Lawrence T. Beckerle: Trace nutrients might hold key to W.Va. health
West Virginia has the highest rate of diabetes in the United States. Why are West Virginians becoming less healthy? Eating habits and lack of exercise are certainly important, but not the whole story.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia has the highest rate of diabetes in the United States. Why are West Virginians becoming less healthy? Eating habits and lack of exercise are certainly important, but not the whole story.
First, a couple of easy ways to counter the trend:
Eat foods that are high in inulin (not be confused with insulin). Carbohydrates, inulin and sugar are all considered sugars in the broad sense. Inulin helps to prevent many problems associated with diabetes. Jerusalem artichoke, burdock root and members of the onion family are high in inulin. When cooked like potatoes the flavor of Jerusalem artichoke is enhanced by a drizzle of honey.
I'm old enough to remember when it was common for people to put a bowl of whole onions on the table and eat them with the meal. This practice started to disappear with the emphasis on avoiding bad breath.
Eat foods that are high in antioxidants. The Herbal Dispatch is a monthly publication of the Medicinal Botanical Program at Mountain Sate University (mountainstate.edu/usda). A recent article explains how antioxidant rich foods help to prevent the development of diabetes. "Antioxidants, which are found naturally in many foods including fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts include vitamins E and C, selenium and cartenoids, such as beta-carotene."
In addition, people may have once avoided diabetes and other health problems by drinking bottled mineral water that was high in magnesium and selenium. Government officials put a stop to that, because magnesium and selenium can cause health problems if taken in excess. However, so can vitamins E and C. Instead of taking away consumer choices on nutrition, there should be a discussion about what is reasonable.
Over time, magnesium and selenium leach out of soil. Thus old soils have relatively little of these nutrients. Acid conditions cause most of what is left of these nutrients to be bound up in ways that plants and animals can't absorb these nutrients. Most soils of Appalachia are very old and acidic. Thus local foods and water are often very low in these nutrients.
Cattle can eat plants with selenium concentrations of up to 100 parts per million without any ill effects. If cattle eat only plants (especially crazyweed and locoweed) that have more than 100 ppm of selenium and do this over long periods of time, they are likely to suffer health problems. Research has shown that most of the toxicity is due to plants accumulating poisonous alkaloids. Soils that allow plants to accumulate poisonous alkaloids also allow plants to accumulate selenium. Thus many people, except sticklers for accuracy, choose to skip expensive testing for alkaloids, avoid a complicated explanation about alkaloids, and further simplify by referring to the problem as "toxic quantities of selenium" or just "selenium toxicity".
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia has the highest rate of diabetes in the United States. Why are West Virginians becoming less healthy? Eating habits and lack of exercise are certainly important, but not the whole story.
First, a couple of easy ways to counter the trend:
Eat foods that are high in inulin (not be confused with insulin). Carbohydrates, inulin and sugar are all considered sugars in the broad sense. Inulin helps to prevent many problems associated with diabetes. Jerusalem artichoke, burdock root and members of the onion family are high in inulin. When cooked like potatoes the flavor of Jerusalem artichoke is enhanced by a drizzle of honey.
I'm old enough to remember when it was common for people to put a bowl of whole onions on the table and eat them with the meal. This practice started to disappear with the emphasis on avoiding bad breath.
Eat foods that are high in antioxidants. The Herbal Dispatch is a monthly publication of the Medicinal Botanical Program at Mountain Sate University (mountainstate.edu/usda). A recent article explains how antioxidant rich foods help to prevent the development of diabetes. "Antioxidants, which are found naturally in many foods including fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts include vitamins E and C, selenium and cartenoids, such as beta-carotene."
In addition, people may have once avoided diabetes and other health problems by drinking bottled mineral water that was high in magnesium and selenium. Government officials put a stop to that, because magnesium and selenium can cause health problems if taken in excess. However, so can vitamins E and C. Instead of taking away consumer choices on nutrition, there should be a discussion about what is reasonable.
Over time, magnesium and selenium leach out of soil. Thus old soils have relatively little of these nutrients. Acid conditions cause most of what is left of these nutrients to be bound up in ways that plants and animals can't absorb these nutrients. Most soils of Appalachia are very old and acidic. Thus local foods and water are often very low in these nutrients.
Cattle can eat plants with selenium concentrations of up to 100 parts per million without any ill effects. If cattle eat only plants (especially crazyweed and locoweed) that have more than 100 ppm of selenium and do this over long periods of time, they are likely to suffer health problems. Research has shown that most of the toxicity is due to plants accumulating poisonous alkaloids. Soils that allow plants to accumulate poisonous alkaloids also allow plants to accumulate selenium. Thus many people, except sticklers for accuracy, choose to skip expensive testing for alkaloids, avoid a complicated explanation about alkaloids, and further simplify by referring to the problem as "toxic quantities of selenium" or just "selenium toxicity".
Electrical power plants put boiler water into ponds to cool off before they use it again. One study found that boiler water with selenium levels above 4.7 ppm, caused fish to have health problems. In a way this was good news for power companies, because it meant that they could use selenium as an inexpensive indicator of some unknown and hard to test for toxins in boiler water.
The problem with using selenium as an inexpensive indicator is that some very clueless people assumed that selenium is what was toxic to the fish. They decided that water from coal mines should not exceed selenium levels of 4.7 ppm in order to protect fish. This ignores some very obvious facts. Selenium is valid as an inexpensive indicator of the presence of complicated toxins only in some very specific conditions. Boiler water can contain lots of toxins due to the high heat and conversion from steam back to water in many kinds of pipe, holding tanks and other equipment. Water from coal mines is not heated to the boiling point nor does it pass through the kind of equipment used in boiler facilities.
Those of us who don't work in coal mines are inclined to not care about crazy limits that are put on coal mines. Some will say, "The standard for drinking water is 50 ppm, so we should be OK?" Please remember that 50 ppm is an upper limit for selenium. There is no requirement to have a minimum of what people need for good health.
Selenium may help to protect against cancer, heart disease and osteoarthritis. A lack of selenium may make people more sensitive to an iodine deficiency. This would help to explain the increase in thyroid problems. A medical college should do a study on selenium levels of people living in Appalachia.
Some special mines could, at no cost to anyone, help to enrich the streams and rivers that serve as the source of most drinking water. Because of the serious lack of selenium in West Virginia and the growing diabetes epidemic, it would be prudent to raise the limit for selenium from coal mines to 100 ppm. The maximum recorded for mine water in West Virginia was 60 ppm. Unfortunately government officials are in the process of forcing the last holdouts to 4.7 ppm.
Supporters of this destructive policy try to justify it by saying things like "toxic selenium". This irresponsible talk helps to create an irrational fear about a nutrient that everyone needs for good heath. Please choose good health over irrational fears. If you use supplements, please don't overdo them.
Beckerle lives in Nicholas County, which has the highest rate of diabetes in West Virginia.
