight gain, the increased expression of POMC neurons low levels of which which have previously implicated in human weight gain (learn more), and the other beneficial effects Yan et al. observed in the study hand  and combine that with the previously mentioned hypothesis by Nazarians-Armavil, Menchella and Belsha.

The message is thus quite clear: Tea saponins are a potent insulin resensitizer. Once they have done their job, and your body is able to "hear" the most important signal in the metabolic concert again, the rest will fall into place.

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GMO rice safe for rat consumption Chinese scientists say (Yuan. 2013) - While I am not sure whether there are any hidden ties of the Genetically Modified Organisms Breeding Major Projects of P.R. China grant to the usually suspects from the West, it appears unlikely that Monsanto & Co were involved in the latest study from the Laboratory of Food Safety at the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering of the China Agricultural University in Beijing.

Figure 2: The short-term safety is accompanied by an unexpected weight gain in the male rodents that starts at weight 6, and does (lucky for the sponsors) not reach significance before the study was terminated (Yuan. 2013)

Now, it still goes without saying that the Chinese government will have a vested interest in developing a GMO variant of their bread-and-butter food item that produces the gram-positive spore-Bt toxin they would otherwise have to apply to the crop to protect it on it's own. It is therefore good news (for the Chinese) that none of the dozen parameters the scientists monitored (microflora composition, intestinal permeability, epithelial structure, fecal enzymes, bacterial activity, intestinal immunity + all the standard measures you can think of) did not show any effect of the chronic ingestion of the BT/GMO rice.

What is yet hidden in the supplemental material that came with the study is the weight development of the rodents. In the course of the hilariously short study (I suspect the researchers wanted to make sure they would not observe anything similar to the tumors that brought their French colleagues right into the headlines of the mainstream media outlets; cf. gofl-ball sized tumors due to GMO corn), there was an unexpected and though not yet statistically significant difference in the weight development of the male rodents in the GMO rice group, who began gaining weight at an increased rate 12 weeks into the study.

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Bottom line: If you conduct a rodents study and don't chose a study duration that would allow for long-term effects to surface (it should be obvious that this does not apply to a 90-day study period), you can hardly argue that the product you are testing is "safe" for human consumption - well unless we are talking about short-term consumption.

Aside from being able to assess the effects the GMO rice has on cancer rates (remember cancer takes time to grow) and all-cause mortality, even the sudden disconnect in body weight development in the male animals after 6 weeks would - at least in my humble opinion - warrant further studies, before you can unleash the genetically modified beast on your people, but I guess the Chinese official think "wtf. we have enough workers for our economy to flourish and if they die early, we don't have to pay their pensions"...

That's it for this week,...

... and the one thing that's still left to do is to wish all of you an active and happy weekend. Ah..., right. For those of you who still have some time to kill before whatever activity will start, here are a couple of SuppVersity Facebook News, you may want to read before finally starting into the "active part" of the weekend:

• 

  Many of the underlying causes of "self-inflicted hypthyrodism" will also hamper your performance in the gym and elsewhere. Now, what's particularly nasty, is the fact that for many gymrats performance or "looking" good naked, respectively the strive for any or both of the two are the (over-)motivational roots of the misery (read more)

  A new whey (all puns intended) to treat cystic fibrosis (CF) - Researchers from the Macdonald Campus of McGill University in Canada have found that pressurized whey protein hydrolysate could be a cheap and effective way to ameliorate cystic fibrosis | read more
• Are only phospholipid pound "omega 3s" good omega 3s? Paper puts another emphasis on the superiority of phospholipid bound DHA & EPA (as in food) over triglyceride bound DHA & EPA (as in fish oil caps), when it comes to the touted health benefits of high(er) omega 3 intakes | read more
• "No extra-shoes necessary" that's the message a recent study that investigated whether people who overpronate would need special (expensive) running equipment | read more
• Oldie but goldie: If reverse T3 is protein sparing at all, it has no direct effect and works only by blocking the receptor | read more

Alright, now you are good to go. So log out and come back in ~12h for more Facebook news and ~24h for the Sunday's SuppVersity article, of which I believe it will revolve around fasting - alternate day fasting and macronutrient composition... hah, now I got you hooked, right?

References:

• Cimolai N, Cimolai T. Yohimbine use for physical enhancement and its potential toxicity. J Diet Suppl. 2011 Dec;8(4):346-54.
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