Chapter Four
Change
One of the most significant recent changes to the food supply is the reduction of sulfur availability, which is an essential nutrient for the human body. As a sign of the element’s usefulness, “sulfur is the sixth most abundant micromineral in breast milk and the third most abundant mineral based on percentage of total body weight (91).” Sulfur helps to detoxify, which applies to ASD people because they often have slower detoxification.
Sulfur can attach to many pollutants, like heavy metals, drugs, and various chemicals. This attachment of sulfur helps remove pollutants. One route of pollutant removal is with the bile, which releases into the digestive system. The other paths of elimination are kidney filtration and sweating.
When chopping garlic, the garlic sticking to the hand is a result of the sulfur compounds that are in the garlic. This stickiness is a way to visualize the attachment function of sulfur. This sulfur attachment quality also helps hold other molecules and enzymes together. Sulfur is present in many molecules, such as glutathione, cysteine, biotin, thiamine, heparan, alpha-lipoic acid, and methionine. Limited sulfur availability affects health because of the importance of detoxification and making those molecules. Unfortunately, many blood tests do not measure sulfur levels, so the problem goes unnoticed.
Because of various circumstances in the modern world, sulfur levels in many people are lower than in the past. Likely, many ASD people have even lower sulfur levels due to increased inflammation and glutathione decline.
Sulfur has other important functions in the body. For example, sulfur helps to deactivate neurotransmitters. The process of neurotransmitter deactivation maintains balance in the brain. Limiting this deactivation affects multiple mental health conditions.
Sulfur also affects the release of digestive enzymes used to digest food. In addition, the body uses sulfur to form sulfated glycosaminoglycans, which help seal the intestinal barrier (92). Therefore, a lack of sulfur can impact both digestion and intestinal permeability.
Importantly, during chronic inflammation, the body may purposely deplete sulfate, the oxidized version of sulfur. Vitamin D, a hormone that influences many aspects of the body, including the immune system, affects sulfate levels in the body. Research found an association between a deficiency of vitamin D and less sulfate ion reabsorption in the kidney (93). Discussed later, chronic inflammation could create a deficiency of vitamin D. Therefore, chronic inflammation may cause the loss of sulfate into the urine. In addition, inflammatory cytokines inhibit the enzyme cysteine dioxygenase (94). This enzyme impacts the process that eventually produces sulfate from cysteine.
Perhaps the body is limiting sulfate levels on purpose to increase the inflammatory response. If experiencing a powerful inflammation challenge, such as a pathogen, then the body may enhance the inflammatory response to destroy the pathogen. As discussed later, sulfate has anti-inflammatory effects, which conflicts with the need for a strong inflammatory response in situations of severe inflammatory challenge.
The depletion of Vitamin D likely acts as a signal of this challenge, increasing the loss of sulfate. As mentioned, an increased inflammatory response is often helpful for stopping a pathogen. However, the response does not stop the modern threat of inflammation coming from incorrect nutrition, chronic stress, and excess pollution. The body did not evolve with these conditions. Therefore, the body does not have the systems to adequately deal with these conditions.
Where sulfur may be especially important is in protecting the body from needing a large increase of inflammatory power. The detoxification and anti-inflammatory activity of sulfur helps to stabilize the body and increase defenses to threats. Therefore, sulfur supplementation may reduce inflammation and increase detoxification ability.
One type of sulfur supplement is methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). Researchers found that MSM improved exercise recovery and limited inflammation (95). MSM prepared in water at 50mg/kg body weight and taken for ten days had an association with higher glutathione levels in the MSM supplemented exercisers compared to the exercisers who did not take the MSM (96). Research also found that MSM significantly improved seasonal allergic rhinitis (97). Also, MSM might cause the death of multiple types of cancer cells (98). In addition, MSM may interrupt the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome (99). Interruption of NLRP3 activation limits the amount of inflammation generated.
Because of the previously mentioned attaching quality of sulfur, supplements that contain fillers, additives, or anything besides pure MSM can cause problems when the sulfur binds to these other ingredients. For this reason, pure MSM powder is a better supplement choice.
