In Reply to: Arthritis-Searching for the Truth-Searching for the Cure posted by Robert McFerran on September 21, 1997 at 12:02:37:
Chapter 13
By now you might be feeling a little uneasy about your diet. It should be overwhelmingly apparent that humans inherit the way they metabolize foods much the same way they inherit things like the color of eyes, hair or skin. It should be equally evident that having one diet that is appropriate for everyone is an impossibility! The problem now becomes how can we determine our individual metabolic identity?
It might be easy to determine our metabolic identity (and in turn what foods we are best adapted to) if we were one of the Gaelic’s Dr. Price observed during the early 1900’s. Like the other groups living in relative isolation, the Gaelic gene pool was very stable. From time to time spontaneous mutations to the gene that controls metabolism must have occurred. However, since the food supply was fixed, these progeny would undoubtedly become maladapted and have less chance to pass this gene to their offspring. Darwin saw this phenomenon was at work over the centuries in determining surviva l. It resulted in his theories on evolution through natural selection. Dr. Pottenger saw a similar yet more immediate pattern of survival being tied to nutrition in his cat studies.
Genetics does not work in a straight-line fashion. The children of two brown-eyed parents might have blue eyes. The problem stems from the fact that there are dominant and recessive genes at play in determining eye color. It’s the same way with your inherited metabolic identity. Given the fact that today’s blood-lines are hopelessly mixed it would be impossible to look to your family tree and accurately predict metabolic type and in turn the foods to which you are best adapted. Fortunately George Watson, M.D. discovered how to do just that through direct means.
Dr. Watson was aware that the biochemistry of ‘burning’ food for fuel was complex. He realized that there were a number of intermediary biochemical steps that had to occur before food could be converted into energy. Each one of these steps had a specific demand for just the right amount of vitamins, minerals or enzymes. If there was a deficiency the process of converting food into energy would be badly compromised. It was like having a series of gears all connected in tandem. If one of the gears was removed it would effect all the gears later in the chain.
This is why only foods in their whole form will suffice for those wanting to regain and optimize their health. Quite simply the exact combination of each vitamin, mineral and enzyme found in a whole food is what we are best adapted to. No amount of fortification or enrichment with other vitamins and minerals can provide what nature has already provided.
As you will find more is not always better when it comes to vitamins and minerals. Many biochemical processes ‘compete’ with each other. Adding vitamins or minerals in a scatter-shot or helter-skelter fashion will cause one process to run faster or produce more of the next intermediate in that chain. In so doing this process will competitively ‘inhi bit’ another process and in turn create deficiencies. This is exactly how multivitamin supplementation can create more harm than good.
I grimace every time I walk into a health food store and hear a customer being lectured about how this vitamin is good for this and that mineral is good for that. Even the best biochemist will readily admit that while we have a fair understanding of some of the major human biochemical pathways there are literally thousands of other more subtle processes that we don’t fully understand that are equally important. To think that we can fabricate a food that meets our biochemical needs better than a whole food (that we’ve adapted to over thousands of years) is sheer folly. The whole food is truly perfect for our biochemical and nutritional needs.
Watson focused on the major biochemical reactions responsible for ultimately liberating energy from food. He saw that there were two key interlocking cycles responsible for energy production. The first cycle would release s ome energy (approximately 20% of the food’s potential) but more importantly it would create many of the raw materials for the next cycle. These raw material intermediates would be consumed and release the remaining 80% of energy in the second cycle. Watson gives a detailed explanation in his book NUTRITION AND YOUR MIND.
Even though the second cycle holds the majority of the energy it’s the first cycle that was more critical to total energy production. Any kind of disruption in the first would limit and compromise the optimal energy yield (80%) found in the second cycle.
Dr. Watson knew that a myriad of psychological and nervous system disorders could be induced if the brain was starved for energy. Considering that might be the problem he devised tests to measure how fast and how efficiently energy was produced in these two cycles in his patients with psychological symptoms. He wasn’t too surprised when he observed all his patients were indeed not getting the optimum ‘bang for the buck’ in terms of energy production from these two cycles. What was a surprise was that the patients fell into two very separate and different groups in terms of how the first cycle synthesized intermediates for the second. The values from both groups were also much different from those of ‘normal’ controls.
