Participants: Don Mackintosh (Host), Dr. Neil Nedley
Series Code: HFAL
Program Code: HFAL00234A
00:51 Hello and welcome to Health For A Lifetime, I'm Your Host
00:53 Don Mackintosh and I'm glad you are with us today. 00:55 We Are Talking with Doctor Neil Nedley and 00:57 Doctor Nedley Welcome. - Thank You. 01:00 We are going to be looking at some current studies as of 01:02 2008 and just brand new studies. 01:06 We are going to be looking at things that are kind 01:09 of a hodgepodge, these are fascinating studies 01:12 and very helpful. 01:13 We are going to look in the first half here at high 01:16 caffeine drinks, maybe you have heard about those. 01:19 We are also going to be looking at vitamin D. 01:24 It might not seem like it is important stuff but it is 01:26 very important isn't it? - absolutely. 01:28 So why don't we just start with a high dosage of 01:31 a caffeine drink here and see what that does to us. 01:35 We actually have a graphic that goes 01:37 along with this study. 01:38 There is a drink called Red Bull, it is an energy drink 01:42 that is used by a lot of university and college students 01:46 as well as athletes and those in extreme sports and even 01:50 race car drivers. 01:51 The problem with that is it can increase the risk of heart 01:54 attack and strokes significantly. 01:57 Even in younger individuals who do not have any 02:00 cardiovascular disease. 02:02 So this study was just published and it actually was done 02:09 by a group in Australia. 02:12 This Australian group was studying this drink that 02:15 actually comes out Austria. 02:18 I didn't realize how pervasive Red Bull is 02:22 but it actually sold 3.5 billion cans in 143 countries. 02:32 Wow! So lots of people are drinking this and what does it 02:36 do to you? Well what it does is it actually tightens 02:39 blood vessels, and it makes your blood vessels and your 02:43 circulation as if you already have heart disease and 02:46 atherosclerosis even if you don't have it. 02:49 It causes the blood platelets to get sticky and the 02:54 viscosity of the blood to go up. 02:56 The platelets are those things that come out when you're 02:59 going to have a clot? That's right, you want to have 03:02 platelets that work well in the problem with them is if 03:06 they work too well they get toward a more narrow area 03:09 where you might have some calcium in the blood vessel, 03:12 those blood platelets can think that the blood vessel was 03:15 damaged and they all gather together and cause an artery 03:18 to actually close off. 03:20 Platelets which is the clotting factor in viscosity which 03:23 means that it is really thick, in other words the blood is 03:27 clumping together and how does that cause that to happen? 03:31 How does caffeine cause that to happen? 03:33 Well caffeine does actually play, it is a drug when it 03:37 ends in ine, anyplace with little things on platelet 03:42 molecules called adenosine, it blocks adenosine receptors and 03:46 that makes the platelets not work like they are supposed to. 03:50 So is this true with any caffeine drink? 03:54 Not just Red Bull? While the study was done on Red Bull 03:59 and Red Bull has 80 mg of caffeine in it in one drink. 04:03 That is equivalent to a cup of coffee and so the study 04:07 researchers said we need to study a cup of coffee in the 04:11 same way, maybe it has the same risk. 04:13 We do know that coffee has the same amount of caffeine 04:16 and we know caffeine is the main problem with Red Bull but coffee 04:22 might have some advantages over Red Bull and that is 04:24 coffee has cocoa which is an antioxidant. 04:28 Antioxidants can mitigate against it slightly. 04:35 So the bad things are kind of weighed out by something else 04:39 that makes it a little less bad? 04:40 Right, but with Red Bull you are not getting any of the 04:44 good stuff, and it turns out that one hour after they 04:48 drink Red Bull their blood vessels were no longer normal 04:52 and it increased their risk of heart attack and stroke 04:57 after just one drink. 04:58 And is this even with kids, teenagers and whatnot? 05:01 With teenagers as well and the problem with this is it is 05:06 being marketed to this young age group. 05:08 In fact it is even formula on racing advertises Red Bull 05:13 says it will give you wings. 05:15 Young people are wanting to get the sprout wings and 05:18 they think the caffeine will make them feel like 05:21 they have those wings and in a sense because of the 05:24 stimulation that it does they might get that feeling. 