[Homesteadingfamily] Re: Cookware for prepping

Sorry Eric. and thank you for the information. I am very weary of "medical research" and the papers they publish - they are only as good as the subjects you get and the honesty of the doctors who want to publish. Post-menopausal women are extremely biologically different, especially age and hormones. I have always believed that age and lifestyle have a much bigger impact on things like heart attacks and of course, family history.

I just don't believe the small amount of iron that might leach from use of an iron skillet is going to impact someone's health.

So for now, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. I for one don't use many iron utensils, but that is because I don't like the way they cook most foods and they are way more high maintenance than my non-stick and I am fairly lazy in the 'cleaning-up-after-myself" arena!

--- On Mon, 11/15/10, Eric <local_maxima@mathlab.gruver.net> wrote:

From: Eric <local_maxima@mathlab.gruver.net>
Subject: Re: Cookware for prepping
To: "Dave and Paula Spalding" <daveandpaula0923@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Monday, November 15, 2010, 8:46 PM

Here's a copy of the message I referred to. With moderation, I
never know how long it will take to appear on the list.

====================================================

On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:35:53 -0800
Strumpets Delight <strumpetsdelight@gmail.com> wrote:

> Do you have documentation of these claims Eric?

The best source I know about what can happen from too much iron
is an aritcle in the CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal
a few years ago. It does a very good summary.

----------------------------------------------------

From http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol5no3/weinberg.htm:

Iron Loading and Disease Surveillance
Eugene D. Weinberg
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

...

Excessive iron in specific tissues (iron loading) promotes
infection, neoplasia, cardiomyopathy, arthropathy, and a
profusion of endocrine and possibly neurodegenerative
disorders.

...

... Moreover, in infectious diseases, inflammatory
diseases, and illnesses that involve ischemia and
reperfusion, iron causes reactions that produce superoxide
radicals. ...

... To survive and replicate in hosts, microbial pathogens
must acquire host iron. Highly virulent strains possess
exceptionally powerful mechanisms for obtaining host iron
from healthy hosts. In persons whose tissues and cells
contain excessive iron, pathogens can much more readily
procure iron from molecules of transferrin that are
elevated in iron saturation. In such cases, even microbial
strains that are not ordinarily dangerous can cause
illness. Markedly invasive neoplastic cell strains can
glean host iron more easily than less malignant strains or
normal host cells. Moreover, iron-loaded tissues are
especially susceptible to growth of malignant cells.

...

Table 1. Iron loading in specific tissues and increased
risk for disease

Tissue type    Disease
----------------------- ---------------------------------
Alveolar macrophages    Pulmonary neoplasia and
            infection

Anterior pituitary    Gonadal and growth dysfunction

Aorta; carotid and Atherosclerosis
            coronary arteries

Colorectal mucosa    Adenoma, carcinoma

Heart    Arrhythmia, cardiomyopathy

Infant intestine    Botulism, salmonellosis, sudden
            death

Joints    Arthropathy

Liver    Viral hepatitis, cirrhosis,
            carcinoma

Macrophages    Intracellular infections

Pancreas    Acinar and beta cell necrosis,
            carcinoma

Plasma and lymph    Extracellular infections

Skeletal system    Osteoporosis

Skin    Leprosy, melanoma

Soft tissue    Sarcoma

Substantia nigra    Parkinson's disease

...

Table 2. Microbial genera with strains whose growth in body
fluids, cells, tissues, and intact vertebrate hosts is
stimulated by excess iron

...

Excessive iron is correlated with synovial damage in
rheumatoid arthritis and with impaired glucose metabolism
in diabetes. The association of Chlamydia pneumoniae and
excessive iron with cardiovascular disease is well
established. Growth of this pathogen is strongly suppressed
by iron restriction.

----------------------------------------------------------

Take a look at table 2. As much as I'd like to put it
here, trying to format it to fit is pretty tough.

----------------------------------------------------------

Now keep in mind that much of this is from too much iron. The
problem is that there is no magical line between too much and
not too much. So just a little excessive iron that may affect
one condition might not have much affect on other conditions.

Some other sources on the Internet you might want to read
include:

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-09-09/news/mn-156_1_heart-attacks

    According to the report, men with high amounts of iron
    in their bodies had twice as much risk of heart attacks
    as men with lower amounts of iron--after known heart
    disease risk factors, such as cholesterol levels and
    smoking, were taken into account.

    ...

    A decade ago, Sullivan theorized that women are
    protected against heart attacks until after menopause
    because of the large amounts of iron they lose each
    month in menstrual blood. Despite the exclusion of
    women from the Finnish study, Sullivan called the
    findings "especially relevant" to his theory.

