Bonnie Carroll's Life Bites

• Healthy Foods grow 1.8% to reach $143 billion in sales • Trends and market breakdowns for four categories

• Analysis of emerging new product categories and regulatory issues facing the industry globally

• Growth estimates through 2017 for the healthy foods market by category and its major subcategories

New Hope Natural Media’s Nutrition Business Journal^® (NBJ) today announced the release of the 2010 Healthy Foods Report The healthy foods market in the

United States

kept pace with overall food industry growth in 2009, but this is far from good news. Annual growth rates continue to slip for healthy foods, which has seen its star dull and tarnish in the protracted economic malaise. Data does suggest, however, that we may have hit the bottom, and growth rates should improve modestly in coming years. As growth takes meaningful hold, healthy foods should increase its share of the total foods market, reaching 23% penetration by 2017. The trends toward natural and organic food and beverages as safer and healthier consumer choices remain particularly strong.

U.S.

food market grew 1.6% in 2009, reaching $628 billion in sales, while healthy foods grew 1.8% to reach $143 billion in sales. NBJ includes four product categories in the healthy foods market—organic, natural, functional and lesser-evil foods. Market-standard and conventional foods make up an additional, catch-all category for the total foods results. This report contains detailed analysis of each healthy foods category, and the food and beverage product lines they include.

“Food is big business, and healthy foods are the future of that business. If you are a stakeholder in the nutrition industry, this report provides thorough and insightful analysis of the forces shaping the landscape to come. From organic snacks to functional beverages, we cover it all and map the trends sure to give you a competitive edge.”

This 293-page report, now in its third iteration and first major update since 2007, features:

· Trends and competitive analysis of the four U.S. Healthy Food categories including: Functional Foods, Natural Foods, Organic Foods, Lesser-Evil Foods

· Case studies profiling major successes and failures, and trends shaping the future of healthy foods

· Interviews with industry executives and thought leaders about the state of healthy foods

Nutrition Business Journal is an executive newsletter for decision-makers in the natural, nutrition and complementary and alternative health industries. NBJ's exclusive research and editorial focus on the strategic issues of the nutrition industry has made it a leading business intelligence resource for subscribers since 1996. To purchase detailed market research reports, subscribe to NBJ, or sign up for NBJ's free weekly e-newsletter.

Dr. Sarfraz Zaidi Dispels the Myths about Vitamin D in his New Book "Power of Vitamin D"

“Diet is not a major source of vitamin D,” according Dr. Sarfraz Zaidi, Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCLA and Director of the Jamila Diabetes and Endocrine Medical Center in Southern California. Dr. Zaidi is the author of a new book titled, “Power of Vitamin D,” which provides the real facts and benefits of vitamin D.

In order to get enough vitamin D one would have to drink at least 20 cups, or more of milk a day. “It’s a common misconception that one or two cups of milk a day will provide you with enough vitamin D. I have patients that say, but I drink milk every day. I tell them, okay, let’s get your vitamin D level checked. Sure enough, they turn out to be deficient in vitamin D.”

Even oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and blue fish contain only small amounts of vitamin D. The amount of vitamin D in fish remains unchanged if it is baked, but decreases about 50% if fish is fried. Also, farm raised salmon has only about 25% of vitamin D compared to wild salmon.“While fish is good for your overall health, you’d have to eat a lot of fish in order to get enough vitamin D. And that is not only impractical but would also increase your risk for mercury poisoning” says Dr. Zaidi.

“These misconceptions are one of the reasons why we are facing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency” explains Dr. Zaidi. “The most scientific way to find out if you are low in vitamin D is by taking a simple blood test. It factors in all of the variables that determine your vitamin D status such as your eating habits, amount of sun exposure, geographic location, race, age, medications.”