Unfortunately, for some people with health conditions, there could be an accumulation of toxicity, such as heavy metals. The detoxification effects of MSM powder may temporarily cause health problems to worsen by pulling many pollutants out of storage inside the cells. Therefore, beginning with a smaller dose and then slowly increasing the amount consumed over many weeks will likely reduce unpleasant detoxification side effects.
Another consideration with sulfur intake is the potential influence of bacterial balance. Sulfur feeds pathogenic sulfur-reducing bacteria, which can be a problem if there are already too many of these bacteria in the intestines. However, this problem might only occur in some people. There is a discussion about this later.
Sulfur and ASD
Researchers found lower plasma sulfate levels in ASD children compared to the control group (100). Also, other research reports that ASD participants had “significantly (P < 0.001) decreased plasma reduced GSH, plasma cysteine, plasma taurine, plasma sulfate, and plasma free sulfate relative to controls (101).” Each of these molecules contains sulfur or sulfate, which is the oxidized version of sulfur.
If sulfur has anti-inflammatory and detoxification abilities, then supplementation with sulfur or specific sulfur-based molecules may improve ASD symptoms. Research found that four supplements, which contain sulfur, were therapeutic for ASD people. These supplements were l-carnitine, sulforaphane, n-acetylcysteine, and a multivitamin containing MSM and n-acetylcysteine. The same study also notes that:
“the over-representation of sulfur containing antioxidants in the set of compounds that have been found to be therapeutic for autism as well as the indications of therapeutic potential of others, and the low levels of sulfur compounds and high oxidative stress that are often seen in autism biochemistry suggest that sulfur deficits are often fundamental to autism etiology, and sulfur containing antioxidants are worthy of additional study as a class of therapeutics for autism (102).”
Research also found that administration of transdermal thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD) might have increased heavy metal excretion in the urine of a few patients (103). Interestingly, of the many different types of synthetic thiamine investigated, the disulfide component of the molecule is perhaps a critical part of the biological action of TTFD (104).
If sulfur and specific sulfur-based molecules have detoxification and anti-inflammatory potential, then making sure they are available in the food supply is important.
The lack of sulfur availability is likely a major reason for the rising rates of ASD and many other health conditions starting in the 1980s. In addition, there are many other changes in nutrition quality that significantly affect this pattern of worsening health in modern society over the last few decades.
Sulfur Depletion
Human health often relates to the health of the soil that grows the food. Unfortunately, a significant change has been occurring since 1900. This change is the emergence of massive farms that focus on profit and increasing the amount of crop production. The powerful desire for profit frequently leads to the abandonment of natural farming practices because of the higher financial cost.
Researchers found that “since 1900, the number of farms has fallen by 63 percent, while the average farm size has risen by 67 percent (105).” These farms tend to use chemical fertilizers, which mostly contain nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Known as NPK fertilizer and popularized after the World Wars, the use of these types of fertilizers is an unnatural farming practice. Before these changes, farmers used more natural fertilizers, such as animal manure, which provided more sulfur and trace elements to replenish the soil. Researchers note the increasing use of nitrogen and fertilizer compounds containing little or no sulfur (106).
The shift from many small farms to more massive farms run by for-profit corporations is bad for health. Turning food production into a large-scale, profit-focused business leads to less natural farming practices and, consequently, less nutritious food. Also, the use of chemical fertilizers on many of these farms damages the environment when the chemicals flow into the waterways.
Another problem with large farms is they often grow only one crop, such as corn or soy. In the past, smaller farms grew multiple types of plants and practiced crop rotation to limit the loss of essential soil minerals.
Crop rotation involves growing different types of crops in the same field in alternating years. This way, if one crop depletes specific nutrients, then the other crop could help to replenish some of those nutrients. For example, a farmer can plant cover crops that pull atmospheric nitrogen into the soil so there is more nitrogen to grow the next crop.
However, if a farm continually grows the same types of plants in the same field, then there could be a hidden loss of essential nutrients. Even if the farmer uses chemical fertilizers to make the crops grow, there may still be less nutrients available in the plants for human nutritional requirements.