Watson saw that the first energy cycle in one group of his patients was much slower than normal. The sluggish movement of this cycle not only slowed the release of the first 20% of energy, but more importantly inhibited the remaining 80%. From an energy standpoint this was like drinking water through a extraordinarily thin straw. Plenty of water is available but it has to get through the straw before it can be utilized by the rest of your body.
Watson observed that the second group of his patients displayed the opposite extreme. The movement of their first energy cycle proceeded much faster than normal. On the surface this might seem like a good thing but it actually created deficiencies undermining the gener ation of the bulk of energy (80%) in the second part of the cycle.
What these patients faced was similar to asking them to survive four days on 10 gallons of water. The only stipulation is that they would have to drink it all during the first hour. Unlike camels we don’t have the physiology to store water over extended periods of time.
Our physiology normally gives us feedback (thirst) to space the consumption of water fairly evenly over the four days. The second energy cycle acts much the same way. It can only take advantage of a limited amount of raw material intermediates from cycle one at a time. The overflow will not be used in the production of energy. Later when cycle two ‘becomes thirsty’ and is once again able to use those raw materials they will not be available. Cycle one has "used up all it’s water too quickly" and that means a drought for the second energy cycle.
Where the energy production of the first group of patients is systematically starved the second group is forced into a chronic ‘feast or famine’ situation. Over the course of time neither group gets anywhere close to the energy output realized by ‘normal’ controls.
Since the current drug treatments were woefully inadequate in improving the symptoms of his patients Watson began exploring the effect of certain vitamins, minerals and foods. He knew for example that niacin (vitamin B-1) participated in the enzymatic breakdown of sugar at several places in the energy cycles. A deficiency of this crucial nutrient had a profound effect in slowing down brain metabolism to the point of causing what appeared to be mental illness. He used painstaking research to test literally hundreds of foods and nutritional supplements on each subset of patients. What Watson found would give us a profile, a thumbprint if you will, generally suggesting our inherited metabolic identity.
Up until this time researchers assumed that nutritional problems were caused only by deficiencies. Giving their patients large doses a wide variety of nutri ents seems to be an obvious and logical solution. Watson found that this strategy yielded little if no positive effect for the majority of his patients. In fact some of his patients actually experienced an increase in symptoms! After testing each supplement individually he found that a dichotomy emerged.
For example supplemental calcium (a nutrient considered wholly beneficial) only helped a minority while worsening the condition of the majority of his patients. Watson observed that patients and the nutrients that rectified their symptoms were falling into two mutually exclusive groups.
Beneficial for first group:
Vitamin/Mineral Full Dose
A (fish liver oil) 10,000 lUs
D 400 lUs
C 500 mgs
B1 10 mgs
B2 l0mgs
B6 l0mgs
Niacin 25 mgs
Para Amino Benzoic Acid 100 mgs
Folic Acid 200 mcg
Biotin l50mcg
Potassium 200 mgs
Magnesium l00mgs
Iron 15mgs
Copper 1 mg
Manganese 5mgs
Chromium l00mcg
Beneficial for second group:
Vitamin/Mine
ral Full Dose
A (palmitate) 10,000 lUs
E (mixed tocopherols) 400 lUs
B12 l00 mcgs
Niacinamide l00 mgs
Pantothenic Acid or Calcium Pantothenate 100 mgs
Inositol 250 mgs
Choline 250mgs
Calcium 500 mgs
Phosphorous 250 mgs
Iodine (derived from natural source) 0.15 mgs
Zinc l0 mgs
You might have already noticed that the nutrients were given in specific ratios. This balancing of nutrients is subtle but extremely important. We’ve already discussed how foods in their ‘whole’ form provide the perfect combination (and ratios) of vitamins and minerals needed by our energy cycles.
Watson found that pairing the correct nutrient with the proper sub-group was not enough. Too much of an individual vitamin or mineral could actually create deficiencies elsewhere. Watson found that this was especially true for B-vitami ns and minerals.
Foods had an even more profound effect (positive as well as negative) on patient symptoms. A continuum emerged similar to what was observed with the supplements. Groups one and two were positioned on opposite extremes. Group one would improve if placed on a low fat, low salt, low purine and high complex carbohydrate diet. Group two required just the opposite (high purine, high fat, high salt with restricted carbohydrate) to resolve their symptoms.