Vitamin D plays a vital role in the health of our muscles and bones to our immune system, and almost every organ system in the body. While Vitamin D has been a hot topic in the media lately, it is important to note that this hormone (yes, it’s actually a hormone, not a vitamin!) is not a cure. There are a lot of books and articles that may be causing confusion about this topic. “Bottom line, vitamin D should be taken as a form of prevention and treatment, not a cure for cancer or diabetes. It’s important that people understand this and take the appropriate dose of vitamin D supplement for the prevention as well as treatment of a host of medical illnesses,” says Dr. Zaidi.

For more information about “Power of Vitamin D” or Dr. Zaidi, please go to www.DoctorZaidi.com

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that the BP oil leak is much more of an environmental threat than previous spills from tankers, and if so why? -- Nathan Gore, Pawtucket, RI

No one knows for sure how the ongoing oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will affect the deep sea ecosystem, but scientists are not optimistic. Oil from what is now considered the nation’s second largest spill, 1989’s Exxon Valdez mishap, slicked 11,000 square miles of ocean surface and 1,300 miles of pristine Alaskan coastline while killing hundreds of thousands of birds and marine mammals and untold numbers of fish and fish eggs. But the impacts of the ongoing Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf may be far worse given that much of the loose oil is actually in the water column, not on the surface. In fact, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently detected huge deepwater plumes of dispersed oil up to 30 miles long, seven miles wide and hundreds of feet thick.

Why would an undersea spill be worse? One outcome could be the expansion in size and extension in time of a seasonal “dead zone” that already plagues the Gulf of Mexico as a result of industrial pollutants and agricultural run-off from the Mississippi River. While huge Gulf of Mexico algae blooms help to naturally clean up the Midwest’s factory emissions and wasted fertilizer, such a process doesn’t come without a cost to the ecosystem. Every spring, in a condition known as hypoxia, this fast growing algae depletes large sections of the Gulf's water column of the oxygen crucial for other life forms to survive there. The BP oil spill is likely to exacerbate this problem, as natural oil-eating microbes swarming over undersea oil plumes could cause or add to hypoxic conditions in otherwise teeming swaths of the Gulf.

According to NOAA researcher Samantha Joye, the undersea oil poses a direct threat to large marine wildlife, such as fish, sharks and cetaceans, and also to the tiny stuff, including zooplankton, shrimp, corals, crabs and worms. By endangering these latter populations, the foundation of the marine food chain, the oil could have chronic long-term effects on the wider Gulf ecosystem, including the industries—more shrimp and oysters come from the Gulf than anywhere else in the world—that rely on them.

Another worry is how the chemical dispersants being used to break up the undersea oil will impact the Gulf's ecosystems and inhabitants. The dispersant’s ingredients are a trade secret closely held by the company that makes it, and therefore have not been vetted by marine biologists to determine their safety for use in such a large application. It also remains to be seen what impact the tiny oil droplets left in the dispersant's wake will have. It could actually be worse for the undersea environment to break the oil up into tiny droplets (which is done to try to make it easier for microbes to digest them).

Beyond all these undersea environmental effects, the oil is also starting to wash up into coastal wetlands already besieged by overdevelopment, pollution and the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina. If there can be any silver lining to this catastrophe, it may be that it is the wake-up call we’ve needed to start moving more rapidly away from fossil fuels to a clean, renewable energy future. For starters, we can all begin to reduce our own oil consumption and opt for clean and green energy sources whenever possible.

CONTACTS: Deepwater Horizon Response, www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com; NOAA, www.noaa.gov.

· Don’t Overdo It. Smaller, more frequent meals help optimize the digestive process. Eating big portions can put more pressure on your stomach and lead to heartburn. Remember that the next BBQ is probably around the corner so be reasonable about portion sizes.

· Watch Out for Triggers. If you are prone to heartburn, be cautious when considering certain foods that are known to cause problems, including caffeinated drinks, alcohol, chocolate and spicy, fatty foods. Barbeque alternatives to consider include lower-fat dogs instead of traditional beef hot dogs, or make your burgers with lean ground turkey. Since all stomachs are not created equal, also be aware of your own personal triggers and try to cut back or at least avoid them late in the evening.