Even if plants do not show obvious signs of sulfur deficiency, such as yellowing of the leaves, the plants can still have less sulfur than they would normally contain. This deficiency, and many other types of deficiencies, will have negative health effects because important functions in the body require specific nutrients.
In the future, farms may need to become smaller and use natural manure while focusing on the preservation and maintenance of soil nutrients. Smaller farms create more locally produced food, which reduces food transportation. This makes the food fresher, with a better antioxidant content when getting to consumers. Less transportation also reduces the environmental pollution generated when moving food over a long distance. Fewer large farms will also reduce the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, further limiting environmental pollution.
Like sulfur’s benefit for humans, sulfur also helps crops. Multiple field experiments have shown that over 40 crops responded to fertilization with sulfur, “with mean yield increase ranging from 14% to 74% (107).” In addition, sulfur fertilization improves the disease resistance of plants (108). In contrast, less sulfur reduces crop size and negatively affects human health.
To recap, modern farming often uses NPK fertilizers that do not have enough sulfur and other essential minerals, such as zinc, selenium, and magnesium. Massive modern farms also use various other farming practices that lower soil nutrients. These mineral deficiencies seriously affect health because minerals are required for the function of many enzymes in the body.
For example, hundreds of different enzymes, including enzymes that reduce inflammation, need magnesium to function. Zinc is another important mineral required for hundreds of enzymes to efficiently perform their tasks. If certain enzymes do not have their mineral support, then the body cannot adequately control inflammation.
Interestingly, compared to the time that synthetic NPK fertilizer application began, ASD rates have only recently increased. The rate of ASD especially started to increase in the 1980s. The sulfur dioxide released into the air from pollution could have kept the soil sulfur levels at a higher level until around the 1980s.
The Clean Air Act of 1970, which required installing air-scrubbers on the smokestacks, caused a significant shift in sulfur dioxide emissions (109). This Clean Air Act led to less sulfur deposition into the soil. Another Clean Air Act in 1990 further decreased sulfur levels in the air (110).
The Clean Air Act of 1970 took a while to take full effect. Afterward, there was less sulfur dioxide available to land on the soil. The sulfur put onto the soil from the air lasted only a few more years. By the 1980s, soil sulfur depletion started to impact human health.
The objective of the Clean Air Act was to reduce the serious environmental problems caused by excessive sulfur dioxide emissions. The pollution reduction is beneficial because the environment requires protection. Also, air pollution harms health, especially the health of people living in polluted cities.
The Act does not need to change to increase soil sulfur content. Instead, what needs to radically change are the farming practices mentioned in this chapter.
Other countries also passed legislation that resulted in a reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions. Measured sulfur atmospheric deposition in the United Kingdom greatly decreased, with the 1996-1998 levels only about 10% of the amount measured in the 1970s (111). In Denmark, the annual emission of sulfur dioxide fell from 450,000 tons in the 1970s to 180,000 tons in 1990 (112). Also, Chart Two in Appendix A of this book shows how, by the 1980s, there was a reduction in Canadian sulfur dioxide emissions.
The decline of sulfur content in the soil is just one of the many changes that has occurred in the last few decades. There are multiple other big changes discussed later in this chapter.
Overall, there are considerable benefits in returning to the farming practices of the past, which featured better soil health and more nutritious crops. Understanding the connection between soil and human health can help lead to more effective medical treatment.
Rather than taking pills to simply hide health problems, futuristic medicine will use organic, mineral-rich foods to prevent health problems from happening. Doctors in the future will understand the main causes of disease and see the body as highly interconnected. These future doctors will treat patients using natural remedies and life changes.
Perhaps healing with sound will become one of the main forms of medicine once there is a better understanding and technology to apply the knowledge.
Lost Process
In addition to the previously mentioned concerns about farming, food processing methods cause most food to be less healthy.
At the grocery store, most of the food is in boxes with long ingredient labels. Many of these foods are refined and heavily processed. They frequently have many chemicals and preservatives designed to allow the food to last for a long time on the shelf without spoiling. Critically, many of these chemicals are not tested for potential long-term health effects.