Unless you or someone you know has suffered from gout you’re probably not familiar with purines. Gout is the result of uric acid crystal build-up in joints. These crystals cause irritation and with it a great deal of misery and pain. Before the advent of drugs like allopurinol the only remedy that physicians had to offer was to put their patients on a low purine diet. They knew that purines were directly related to uric acid levels in blood.
Purines are a special type of protein found in a variety of meats and vegetables. If a food c ontains protein it usually contains some purines. Higher amounts of purines exist in dark meats (including fish and fowl) as well as crustaceans (shrimp, scallops, oysters, and crab). Purines are most concentrated in organ meats (liver, kidney, heart and other sweetbreads). Nuts, lentils and all beans (including soybeans) have moderate purine content. Asparagus, cauliflower, spinach, peas and mushrooms are vegetables that also contain significant amounts of purines. Watson found that this food component was the single most important dietary variable for his patients.
Watson, like Dr. Philpott, perceived that what he was witnessing was the product of some type of defective or disordered carbohydrate metabolism in his patients. It would not be until years later that Rudolph Wiley Ph.D. would pursue Watson’s work and recognize that there wasn’t anything ‘disordered or defective’ about these patients metabolism at all. Their different and seemingly extreme metabolisms were simply an expression of thei r inherited genetic makeup. Their blood glucose curves looked extreme due to the fact that they were being fed the wrong foods!
In the early 1900’s Dr. Weston Price witnessed how imported foods, new to isolated populations, had a dramatic effect on health. But he concluded that physical degeneration was due to the depletion of key nutrients in these ‘new’ foods. Recall Price did his work during the early 1900’s. Scientists were just beginning to learn how to test foods in the lab for their vitamin and mineral content. Dr. Price routinely took samples of indigenous foods from those remote areas and evaluated them for nutritional content.
Price’s laboratory analysis revealed that the indigenous foods often possessed over five times the amount of vitamins and minerals of their civilized counterparts (remember this level of depletion was already evident in 1920!). Refined foods like sugar and white flour were completely devoid of any important nutrients. It was the hope of science at the time that these nutritional gaps could be filled through supplementation after refinement. The only problem is that it would be impossible to put back the exact (and perfect) combination that nature had provided. Dr. Watson and later Dr. Wiley would demonstrate that while vitamin and mineral depletion played an important role the actual type of food was equally important in predicting the impact on health.
Dr. Wiley realized that the extreme metabolism of the patient group that could only be satiated by a relatively high purine, high fat, high salt and limited carbohydrate diet were those that inherited their metabolism from ancestors that relied on animals as their primary source of nutrition.
These ancestors consumed huge amounts of purines from the prized organ meats of animals. These organ meats held the richest stores of other crucial nutrients like vitamin C that could not be obtained in sufficient amounts from vegetation. The entire animal was consumed including large quantities of fat. Nothing was left to waste.
Since they relied primarily on flesh they had to learn how to store it and became very adept at salting, drying, smoking and other curing techniques.
At the same time these people could not tolerate large amounts of carbohydrate of any kind. It’s fairly obvious that inhabitants of the colder regions of the world (like the Outer Hebrides of Scotland) must have relied heavily on animal sources. Long, frigid winters and short growing seasons along with limited storage capabilities were not conducive to vegetarianism. At the same time those living in arid deserts and semi-arid plains faced similar challenges. Australian Aborigines and the Indians of the North American Plains were good examples of races with similar ‘extreme’ metabolisms living under very different climactic conditions.
At the other end of the metabolic spectrum were those patients that thrived on an almost vegetarian diet consisting primarily of complex carbohydrates from vegetables and fruit. Their ancestors undoub tedly lived in much more temperate settings abundant in vegetation and far better suited for agriculture. Animal food sources were utilized less often and in much smaller quantities in their diets. This would explain their relative metabolic difficulties with purines, fats and salt.
It became evident to Dr. Wiley that what his predecessors had observed and described as disordered or defective carbohydrate metabolism was nothing of the sort. The patients were ill simply because they were eating a diet that was mismatched to their inherited metabolic needs. The more polarized the dietary needs they inherited from their ancestors the less capable a balanced, middle of the road diet would be in keeping them well. Only the proper ‘extreme’ diet to meet their extreme metabolic needs would suffice.