· Let Gravity Help. Although that hammock may be calling your name, keep away after a big meal. To help your food digest properly, stay in an upright position rather than lying down after you eat. The natural force of gravity helps with the digestive process.

· Keep your Medicine Cabinet Stocked. If you are a frequent heartburn sufferer, try an over-the-counter (OTC) medication like Zegerid OTC ®, an OTC proton pump inhibitor (PPI). PPIs work by deactivating acid-producing pumps in the stomach, offering 24-hour relief of frequent heartburn with one dose per day. For more information and tips to avoid heartburn, visit www.ZegeridOTC.com.

All eyes are on the BP gusher in the Gulf, spewing pollution over the shoreline, but there’s another big leak that will do even more damage to our economy: the one in the Medicare well.

Ever since 1965, when Medicare was enacted, the federal Treasury has been hemorrhaging dollars. Previously, “10%” was quoted and re-quoted as the amount of fraud. More recently, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) alleged it to be 20%.

Like BP’s oil containment dome, previous efforts failed to plug the hole. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars shoveled into the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC) by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), federal prosecutors say they need still more “resources” and “tools.”

Attorney General Eric Holder is looking for people to prosecute for both leaks—which will do nothing to stop the pollution.

Containment efforts in new Medicare rules include requiring doctors to “revalidate” their billing privileges periodically. They’ll have to show that their name, address, identifying numbers, and organizational status are exactly as registered. They’ll have to give Medicare access to their checking account by electronic funds transfer (EFT) so that it can make immediate “adjustments” in case of overpayment.

The Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”) imposes additional screening requirements; some providers will have to be fingerprinted.

Ever-more aggressive private bounty hunters called Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) are descending on doctors’ offices, dissecting claims and patients’ records, looking for a missing “bullet point” in the documentation, or an inaccurate digit in the billing code. ObamaCare increases the penalties for errors from $11,000 per item to $50,000. The government’s burden of proof, already light, has been further decreased. There is no need to prove any intent to defraud, or even to show that any money was ever collected.

Also, the definition of “fraud” is expanded to include “unnecessary” services, “ineffective” services, or those that don’t comply with Medicare requirements.

Prosecutors are making examples of “greedy providers.” Dr. Ronald Poulin of Virginia was smeared all over the pages of his local newspaper before being convicted of “fraud”—that previously would have been called billing errors. Pictures of his home were posted on the internet—a nice house, bought with decades of hard work, now seized, along with his cars, his bank accounts, his medical license, his reputation, and his liberty. He sits in jail awaiting assignment to a federal prison.

One less oncologist will be prescribing expensive chemotherapy to cancer patients—and there are other effects that we don’t see. Deterrence works. Trying to help sick people is becoming very dangerous.

But will these methods end the fraud? Dr. Kenneth Christman, a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) (www.aapsonline.org), states that the amount of fraud is actually 100%, because Medicare is a Ponzi scheme. Today’s soon-to-be-retiring Baby Boomers have been bilked as surely as Bernie Madoff’s investors were, and their “trust fund” is full of internal government IOUs that can be redeemed only by borrowing from a bigger sucker.

Leaving ultimate Medicare reform aside, can we eliminate true billing fraud? Eliminating doctors does eliminate billing—of all types, by those doctors. But organized crime is said to be moving in.

As Malcolm Sparrow pointed out in a book by that title, third-party payment is A License to Steal. Payment is made for a “clean claim,” not for a messy service. And despite the government’s legal advantages, it takes time to go through the process of destroying doctors. So here’s the overnight solution.

Make insurance fraud, like credit-card fraud, self-revealing. Do away with “assignment of benefits,” which means paying the “provider.” Mail all insurance payments to patients, in the form of a dual-payee check.

Dead or fictitious patients don’t cash checks. Real people who did not receive a worthwhile service generally do not pay for it.

Fire the RACs, and put prosecutors to work fighting real crime, not creating crimes from arcane codes. Restore the natural regulatory system of customers reading understandable bills. Don’t put medical dollars into a huge bank vault that criminals can open with computer codes, and the practice of medicine into a bureaucratic prison.