In addition, modern food processing methods reduce the number of sulfur-based molecules and many other types of phytochemicals. This is because many plants respond to processing methods as an attack. This causes the loss of sulfur content and many phytochemicals in defending against this attack.
Another problem is various beneficial phytochemicals in plants start diminishing immediately after harvest and continue to diminish more over time. As mentioned, the design of multiple phytochemicals is to protect the plant from an attack. Therefore, plants start to use up their phytochemicals after harvest, which is an attack on the plants.
The post-harvest loss of phytochemicals is not a problem in hunter-gatherer societies because people eat soon after pulling the plant from the Earth. Even just a few decades ago, when there were a lot more local farms, much fresher vegetables were available for sale.
Unfortunately, most food ships in large trucks over long distances in modern society. Some foods ship across the sea on long-distance voyages when imported from other countries. This long-distance food may be much lower in beneficial phytochemicals by the time the food arrives on the consumer’s plate. In contrast, freshly harvested food from local farms has higher concentrations of beneficial phytochemicals.
Phytochemical availability is critical because they have a massive effect on overall health. Total consumption of phytochemicals associates with the protection from many different diseases (113). Therefore, eating food as fresh and as close to its source as possible provides the body with more phytochemicals and may improve health. The local farmer’s market often sells this type of fresh food. Some grocery stores also run specials promoting local harvests. These foods will be seasonal and likely cheaper.
Another way to get fresher food is to grow a personal garden. Having a garden also helps to ground the body. There is a discussion about grounding later.
1984
In addition to the previously mentioned changes, another significant shift happened around the 1980s. This shift was the widespread promotion of a diet low in saturated fat by various authorities, including the government (114). Observations and research showing a link between the intake of saturated fat and a higher risk of heart disease influenced these recommendations. A famous researcher many years ago noted there was a connection between heart disease and eating more fat (115). Others have also found an association between saturated fat and increased heart disease risk (116) (117).
Importantly, saturated fat and glucose compete to enter cells for metabolism. Researchers found a link between saturated fat and higher insulin resistance (118) (119). Other research found glucose or insulin limit long-chain fatty acid metabolism (120). Therefore, the combination of high blood glucose levels and eating a lot of fat is where the problem occurs.
High fat intake combined with high blood glucose causes much higher blood glucose levels because of the insulin resistance created by the additional fat. This higher blood glucose, when combined with inflammation, damages low-density lipoproteins (LDLs), which can form plaques in the arteries. This increases the risk of heart disease and heart attacks.
However, if avoiding the consumption of high glycemic load foods when on a high-fat diet, then saturated fat might not cause those problems. Glycemic load is an indicator of how quickly a food increases glucose levels in the bloodstream. There is a discussion of glycemic load later.
Importantly, research now indicates that the recommendations for a low-fat diet by authorities may have been incorrect. A study found that evidence from randomized controlled trials did not support the establishment of the dietary fat guidelines around the early 1980s (121). In addition, recent scientific evidence “does not clearly support cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats (122).” Other evidence indicates that saturated fat has “a relatively minor role” in the risk of heart disease (123). Rather than fat intake, high levels of glucose in the blood is the important risk factor. There is a discussion about the dangers of glucose later.
The authorities have also convinced some people to avoid foods with cholesterol. Some people still believe that eggs increase cholesterol and heart disease risk. In contrast to this belief, a study found no association between sources of dietary cholesterol and an increased risk of coronary artery disease, even in highly susceptible individuals (124). Dietary cholesterol does not significantly impact plasma cholesterol, which is “regulated by different genetic and nutritional factors that influence cholesterol absorption and synthesis (125).”
Unfortunately, the recommendations to limit dietary fat led to increased sugar consumption. The consumption of added sugar increased 54% in women between the early 1980s and 2000s, while men followed the same pattern. The same researchers also saw that the body mass index tended to follow the trend in sugar intake (126). This shift is important since glucose metabolism creates many more reactive oxygen species than fat metabolism.
Another important change that happened because of the fear of saturated fat is many people started eating more refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Plant seeds, such as sunflower, soybean, and safflower, are the source of many of these oils, which contain a high amount of an omega-6 fat known as linoleic acid. This fat may increase the inflammatory response in the body.
