Down But Not Out

December 1, 2013 by Michael Greger M.D. in News with 39 Comments

Nearly all of NutritionFacts.org videos are currently down. With your help, though, not only will we be back up and running again soon but stronger than ever!

Yesterday, YouTube terminated our account for supposedly “violating Community Standards.” Unnamed persons flagged one or more NutritionFacts.org videos as inappropriate, something that’s supposed to be reserved for things like graphic violence or hate speech. Evidently whatever mechanism YouTube has in place to prevent misuse of this flagging system failed. By terminating our account, YouTube removed each of the 791 videos on NutritionFacts.org, making them inaccessible to users. We assume that as soon as YouTube realizes their mistake they will reinstate our account, but that could take weeks.

In the interim, we’ve started migrating the videos over to another video hosting site called Vimeo. So this past week’s videos are now back up, as well as my two live presentations, Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death and More Than an Apple a Day: Combating Common Diseases. Only 786 to go! Tomorrow’s new video will go up as scheduled and we’re working as hard as we can to get the site back up to its former glory.

If you’d like to express your support for NutritionFacts.org, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the 501c3 nonprofit charity that keeps it going. Switching over the videos to a paid service will only add to our budget shortfall this year. So far, we’ve raised about $12,000 towards our $50,000 year-end goal. With help from enough supporters, we will surely fill up the carrot!

What would you miss most about NutritionFacts.org? I have done videos about studies that make the headlines, but I think my most important role is to showcase studies that would otherwise never see the light of day. The reason we don’t see ads on TV for broccoli is the same reason we don’t hear about the vast majority of published research–there’s no profit motive. It may not make anyone money, but what if our lives would profit?

NutritionFacts.org was set up as a grand experiment. Can a nutrition website remain independent and not bow to pressure to accept ad revenue or product endorsements or sell some Dr. Greger’s Brand SnakeOilWonderSupplement? :)

We set up the website on faith. The generous seed funding from the Jesse and Julie Rasch Foundation that launched NutritionFacts.org ran out this summer. Now it’s completely up to viewers like you to keep the site up and running.

Everything on the website is free. There’s no special member area where you pay a fee to get extra life-saving information. That’s not how medicine should work. That’s not how science should work. What membership websites are saying, in essence, is give them money or else they’ll keep something from us that could make our families healthier. That’s unacceptable to me. Advances in nutritional science should be freely available and accessible to all.

To make a contribution to NutritionFacts.org you can use a credit card, use a direct Paypal link, or send a check to “NutritionFacts.org” c/o Michael Greger, 700 Professional Dr., Gaithersburg, MD 20879.

Join me in sending this message to whoever is responsible for the YouTube sabotage attempt: your efforts to keep people in the dark will just strengthen our resolve to bring the latest research to light.

-Michael Greger, M.D.

UPDATE: YouTube reversed their decision and reinstated our account:

Thank you so much everyone for your overwhelming support–we pureed that carrot!

Breast Cancer & Alcohol: How Much is Safe?

November 28, 2013 by Michael Greger M.D. in News with 11 Comments

Nearly 5,000 breast cancer deaths a year may be attributable to just light drinking (up to one drink a day).

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization body tasked with collating the totality of evidence as to whether or not something causes cancer, has now concluded that alcoholic beverages—all alcoholic beverages—are to be considered carcinogenic to humans.

There has been convincing evidence that alcohol consumption increases the risk of breast cancer, but most of the data were derived from studies that focused on the effect of moderate or high alcohol intakes, while little was known about light alcohol drinking (up to 1 drink/day). A recent meta-analysis of studies that compared light drinkers to non-drinkers found a moderate but significant association with breast cancer, based on the results of more than 100 studies.

The researchers estimate that about 5,000 breast cancer deaths a year are attributable to light drinking, meaning nearly 5,000 women that died of breast cancer maybe wouldn’t have if they had stayed away from alcohol completely, leading to an editorial in the medical journal Breast that concluded “women who consume alcohol chronically have an increased risk for breast cancer that is dose dependent but without threshold.” No threshold means there’s apparently no level of alcohol consumption that doesn’t raise breast cancer risk at least a little. Any level of alcohol consumption appears to increase the risk of developing an alcohol-related cancer. For example, the Harvard Nurses’ Study found that even consumption of less than a single drink per day may be associated with a modest increase in risk.

Most recent research has focused on acetaldehyde, the first and most toxic alcohol metabolite, as the primary cancer-causing agent. The bacteria in our mouths appear to oxidize alcohol into this acetaldehyde carcinogen, which we then swallow. So even a single sip of alcohol may be harmful. A new study found that just holding a teaspoon of hard liquor in our mouth for 5 seconds results in carcinogenic concentrations of acetaldehyde—even if we don’t swallow. The exposure continues for at least 10 min after spitting it out.

No surprise then alcohol-containing mouthwash can offer a carcinogenic spike as well. Researchers conclude: “All in all, there is a rather low margin of safety in the use of alcohol-containing mouthwash. Typical use will reach the concentration range above which adverse effects are to be expected. Until the establishment of a more solid scientific basis for a threshold level of acetaldehyde in saliva, prudent public health policy would recommend generally refraining from using alcohol in such products.”

So why isn’t the same recommendation made for alcoholic beverages? Well, as the Harvard paper concludes, “individuals will need to weigh the risks of light to moderate alcohol use on breast cancer development against the benefits for heart disease prevention to make the best personal choice regarding alcohol consumption.” They’re talking about the famous J shaped curve (watch my 4-min video Breast Cancer and Alcohol: How Much is Safe? to check it out). While smoking is bad and more smoking is worse, and in general exercising is good and more exercise is better, for alcohol there appears to be a beneficial effect of small doses. A six-pack a day raises overall mortality, but so does teetotalling.

The #1 killer of women isn’t breast cancer, but heart disease, and a drink a day reduces the risk of heart disease. Why just reduce the risk of heart disease, though, when you may nearly eliminate the risk of heart disease with a healthy enough diet? See, for example, my video Eliminating the #1 Cause of Death. A plant-based diet that excludes certain plant-based (alcoholic) beverages may therefore be the best for overall longevity.

For more on this topic, please see my follow-up video Breast Cancer Risk: Red Wine vs. White Wine. I’ve also previously addressed the pros and cons in Alcohol Risks vs. Benefits.

The other mouthwash video I refer to in the above video is Don’t Use Antiseptic Mouthwash, part of a video series on improving athletic performance with nitrate-containing vegetables (if interested, start here: Doping With Beet Juice).

How else might one reduce breast cancer risk? Please feel free to check out:

-Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live year-in-review presentations Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death and More Than an Apple a Day.

Images thanks to ondrej.lipar / Flickr