05:28 But unfortunately that feeling is not associated with 05:31 the same benefits to the hardens blood vessels in fact 05:34 it is the opposite benefit. 05:36 So basically the take-home message is, no matter what the 05:39 brand name is something that is high in caffeine is going 05:43 to try and excite you and set you up for real problems and 05:47 you could rue the day you ever drank the drink. 05:50 Yeah exactly and it is unfortunate that a lot of people 05:54 who sell caffeine have been trying to talk about 05:57 the benefits of caffeine drinks. 06:00 They have to really try to stretch it to show benefits, 06:04 and yes it does stimulate, it is a drug and unfortunately 06:07 it causes habituation and if you withdraw from it and get 06:10 severe splitting headaches that is a clue that this thing 06:13 is not very good for you. 06:14 No good natural food that is good for the heart or good 06:20 for the blood vessels when you withdraw from it 06:22 you get a splitting headache. 06:24 That is just not the way it is for healthy chemicals, 06:28 but caffeine is not one of those. 06:30 One last thing before we go to that vitamin D and that is 06:34 the mental performance of some of the drinks like this, 06:37 if you are race car driver and different things where 06:41 they are encouraging people in athletics, does it make you more 06:43 proficient? Can you focus more? Is your mental ability 06:47 increased by it? 06:48 Well there have been studies done on that as well, 06:51 typist a little faster under the influence of caffeine, 06:54 but they make 10 times as many errors. 06:56 Well I guess that's not very helpful is it? 06:58 You have to have spell checker. 06:59 If you are line man in a football game, or you are trying 07:03 to race down the sidelines the caffeine actually does seem 07:06 to help, but you don't want to give it to the quarterback. 07:09 Because the quarterback needs to have good analytical 07:14 thinking, he needs to be quick but more important than 07:17 quickness is the decision he is making with that ball. 07:22 You have one decision which is I got to run this way 07:25 verses 30 options as quarterback but it is okay for 07:29 the one option person. 07:30 It's okay for the one option person during that time but 07:33 unfortunately you setting them up for heart disease and 07:37 problems so really I wouldn't even recommend it for them. 07:40 But as far as the athletic performance is concerned 07:42 it doesn't seem to be adverse except if you are in 07:45 the decision-making role. 07:46 I just can't help myself one more question 07:49 - that's all right. - I have actually been you know 07:52 I have attended a lot of places of worship in my line of 07:55 work and of all different denominations. 07:58 Some denominations well I have actually crossed all the 08:03 denominations but there is this increase like Starbucks 08:07 mentality that the lobby you have or maybe some kind of 08:12 foods usually high Fatty and sugary foods along with 08:16 maybe a caffeine type drink, what does that do to your 08:19 ability to listen to a sermon? 08:21 Or to listen to a message or a lecture? 08:24 It really decreases the abilities significantly, in fact 08:28 if you were to drink a Red Bull before you went to 08:32 a university lecture trying to explain some advanced 08:36 concept at all you would lose focus, 08:39 you wouldn't be able to stand it. 08:41 You'd want to get up and want to move and you really 08:44 wouldn't want to stay with the lecture, and stay with the 08:48 learning aspect of things. 08:50 So maybe that's why they added a little exercise at the 08:53 beginning of the service sometimes you will have a pep 08:57 rally and is that to calm them down or maybe they feel like 09:01 they have to do that? 09:02 I don't know the two seem to work together and I thought 09:04 it was interesting. 09:06 Yeah I wouldn't recommend, you know the spirituality is to 09:09 be for the enhancement of the frontal lobes of the brain. 09:12 I mean the frontal lobe is the crown of the brain and 09:15 this is the area that really needs to be expanded and when 09:18 the frontal lobe is compromised we make poorer decisions, 09:21 risk of depression, we would end up with a greater risk 09:25 of problem children and etc. when we are parenting them so 09:28 we really want to enhance the frontal lobe function and 09:31 caffeine does not enhance it. 09:32 Caffeine blocks it the adenosine reflectors in the frontal 09:35 lobe and studies show that when you have caffeine on board 09:38 you are more likely to gossip that when 09:40 you don't have caffeine on board so even things like 09:43 that are affected by it. 09:45 So I would say if we are really wanting to enter into 09:47 a worshipful experience, let's leave the frontal lobes 09:50 suppressants out of this picture. 