Re: Bad eating may permanently alter DNA

[Guest guest]

A week or so ago there were posts on the list on the dangers of infrequent heavy sugar hits, avidly read by a life-long sugar junkie like myself pre-CR called ”the cake monster”.

A report of the study, posted by Diane:

”Human genes remember a sugar hit for two weeks, with prolonged pooreating habits capable of permanently altering DNA, Australian researchhas found.A team studying the impact of diet on human heart tissue and micefound that cells showed the effects of a one-off sugar hit for afortnight, by switching off genetic controls designed to protect thebody against diabetes and heart disease."We now know that chocolate bar you had this morning can have veryacute effects, and those effects can continue for up to two weeks,"said lead researcher Sam El-Osta, from the Baker IDI Heart andDiabetes Institute."These changes continue beyond the meal itself and have the ability toalter natural metabolic responses to diet," he told AustralianAssociated Press Friday.Regular poor eating would amplify the effect, said El-Osta, withgenetic damage lasting months or years, and potentially passingthrough bloodlines.The study's findings were reported in the Journal of ExperimentalMedicine”.

- Does this mainly pertain to those with regular poor eating habits, or is it a cause of concern

for the Cronie with an occasional sugar hit? Hard to know.....

Rodney wrote:

”Hi Ulf:

I also find this result interesting. When they say the effects can last for two weeks what is the effect they are talking about? I.E. what is the evidence they are looking at to say the effect lasts two weeks?I ask because over the past couple of years I have had two apparently aberrant fasting glucose tests - one 6.3 and the other 6.0. Each time the HbA1c result was between 5 and 6 and the follow up glucose tests were between 4 and 5.Diane's post makes me wonder whether one of the numbers they are talking about - which is affected for as much as two weeks - may be fasting glucose. In other words a sixteen hour fast may not be anywhere near long enough to wash out an aberrant occasional 'sugar-hit'. And I am wondering if this may be the explanation for my apparently abberant results noted above. And whether my occasional consumption of chocolate chips should be more restrained, or indulged in less often!It would be helpful to know, I think, if fasting glucose is among the long-lasting effects to which they refer”.

- My HbA1c hovers between 4,1 and 4,5 %, unsurprisingly showing that the infrequent heavy sugar hits don’t matter much for that measure. My fasting glucose is between 4 and 4,7 mmol/liter, mainly closer to 4,7; I don’t know how good or bad that is for a Cronie. I wonder if cronies never indulging in sugar binges would tend to have lower values than us who do indulge. My glucose tolerance test gives an array of numbers that I can´t interpret, but Dr Fontana told me the values were excellent.

The following is the article provided by Diane and Al:

”Assam El-Osta, la Brasacchio, Dachun Yao, Alessandro Pocai, L. , G. Roeder, Mark E. , and BrownleeTransient high glucose causes persistent epigenetic changes and altered gene expression during subsequent normoglycemiaJ. Exp. Med., Sep 2008; 205: 2409 - 2417. The current goal of diabetes therapy is to reduce time-averaged mean levels of glycemia, measured as HbA1c, to prevent diabetic complications. However, HbA1c only explains <25% of the variation in risk of developing complications. Because HbA1c does not correlate with glycemic variability when adjusted for mean blood glucose, we hypothesized that transient spikes of hyperglycemia may be an HbA1c-independent risk factor for diabetic complications. We show that transient hyperglycemia induces long-lasting activating epigenetic changes in the promoter of the nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-kappa- subunit p65 in aortic endothelial cells both in vitro and in nondiabetic mice, which cause increased p65 gene expression. Both the epigenetic changes and the gene expression changes persist for at least 6 d of subsequent normal glycemia, as do NF-kappa-B-induced increases in monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 and vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 expression.Hyperglycemia-induced epigenetic changes and increased p65 expression are prevented by reducing mitochondrial superoxide production or superoxide-induced alpha-oxoaldehydes. These results highlight the dramatic and long-lasting effects that short-term hyperglycemic spikes can have on vascular cells and suggest that transient spikes of hyperglycemia may be an HbA1c-independent risk factor for diabetic complications”.

- What kappa-B and p65 expression mean I will not even try to find out, since I wouldn’t be able to interpret what I read. The actual negative end result that the study indicates is that of diabetic complications.

I have a hard time believing I could get diabetes. A doctor once told me that with my blood lipid values I could hardly even theoretically get diabetes, unless my genes were loaded against me in an extreme fashion. But the article describes changes in gene expressions from occasional sugar hits. Could those changes potentially overturn the benefits of CR with its great lipid values etc? It sounds far-fetched but I don’t have the background to be sure. And perhaps there are other potential negative effects, beyond diabetic complications.

Playing it safe, I guess I should quit the sugar hits, even though they´re fun to do. Francesca suggested red wine, together with the sugar fix, and fruits to satisfy my sweet tooth. Red wine is out on any regular base, since I can’t go to sleep on even a small amount and my sweet tooth only strikes evening-time. Fruits and berries I indulge in every evening. I eat a lot of those. I’ve heard warnings of doing that, but after doing a little checking I decided not to heed those. In any case, I don’t think I could stick to CR without a heavy dose of berries and fruits and the alternatives are a lot worse.

My sugar hits are primarily from two different types of occasions. One is when going to buffet restaurants with family or friends. As a result of the sugar hit posting, I’ve decided to only go to those which don’t have desserts, so I only fill up on CR-compatible foods. The other is the occasional night when I wake up and I just have to have something in my stomach. Fruits is what I usually take, but occasionally I get this irresistible urge to go for my wife´s and teen-agers´ cereals and binge. It’s not the worst kind of cereal and I don't know if it qualifies as a sugar hit, but it's loaded with calories and about 10 % sugar. That’s harder to address, since my mental defenses are down in the middle of the night. It’s only when I´m actually down in the kitchen that the strong urge occasionally strikes. Last time I woke up I did some meditation and went back to sleep without having to visit the kitchen. I’ll make a point of trying that first. I also have sugar binges when travelling and at the occasional party that has unlimited cakes available. I won’t be able to, and wouldn’t even really want to, do away with the sugar binges entirely, but I would like to reduce their frequency. Reducing the intensity of a binge is beyond possibility. When I have my first sugar bite start I go on until I´m filled and nobody and nothing can stop me whatever prior decision I may have made. I'm glad I'm disciplined enough not to indulge on a daily basis or I would rapidly and literally eat myself to death or incapacitation!

Ulf

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