a couple of articles from the ny times.
One was on the increasing incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is increasingly becoming a significant cause of liver failure and transplantation, ironically as we move forward in eliminating hepatitis C as the major cause til now. the article notes that:
— NAFLD has increased dramatically of late (eg now in 10% of children and 20% of adults)
–2-3% of the US population have nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH, the progressive form leading to cirrhosis)
–nationwide liver transplant increased from 1% due to NASH in 2001 to 10% in 2009 (and projected to be leading cause for transplants by 2020).
–NAFLD particularly common in Latinos, partly because they tend to have a genetic variant (PNPLA3), leading the liver to produce and store more triglycerides. eg, liver dz is found in 50% of obese Latino children, and 25% of liver transplants in los angeles are because of NASH
–lots of comments in the article on lots of drugs-in-process, with relatively understated comments about lifestyle change, but see last year’s blog on effectiveness of wt loss and exercise. and, in this regard (as also per yesterday’s blog) the low glycemic index diet has particular value
and, speaking of food, last year’s article reviewed the rather distressing fact that the foods we currently grow have much less nutritional quality (fewer phytonutrients) than even in the recent past. wild dandelions of old had 7 times the phytonutrients than spinach (one of our better vegetables). purple potatoes from peru have 28x the anthocyanins (which may help fight cancer) than russet potatoes. why are the foods less beneficial? the author postulates that part of the issue is taste (some of the most beneficial phytonutrients are bitter, sour or astringent). and farmers over time tended to plant foods that have less fiber, more sugar/starch/oil, which were more palatale and provided fast calories for our strenuous lifestyle. eg, sweet corn is derived from a wild bushy plant with short spikes of grain instead of ears, with the kernals encased in dense shells, but had 10x the amount of protein of current corn. there have been natural genetic variations since then, but a major change took place over the past 50 years do to agricultural engineering, with supersweet corn (the predominant variety available in supermarkets) which are pretty devoid of nutritional value.
geoff