09:52 What about vitamin D? 09:54 We've had enough of that little segment 09:57 so lets go to vitamin D. 09:58 Yes, very interesting study on vitamin D and we also have 10:02 a graphic in regards to this. 10:04 Vitamin D has now been shown to help colorectal cancer 10:10 patients and this is very exciting. 10:14 You can see the man there getting his vitamin D, 10:17 it is direct sunlight that is one of the best ways 10:21 of getting vitamin D. 10:22 It produces an active hormone in the body that 10:26 we know prevents cancer, but this is now a study done 10:31 on people who already have the cancer. 10:35 In fact for years Don, there have been many people 10:41 who have tried to give certain vitamins in pills to 10:45 prevent cancer, you know the beta-carotene study where 10:49 they were given beta-carotene to thousands of people and 10:52 the other people were getting a placebo, no benefit. 10:55 Vitamin C has been tried, a small benefit with vitamin C, 11:00 maybe a one or two percentage points at the most. 11:03 But there are nutrients that you can take that can 11:07 significantly decrease your risk of cancer and 11:10 we are talking 50% 60% 70% reduction in cancer. 11:14 Those nutrients are vitamin D and calcium particularly 11:18 together, and these are just studies done in the last two 11:23 years, but this actual study that we are quoting 11:27 from 2008 show that extended lives of people with 11:31 colon and rectal cancer. 11:33 Previous research of course had shown that they were less 11:36 likely to develop colon or rectal cancer if they have 11:39 higher amounts of vitamin D in both women and men. 11:42 Women are much less likely to develop breast cancer. 11:45 Both women and men are much less likely to develop 11:48 Hymnologic cancer of the blood. 11:51 It is blood related cancers. 11:54 Now this was a new study led by Doctor Ing of the Dana- 11:59 Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 12:01 He involved 300 to 400 men and women that have been 12:04 diagnosed with colorectal cancer from 1991 to 2002. 12:07 What they did is that they went back and looked at their 12:11 vitamin D levels to see if there was any relationship to 12:14 how long they lived. 12:16 This study was just published in the Clinical Oncology 12:20 and they found that the blood vitamin D levels were 12:24 related to how long they lived. 12:26 These vitamin D levels were tracked for an average of 12:29 about 6-1/2 years and those in the highest 25% of 12:32 vitamin D levels were 50% less likely to die during 12:36 the study from their cancer or any other cause compared 12:40 to the patience with the lowest 25% of vitamin D levels. 12:44 So what if you are just in the upper fourth of individuals 12:48 after you have cancer you are going to be able to extend 12:53 your life significantly, I mean doubling your risk of 12:57 living. - or dying. - if you have a low vitamin D 13:01 you doubled your risk of dying. 13:02 So vitamin D then you cannot get it anywhere except from 13:06 sunlight? Or where else? 13:08 Well you can get it in supplements. 13:10 Which is the best supplement, one or the other 13:14 or can you overdo it? 13:15 You can overdo vitamin D, vitamin D is fat soluble so what 13:19 I would recommend as an internal medicine physician, 13:22 anyone who has cancer particularly colorectal cancer, 13:26 breast cancer, prostate cancer I recommend that they get 13:29 their vitamin D. level drawn and they see with their 25 13:33 hydroxy vitamin D. level, don't get the 125 because that 13:37 varies a lot throughout the day, 13:39 the 25 hydroxy will tell 13:41 you where your vitamin D. stores are and then you can see. 13:43 whether you may need to supplement. 13:45 If you are really low if you are in the bottom fourth, 13:48 you really need to mega doses of Vitamin D and sunlight. 13:51 for a few days isn't going to be enough to get you up there. 13:54 You need some mega doses, prescription doses of Vitamin D 13:58 to get it up there and maintain it with either supplements 14:01 or with sunlight. 14:03 We have been talking to Doctor Neil Nedley, talking about 14:06 vitamin D and it is important. 14:09 When we come back we will continue a little of that. 14:11 discussion and look at some more new research. 14:14 Join us when we come back. |
Revised 2014-12-17