These oils are especially harmful to health after getting cooked at very high temperatures. This happens in many restaurants. Therefore, eating less restaurant food may greatly benefit overall health.
Even more concerning is the huge number of processed foods sold at the store that also contain polyunsaturated vegetable oils. When the eyes are open to this reality, it truly is shocking. People should not underestimate the negative health effects of these oils when they are cooked and processed. There is a further discussion of these oils later.
In summary, beginning in the early 1980s, the promotion of low saturated fat diets by authorities caused people to eat more refined carbohydrates and polyunsaturated oils rich in omega-6 fats. These factors, when combine with reduced soil mineral content, increased inflammation in many people.
Dilution Effect
Returning the focus to agriculture production, farming focused on profit seeks larger crops. Many farmers breed crops to grow bigger because the larger size is worth more money in the marketplace.
However, increasing the size often decreases the density of the nutrients in the plant. This decrease is known as the dilution effect (127). Chart Three in Appendix A shows how the dilution effect impacts various nutrients in corn. The dilution effect also affects many other types of crops. Larger plants cause there to be less nutrition per bite for the consumer.
Essential Minerals
The dilution effect, combined with soil deficiencies, leads to fewer minerals in many foods. These minerals include, but are not limited to, zinc, molybdenum, magnesium, selenium, copper, and calcium.
Minerals affect multiple functions in the body, such as antioxidant enzyme activity, sulfur production, and glutathione generation. Chapter 7 contains more information on the importance of nutrition and specific minerals. Therefore, this part of the book is only an overview of a few mineral functions.
The mineral selenium influences reactive oxygen species control because selenium assists glutathione peroxidase, which is a critical enzyme that turns the reactive oxygen species hydrogen peroxide into water.
The mineral zinc is vital for the immune system (128). Zinc might also improve intestinal permeability (129). Zinc deficiency may decrease the function of methionine synthase, a significant methylation cycle enzyme (130). Importantly, zinc influences hundreds of different enzymes.
Another essential mineral with hundreds of functions is magnesium. One of those functions is operating the enzyme gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), which helps to increase intracellular levels of glutathione by breaking apart glutathione outside of the cell and transporting the components for reassembly inside the cell (131). Magnesium may also improve the function of the enzyme glutathione peroxidase (132). This enzyme reduces hydrogen peroxide, a reactive oxygen species, which can increase inflammation when unregulated.
The mineral molybdenum influences the function of the enzyme sulfite oxidase (133). This enzyme creates beneficial sulfate molecules from sulfites. A dysfunctional enzyme increases the risk of negative health effects from foods that have sulfites, such as many wines. Limited sulfur oxidation capacity correlates with well-defined reactions to food (134). ASD children that experience food intolerances typically show diminished sulfite oxidase ability (135).
Many other enzymes need beneficial minerals, such as zinc, iron, copper, manganese, and molybdenum, to allow the enzymes to function (136). In general, mineral deficiencies negatively affect many different enzymes and cause multiple health problems.
Impaired Detoxification
By contributing to increased inflammation and reducing enzyme functions, mineral deficiencies negatively affect phase II detoxification in the liver. This process involves the attachment of pollutants, drugs, hormones, or other compounds to another molecule, which helps detoxify the body. Phase II detoxification has seven pathways. These pathways are glycine, acetylation, glutathione, taurine, glucuronidation, methylation, and sulfation.
Unfortunately, chronic inflammation slows down many of these pathways. As mentioned, chronic inflammation can lower glutathione and sulfur as well as significantly reduce methylation cycle efficiency. Inflammation also slows down taurine production. Therefore, inflammation limits detoxification, increasing the amount of pollution stored in the body.
Having a well-functioning detoxification process is important for good health. Research suggests there is a link “between impaired detoxification and certain diseases, including cancer, Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue/immune dysfunction syndrome (137).” This particularly matters for ASD people because they tend to have a diminished detoxification ability (138).
If chronic inflammation limits detoxification, then reducing inflammation will significantly improve the ability to detoxify. Enhancing this ability is critical because of the increased pollution in the environment.