Health Wanted: Cars

The Episode

The U.S. has built our transportation infrastructure around vast landscapes of six-lane highways and parking lots. Heck, you’re probably listening to this while driving! And if you happen to be stuck in traffic, perhaps it’s time to question if cars are really solving more problems than they create. 

This week on Health Wanted, we’re putting the pedal to the metal to talk about how your whip may be impacting your wellness.

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The Listener Questions

What are "natural flavors," and are they a health risk?

Anything you can touch, taste, or smell is made of matter, and is therefore composed of chemicals. Anthrax is made of chemical compounds, and so are carrots, and pesticides, and water.

This includes anything you eat and drink, and it’s these chemical structures that also contribute to their flavor—from the fats that give avocados their buttery taste, to the citric acid that gives oranges their tang. These flavors are derived from a combination of chemicals. 

In order to be considered a natural flavor, these chemical components have to be extracted directly from plant or animal products as found in nature. Artificial flavors, on the other hand, are not chemicals extracted from nature, but rather produced in the lab. These flavors are not defined as natural, even if they have the same chemical structure as flavors isolated directly from nature. 

It’s generally assumed that natural is better, but the source of a flavor doesn't necessarily relate to how safe or healthy they are. In fact, some manufactures use artificial flavors because they are less expensive, foregoing the lengthy, labor- and resource-intensive extracting process. Artificial flavors are also easier to control compared to their natural counterparts, which can vary with plant production or harvesting methods. 

Nutritionally, there is no difference between natural and artificial flavoring, and most research shows that artificial flavors are no more harmful than natural flavors. 

Of course, too much of anything can be a bad thing. Some research has shown that consuming artificial flavorings well above their intended use could cause harm, which has led to the FDA banning them. However, the natural counterparts of many of these shunned artificial flavors are still available. 

One controversial artificial flavor you may be familiar with is monosodium glutamate (MSG), which is one of the most widely used commercial food additives, known for its savory flavor. The controversy surrounding MSG began in the 1960s when a physician sent a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine claiming symptoms of numbness and palpitations after eating at Chinese restaurants, which brought rise to the term “Chinese restaurant syndrome.” But, despite this controversy, there is no strong scientific evidence that links MSG to health risks. And while there are some people who may be sensitive to MSG, it is considered safe for the majority of people to consume. 

In general, there is a need for further research on the long-term effects of added flavorings. But, in terms of general day-to-day consumption, unless you have an allergy to a specific ingredient, both natural and artificial flavors are safe to consume at intended levels. 

Why does the U.S. have such different car seat regulations from other countries?

Motor vehicle accidents are a leading cause of death for children in the U.S. Among those who were killed in an accident, 35% were not buckled up. Many of these deaths could have been prevented: Car seats have been shown to reduce fatal injury by 71% for infants under 1 and by 54% for toddlers ages 1 to 4.

In general, the CDC recommends ensuring that children are always buckled into a car seat, booster seat, or seat belt that is appropriate for their age and size, and that children should be properly buckled in the back seat until the age of 13. 

With that being said, the specifics of car seat laws differ across the U.S.: All 50 states have established their own regulations, and they can vary in how they define age, weight, and height requirements for the different stages of car seat use. Understandably, these state-by-state variations can be confusing. Groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics can be a good place to start to help keep children safe white traveling. 

Abroad, rules and guidelines begin to get a bit trickier. 

Not all car seats are created equal, and most are created with a specific type of user in mind. This means that some car seats on the market are compliant with regulations within the U.S. but may not be compliant with regulations in Canada, for instance. 

One reason for this is safety testing. For example, car seats designed for the European market are subject to a different type of testing than car seats sold in the U.S. These include slight differences in test speeds, requirements for side impact testing, and design standards. 

These differences, however, don’t necessarily indicate that car seats sold in one country are safer than another. They more so represent overall differences in the cars themselves. Case in point: Cars in the European market are not required to have seat belts that lock before a crash, so European car seats are required to have their own lock-off system. But in the U.S., where cars do have seatbelts that lock, this feature isn’t needed and therefore is not required. 

The presence of a car seat is not guaranteed depending on where you are in the world. A 2018 World Health Organization report found that only 9% of the world's population lives in countries that have comprehensive car seat laws, with most of those countries being high income. Low-income countries also have a lot of motorcycles, but only one-third of people around the world live in countries that restrict children on motorbikes.

Car seats are safer, but they’re also expensive. For a lot of countries that means they are a very low priority and might even be unreasonable when you take into account the kinds of transportation most often used.

Can taking chromium help with insulin resistance?

When you eat, the food is broken down into sugars, or glucose, that circulate in your blood. A rise in blood sugar levels signals your pancreas to make insulin. Insulin acts like a key to let glucose pass from the bloodstream into your cells, which use the glucose as energy and return your blood sugar to a normal level. 

Insulin resistance occurs when your body is exposed to too much blood sugar over an extended period of time, causing your cells to stop responding well to insulin. Your blood sugar will remain high, and your pancreas will keep making more insulin to remove excess blood sugars. But, your body will begin to store this extra sugar in your liver and muscles and, when they’re full, as body fat. 

Insulin resistance sets the stage for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, so it makes sense that we’d look for strategies to alleviate insulin resistance. 

One such strategy that people have clung to is chromium, a mineral that has been shown to reduce insulin resistance in some, but not all, studies. There’s no specific mechanism by which we think chromium could impact insulin, so the data of any sort of direct impact is weak to non-existent.

Chromium is naturally present in foods including meats, eggs, whole grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and even beer and wine from the yeast used for brewing. The amount of chromium in these foods, however, can vary significantly based on the local soil and water conditions and the agricultural and manufacturing processes used to produce them. Some chromium can also be transferred to foods from stainless steel pots and pans while cooking.

Because chromium levels in foods can be so variable, many multivitamin and dietary supplements contain chromium. You can also find supplements containing only chromium, but these can provide users with chromium levels anywhere from 10 to 25 times higher than recommended dietary allowances.

Multivitamins and dietary supplements also aren’t regulated by the FDA, and taking more than what your body needs isn’t always a good thing. In the case of chromium supplements, their long-term use may cause liver and kidney damage, stomach issues like nausea and vomiting, and in some cases could even have a carcinogenic effect. 

Speaking of the FDA, the only official health claim they’ve made about chromium states: “One small study suggests that chromium may reduce the risk of insulin resistance, and therefore possibly may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. FDA concludes, however, that the existence of such a relationship between chromium and either insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes is highly uncertain.”

Catch all the listener questions and Laurel’s answers on the full episode of Health Wanted by:

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