Judith..
Many thanks for posting such an interesting and possibly
PD-related article.
As I read, all could think of was "Oh DARN! I was a"Wonder Bread
kid," right in the time period that this research sees as a
probable agent in causing severe neurological disease, I.e., ALS,
and who knows - possibly PD as well.
If any researcher comes finds that HERSHEY BARS cause serious
degenerative neurological disease, I'll have a major tizzy-fit!
Sheeeeesh - ain't NUTTIN' sacred anymore?!?!?
Barb Mallut (FORMER Wonder Bread eater)
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-----Original Message-----
From: judith richards <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, January 15, 2000 5:04 PM
Subject: NEWS-Parkinsons, ALS and white bread
The worst thing since white bread In a case of serendipity, a
Canadian
neuroscientist believes he has isolated the cause of amyotrophic
lateral
sclerosis and other neurological diseases: a bleaching additive
that
bakers have long since abandoned
MICHAEL JUDGE
Special to The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, January 12, 2000
Winnipeg -- When baseball great Lou Gehrig was stricken with
amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis in 1939, his name became synonymous with this
terrible
disease. Since then, Lou Gehrig's disease has hit hundreds of
thousands
of victims worldwide, among them the famous physicist Stephen
Hawking.
Now a Canadian researcher has found evidence that some cases of
this
affliction, along with such other neurological diseases as
Parkinson's,
may have been caused by one of the most innocent foods imaginable:
white
bread.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by the
progressive
death of specialized nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
These
cells, known as motor neurons, control muscle movement and their
loss
leads to progressive paralysis and death. Many people suffer from
ALS;
around 300 new cases appear every day worldwide and three
Canadians die
daily from it. Some cases, less than one in 10, seem to be
inherited,
but the main cause of ALS has remained a mystery.
This week, researchers at the University of California and in
Lyon,
France, isolated a virus they believe might be responsible for
ALS.
Fifteen of 17 victims of ALS they studied showed evidence of a
virus in
the motor nerve cells of their spinal cords, while the virus was
found
in only one of 29 people who died of other causes.
But Christopher Shaw, a neuroscientist and associate professor at
the
University of British Columbia, says he believes at least some
cases can
be traced back to a common process once used to bleach flour.
In the early 1900s, bleached or white flour came into vogue in
Western
industrialized countries including Britain, the United States and
Canada. There were several reasons for its popularity, but the
main ones
were that bleached flour seemed to rise better and more
consistently and
could also be spread out further. That is, more bread could be
produced
with the same amount of flour after bleaching. The whitening
process of
choice was called the agene method and used nitrogen trichloride
gas for
bleaching. In Britain, and probably North America as well, this
method
was used to process about 80 per cent of all flour.
Health authorities eventually became suspicious about the agene
process
when reports about sick dogs started to turn up. Over the years,
people
had noticed that dogs who ate large amounts of agenized flour came
down
with a bizarre disorder known as aecanine hysteria.
Researchers began studying bleached flour and, in the late 1940s,
found
that the agene process produced a toxic byproduct, methionine
sulfoximine (MSO), which stayed in the flour during baking and was
eventually ingested. MSO is not only toxic, it has very unpleasant
effects on the central nervous system; tests at the time showed
MSO
could induce epilepsy in animals. Fortunately, the agene process
was
discontinued around 1950 in Britain and the United States, and
also
seems to have gradually dwindled away in Canada around the same
time.
It's not clear when or if the agene process was ever officially
banned
here, although Health Canada outlawed similar methods in 1968.
This episode was more or less forgotten for many years until
recently,
when Dr. Shaw began to investigate a very different subject.
"It was a true case of serendipity that we found out about it," he
says.
"We were studying the role of glutathione depletion in
neurological
disease."
Glutathione, he says, is a very useful substance that occurs
naturally
in the body. It works to mop up free radicals; reactive molecules
that
can easily damage cells. Glutathione also works to keep the
nervous
system functioning properly.
Dr. Shaw considered using a chemotherapy drug, buthionine
sulfoximine
(BSO), to control glutathione levels in lab animals. BSO is given
to
some cancer patients during chemotherapy because it inhibits the
body's
ability to make glutathione. Although glutathione is normally a
good
thing, cancer cells use it to shield themselves from attack during
therapy. The rationale is that using BSO can temporarily cut down
on
glutathione levels and make cancer treatment more effective.