    The Finnish researchers, led by Dr. Jukka T. Salonen
    and Riitta Salonen said their findings raise the
    question of whether current dietary recommendations for
    iron intake should be revised for men and possibly for
    post-menopausal women.

    ...

    Sullivan suggested that, based on the findings, the
    level of iron considered normal may need to be lowered.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2548/does-giving-blood-reduce-your-chances-of-getting-heart-disease

    The iron hypothesis arose from the observation that
    premenopausal women have a much lower incidence of heart
    disease than men but that after menopause the difference
    narrows dramatically. Originally it was thought this had
    something to do with sex hormones. However, men given
    estrogen suffer more heart disease than normal, and
    women who stop menstruating due to surgery but still
    have estrogen-producing ovaries suffer increased heart
    problems nonetheless.

    In 1981, trying to make sense out of this, pathologist
    Jerome Sullivan proposed an alternative explanation:
    "The greater incidence of heart diseases in men and
    postmenopausal women is due to higher levels of stored
    iron in these two groups." Evidence: (1) diseases that
    cause iron buildup often result in heart failure; (2)
    the older a man gets, the more iron he accumulates; (3)
    after menopause, stored iron in women rises to the
    level found in men; and (4) the types of heart disease
    found in affluent countries are rare among impoverished
    peoples with iron-deficient diets. Sullivan's
    recommended treatment: "regular phlebotomy," medicalese
    for having someone extract your blood.

    Some later research supported Sullivan's theory. The
    most recent study I've seen, published in Heart by
    David G. Meyers et al, examined 3,900 male participants
    in the Nebraska Diet Heart Study and found that
    nonsmokers who had donated blood in the past three
    years had a 30 percent lower risk of major heart
    problems. (Curiously, donating multiple times during
    the three years, as opposed to once or twice, brought no
    additional benefit.) Other researchers conjectured that
    iron interacts with LDL (bad) cholesterol to promote
    atherosclerosis, and there's a lot of stuff about free
    radicals and so on that I don't have the heart to
    explain.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11087066

    Iron is a vital element in life. However, it may
    participate in diverse pathological processes by
    catalyzing the formation of reactive oxygen free
    radicals. During the past decade, considerable evidence
    has supported the role of oxidative stress in the
    development of atherosclerosis and related
    cardiovascular diseases. The oxidation of low-density
    lipoprotein (LDL) and lipid is believed to be one of the
    crucial events leading to plaque formation in
    vasculature. It has been hypothesized that iron-mediated
    oxidation is involved in this process. In favor of this
    idea, several epidemiological studies have shown that
    the level of body iron stores is positively correlated
    with the incidence of coronary heart disease in human
    populations. However, some studies have yielded
    conflicting results. Recently, studies conducted in our
    laboratory and others have demonstrated that iron
    deposition is prominent in human atherosclerotic
    lesions. The iron deposits appear to colocalize with
    ceroid, which is an end product of extensively oxidized
    lipid and protein complex, in lesions, providing
    histological evidence to support the iron hypothesis.
    Additional experiments in animals have further revealed
    that the severity of atherosclerosis can be markedly
    influenced by iron overload or deficiency.
    Collectively, these data provide a strong pathological
    basis to support the detrimental role of iron in
    vascular damage and progression of the disease.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10421276

    Strong epidemiological evidence is available that iron
    is an important factor in the process of
    atherosclerosis. Epidemiological studies, eg,
    prospective follow-up studies in blood donors, may
    clarify the cardiovascular benefits of iron depletion.
    Knowledge of the molecular mechanism of iron-related
    cardiovascular disease is still limited.

http://www.jvascnurs.net/article/S1062-0303(00)38179-1/abstract

    This article summarizes research conducted during the
    last 2 decades that addresses the idea that stored iron
    plays a role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and
    that iron reduction through phlebotomy may play a role
    in the treatment or prevention of atherosclerosis. Body
    iron stores rise after adolescence in men and menopause
    in women. This rise has been linked to the pathogenesis
    of atherosclerosis through iron-induced oxidation of
    low-density lipids and foam cell formation. However, the
    available evidence on the iron hypothesis remains
    circumstantial. Reduction of body iron stores in the
    setting of a controlled, prospective intervention trial
    is necessary to determine whether the amount of stored
    iron is related to clinically meaningful vascular
    disease.

-----------------

From what I read once, but don't remember precisely here,
excess iron is necessary for the formation of atheroclerosis --
no excess iron, litte or no atheroclerosis.

Eric

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