What and where is trehalose?; the effectiveness of the EPA
Q: I hear there's a new sugar on the market that helps spread a super-strong version of the C-diff infection. Is that true? - Jason A., New York
A: You're well-informed, Jason. It's called trehalose and even though its presence in the food chain is nothing new, the amount of it in processed foods is. Researchers are now saying that its expanded footprint in our food supply parallels an epidemic rise of drug-resistant strains of the bacterium Clostridium difficile (C-diff) in hospitals and older folks' group residential settings - and they think they know why.
Trehalose is a naturally occurring glucose found in mushrooms, some seaweed, lobster, shrimp and foods in which baker's or brewer's yeast is used. In the 1990s, it cost around $7,000 to distill 1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds. Too expensive to use, but then scientists discovered how to extract it from cornstarch. It now costs $3 per kilo.
Commonly used as a texturizer, it masks bitterness and food odors, enhances saltiness and highlights fruit flavors. Because it's naturally occurring, the industry labels it as a natural flavor. The Food and Drug Administration lists it as "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS). But since it makes C-diff more dangerous, it throws into question its GRAS status.
When scientists noticed the parallel between the epidemic rise of C-diff and trehalose deployment over the past 20 years, they dug deeper and found that ingesting trehalose revved up two strains of C-diff "by more than 500-fold," making the bacterium hypervirulent. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, C-difficile kills 15,000 people each year - mostly seniors - and is currently the most common microbial cause of health care-associated infections in U.S. hospitals, costing up to $4.8 billion annually. Just before the trehalose boom, it killed around a tenth as many folks!
What can you do? Avoid processed foods! Stick with fresh veggies and fruit, and pure lean proteins, and ask your doctor for information on C-diff infection rates in relevant institutions you're dealing with.
Q: People talk about how regulations aren't good for business, but aren't regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency important for everyone's health and good for business too? - Clyde M., Portland, Maine
A: You're absolutely right, Clyde. We're hoping for the day when protecting people's health is once again a common goal. That was the idea in 1970, when President Richard Nixon created the EPA "for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress."
And it worked! For example, in 2003 when George W. Bush was president, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was used in many consumer products, such as food packaging and nonstick cookware (Teflon). The chemical was linked to a wide range of health problems, including low birth weights.
In an agreement between the EPA and industry, PFOA was to be phased out by 2014. Based on information from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, here's what happened. In 2003-2004, there were an estimated 12,764 low birth-weight cases in the U.S. As PFOA exposure was reduced, there were 10,203 cases in 2009-2010, and only 1,491 in 2013-2014. The health costs associated with those LBW cases were $2.97 billion in 2003-2004, $2.4 billion in 2009-2010 and then down to $347 million in 2013-2014.
The EPA can do more. Examining Medicare records from 2000 to 2012, Harvard researchers showed that a reduction in short-term exposure to particulate matter from coal-burning power plants could avoid 20,000 deaths a year. All it would take, they postulated, would be to install scrubbers on coal-burning power plants that don't have them.
As health care costs threaten the nation's bottom line and environmental health hazards increasingly harm people, it would only be smart to have everyone work together to remove environmental toxins and save billions of dollars in health care expenses that drain businesses and the national treasury.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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