While looking into BSO, he stumbled on 50-year-old literature
documenting the bleaching of white bread and recognized that MSO,
the
bread toxin, was almost identical to the chemotherapy agent he was
studying. Here was a toxin, cousin to a powerful chemotherapy
drug,
which millions of people had eaten for decades.
"I thought, 'If this substance was in bread, what could that have
meant?' " recalls Dr. Shaw. "There is an intriguing correlation
between
the increase in neurological diseases and the period during which
people
were eating this bread." If MSO really is poisonous to nerve
cells, it
could easily explain at least some cases of ALS and related
disorders.
Dr. Shaw believes he has evidence that MSO is actually extremely
good at
killing brain cells. "MSO has several effects in the nervous
system," he
says, "all of them damaging."
First, MSO knocks out at least some of the body's glutathione,
just as
BSO does. This means that nerve cells don't have their normal
protection
against free radicals. Second, MSO also prevents the synthesis of
glutamine, an important amino acid, which could lead to a buildup
of
toxic ammonia.
Perhaps more importantly, Dr. Shaw has shown that MSO also tends
to kill
nerve cells by jamming their calcium channels open so they become
overloaded with the mineral. Based on the synergy between all
these
effects, MSO would seem to be a very potent neurotoxin.
Although Dr. Shaw has made some intriguing in-vitro connections so
far,
he stresses that the link between white bread and ALS is not
complete.
There are still many questions that need to be answered, such as
why not
everyone who has eaten the toxic bread has come down with ALS. Dr.
Shaw
believes that some people could be hit harder than others because
they
are also exposed to co-factors in their diet, such as certain
metals, or
have a genetic predisposition.
In the meantime, Dr. Shaw is about to begin an important second
round of
testing to examine how these substances perform in vivo, or in
tissue.
"We are trying to duplicate our toxicity findings in animals."
His team will test the MSO and BSO, probably on live mice, to find
out
if these substances are, in fact, neurotoxic in living systems. He
is
also working in collaboration with other researchers trying to
find a
bioassay that will allow testing of subjects to see whether they
have
been exposed to the various neurotoxins.
The research has drawn attention from experts in the field.
Dr. Leonard Kurland of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who is
an
authority on neurotoxicology, says the causes of ALS are probably
multifaceted. "It's most likely a combination of genes and unknown
environmental factors."
Dr. Peter St. George-Hyslop specializes in neurological diseases
at the
University of Toronto and sees some validity in the MSO
hypothesis.
"There has been a lot of speculation about environmental toxins as
a
cause of neurodegenerative disease," he says. "Particularly with
Parkinson's and ALS."
He points out that ingesting a toxin could have effects that show
up
years later since symptoms don't become evident until the number
of
healthy brain cells falls below a certain level.
"When you have an acute insult, such as exposure to a toxin, it
brings
you closer to that threshold. The effect clearly doesn't have to
take
place immediately," says Dr. St. George-Hyslop.
Dr. Shaw is convinced there are many other undiscovered toxins
still
lurking in our environment.
"I would be surprised if we didn't find more man-made
neurotoxins," he
maintains. "Substances are screened for carcinogenic and mutagenic
properties but rarely for neurotoxicity."
And not all the poisons we eat have to be man-made. As a case in
point,
Dr. Shaw's research group is now investigating a natural
neurotoxin on
the Pacific island of Guam, whose inhabitants have shown a high
incidence of ALS. The condition was once so prevalent, in fact,
that the
celebrated science writer Oliver Sacks visited Guam and wrote of
it in
his book Island of the Color Blind. Previous studies had looked
for
poisons in cycad seeds, once a staple food on the island, but came
up
with inconclusive results.
"We decided to re-examine the issue," he says. His group has
isolated a
new compound from cycad, a plant steroid. Dr. Shaw believes the
compound
to be "very neurotoxic" in lab tests so far, although its chemical
makeup is not at all like MSO.
"But they do share some features," he says. The cycad toxin seems
to
kill cells by one of the same mechanisms as MSO.
But Dr. Heather Durham, a researcher at the Montreal Neurological
Institute, cautions that we have to keep the proper perspective.
"Eating a varied diet, and not overeating is probably the best
advice to
follow to minimize risk," she says.
Still, amidst the current debate over the safety of food
inspection in
Canada, Dr. Shaw's research seems to show that we need to be
vigilant.
"Many people who talk to me are offended that something as
fundamental
as bread contained a poison," he says. "The MSO story points to a
situation that got away from the people who should have been
monitoring."
Michael Judge is a Winnipeg science writer.
Copyright © 2000 Globe Information Services
~~~~
Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
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