"White Flour Contains Diabetes-Causing Contaminant Alloxan"

[wildflower]

I just came across this. Anyone else heard about it?

The article is from 2005. If this is true, are they still doing it?

From the article:

You may want to think twice before eating your next sandwich on white bread. Studies show that alloxan, the chemical that makes white flour look "clean" and "beautiful," destroys the beta cells of the pancreas. That's right; you may be devastating your pancreas and putting yourself at risk for diabetes, all for the sake of eating "beautiful" flour. Is it worth it?

Scientists have known of the alloxan-diabetes connection for years; in fact, researchers who are studying diabetes commonly use the chemical to induce the disorder in lab animals. (...)

More at http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/alloxan061605.cfm .

[kimmerspixelated]

1. Explains why Diabetes was practically unheard of before

bread/flour was "cleaned". Before we toxified everything, diabetes was rare.

[Big Blue Marble]

2. What about unbleached white flour?

Would it have this chemical as well?

[HillbillyBob]

3. Well I missed that one, but I had changed my diet starting about

15 years ago when dr told me I would have a stroke before lunch, and it was 10:30am.
The first thing I found out was that white flour was actually good food before it is stripped of its good bran then bleached with chemicals (which ones I now forget)
I won't go into all the ugly details. At the time I ate fast food, my partner was an amateur chef (very good tasty food, but fattenin).
At the time I got to thinkin that white bread was not good for me, over time I slowly eliminated or nearly foods with chemically fractured corn products.
Corn syrup solids, hydrolysed corn/soy/veggie oils (think of how plastic is made by hydrolysing or hydrogenated petroleum oil...).
I think corn syrup has a lot to do with diabetes, my reasoning is that my father, grand father and g grand father ate pancakes several days a week and lots of food sweetened with corn syrup. Remember King and Karo? I was on the border and since I have nearly eliminated corn syrup sweetened stuff my blood sugar has been stable/correct for about 10 years, I still get low blood sugar when I don't eat regularly.
I don't do margarine, solid shortening, and stuff I cannot pronounce.
I do cheat now and then.
I had seen several health programs talking about poly this and that, the dr on there said read the label and if it has more than 5 ingredients, such as for bread you likely should not eat it.

[salvorhardin]

4. The first thing you might ask is....

Where is the author's proof that white flour is contaminated with alloxan? It's just a bald assertion that is never backed up.

As far as I know, in present times flour is bleached with diluted benzoyl peroxide. Mid 20th C. chlorine dioxide was the maturing agent of choice. I'm not sure if it's still used. I've never heard of alloxan being used.

The second thing you might ask, after ascertaining that alloxan is actually added to white flour, is in what amounts and dilutions is it used? Again the author doesn't say and as we all know, the dose makes the poison.

IMHO the biggest thing you have to fear from products consisting of primarily white flour are the empty calories, but everything in moderation.

[trotsky]

5. Has all the hallmarks of a hoax... and guess what?

It apparently is.

Species differences in susceptibility of transplanted and cultured pancreatic islets to the beta-cell toxin alloxan.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11356036?dopt=Abstract
Human islets did not show any signs of alloxan-induced damage in the different models studied.

Major species differences between humans and rodents in the susceptibility to pancreatic beta-cell injury.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7937750?dopt=Abstract
Thus human beta cells are resistant to NP, SZ, or alloxan at concentrations that decrease survival and function of rat or mouse beta cells.

For the same reason that many promising health treatments work in mice or rats but don't pan out in humans... there are some aspects of our physiology that are very, very different.

[wildflower]

7. Thanks

I had just located some resources saying that alloxan does cause diabetes in mice; it wasn't clear that it didn't translate to humans.

[Why Syzygy]

6. With vitamin C?

From: Steve Harris <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: White Flour Contains Diabetes-Causing Contaminant Alloxan
Date: 22 Jun 2005 19:21:33 -0700
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

>>Scientists have known of the alloxan-diabetes connection for years; in
fact, researchers who are studying diabetes commonly use the chemical
to induce the disorder in lab animals. <<


COMMENT:

In LAB animals. This is one of those cases where humans differ quite a
lot from rodents and even dogs in toxicity of a given chemical. We're
not sure why. It may be that alloxan is toxic mainly in species that
make their own vitamin C. In flour it probably only gives diabetes to
the Linus Pauling types who megadose. :)


Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Sep 27;91(20): 9253-6.

Major species differences between humans and rodents in the
susceptibility to pancreatic beta-cell injury.

Eizirik DL, Pipeleers DG, Ling Z, Welsh N, Hellerstrom C, Andersson A.

Department of Medical Cell Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden.

The ability of beta cells to endure assaults may be relevant in the
development of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. This study examines
the susceptibility of human pancreatic islets to agents that are
cytotoxic for rodent beta cells--i.e., sodium nitroprusside (NP, a nitric
oxide donor), streptozotocin (SZ), or alloxan. After 5-8 days in tissue
culture, human or rodent islets were exposed for 14 h to NP (50-200
microM) or for 30 min to SZ or alloxan (1-3 mM). Glucose oxidation by
human islets was not reduced by NP, but there was a dose-dependent
inhibition in rat (40-90% inhibition; P < 0.001) and mouse (10-60%
inhibition; P < 0.05) islet glucose oxidation. Glucose (16.7 mM)-induced
insulin release by human islets was not impaired after a 30-min exposure
to SZ or alloxan, at concentrations that inhibited insulin release from
rat (30-80% inhibition; P < 0.001) or mouse (10-70% inhibition; P < 0.05)
islets. The viability of human beta cells purified by flow cytometry was
not affected by SZ or alloxan (5 mM), as judged 1 or 4 days after a
10-min exposure and subsequent culture; these conditions were cytotoxic
for rat beta cells, with 65-95% (P < 0.01) dead beta cells after 4 days.
Human islets transplanted under the kidney capsule of nude mice were not
affected by in vivo alloxan exposure, as suggested by preserved graft
morphology and insulin content, whereas the endogenous beta cells of the
transplanted mice were severely damage (80% decrease in pancreatic
insulin content and morphological signs of beta-cell destruction). Thus
human beta cells are resistant to NP, SZ, or alloxan at concentrations
that decrease survival and function of rat or mouse beta cells. These
marked interspecies differences emphasize the relevance of repair and/or
defense mechanisms in beta-cell destruction and raise the possibility
that such differences may also be present among individuals of the same
species.

PMID: 7937750
http://yarchive.net/med/alloxan.html

[AllieB]

8. It's the white flour that causes diabetes, not the alloxan.

Flour and carbs in general cause your blood sugar to spike. Your body treats bread the same way to treats sweets and cakes-your pancreas cannot tell the difference between a piece of chocolate cake and a piece of whole wheat bread. The whole wheat bread will make your blood sugar rise more slowly and the sugary cake will spike it more rapidly, but over the years, your pancreas takes repeated hits from consumption of high-glycemic foods, whether or not they're purportedly 'healthy' for you.