Dr. Wiley put his Ph.D. in biological physics to work to try and better understand the underlying mechanisms driving human metabolism. He agreed with Dr. Watson that while there was an almost unlimited spect rum of individual metabolisms that they would all generally land into one of three metabolic subsets.
Prior to Wiley’s work the best way to determine which metabolic subset a patient occupied was by having them test three different diets. Once the patient landed upon the appropriate diet for their metabolic type they would feel an immediate increase in energy and many of their symptoms would promptly resolve.
Wiley found a constant that was universal for healthy individuals – venous blood plasma pH. He discovered that, with very little variation, a pH of 7.46 was optimal. The patients (that were eating in a fashion mismatched to their metabolic subset) would consistently have pH values much higher or lower than 7.46.
One subset would tend to drift up and the other two would tend to drift down away from the optimal value. Once the patients ate the appropriate diet (the one meeting the metabolic needs they inherited from their ancestors) their blood plasma pH would normalize back to 7.46. Dr. W iley outlines this phenomenon in detail in his book BIOBALANCE.
For some time we have known that all biological life is sensitive to changes in pH. The various bacteria that we routinely consume with every meal are destroyed in the stomach since they cannot tolerate a high pH environment. Plants are a classic example. Any gardener will tell you that no matter how good the fertilizer most plants won’t survive without the proper soil pH. Some plants are very limited and will only thrive in a very narrow pH range. Catalysts that drive biochemical processes often operate within similarly narrow pH ranges. In other words if the pH increases or decreases by only a few hundredths of one unit the effectiveness of the catalyst plummets. In many cases small pH fluctuations will cause them to become completely inactivated.
Patients that eat a diet mismatched to their inherited metabolic subset will always show a number of amino acid deficiencies. These deficiencies will only be somewhat resolved through a dded amino acid supplementation. Seemingly negligible changes away from optimal venous plasma pH inactivate the mineral and vitamin catalysts responsible for driving amino acid synthesis in the body. Supplementation with large doses of vitamins and minerals can provide only marginal assistance. They furnish more of the needed catalysts but are mostly nullified by being forced to operate in the wrong pH range.
Proper amino acid synthesis is vital since these are the requisite building blocks for all biological processes. Without them aged or damaged tissues cannot regenerate, hormones cannot be produced and digestive enzymes cannot be created. There simply isn’t enough raw materials (amino acids) for their creation.
Compromised amino acid synthesis can be responsible for sub-clinical hypothyroidism, weak adrenals, pancreatic enzyme insufficiency and a myriad of other seemingly unrelated health problems. The implications are far reaching.
Recall the work done by Dr. Stoll and the University of Kentucky physiology lab. They showed that the intestinal tract not only had the highest demand for blood but it also required more cellular regeneration than any organ system in the body. Poor amino acid synthesis would directly limit cellular regeneration in the gut. This underlying mechanism would speed the development of leaky gut syndrome and, as a consequence, the transmission of undigested food proteins into the bloodstream. Remember, leaky gut syndrome is the gateway (literally) for all chronic arthritis and auto-immune conditions.
Do you know your blood type? Dr. Peter D’Adamo added to our knowledge of the impact of foods on chronic disease with his research on lectins.
Lectins are a special type of protein that possesses glue like properties. Bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms use the lectins contained in their outer walls to attach themselves to different tissues in the human body. At the same time our body utilizes lectins as a defense mechanism. The cells in our liver’s bi le duct employ strategically placed lectins to capture bacteria and other parasites.
D’Adamo noticed that lectins found in certain foods could create mischief in susceptible blood types. He found that if a food was consumed containing protein lectins that were incompatible with your blood type antigen an agglutination or clumping of blood cells would result. Dr. D’Adamo describes the lectin/health connection in his book EAT RIGHT 4 YOUR TYPE.
The food lectins might effect local tissues but could also be telegraphed to far away organ systems (liver, kidney, brain, etc.) and agglutinate the blood cells in that area. An example is what happens after a person with blood type A eats a plate of lima beans.
Due to imperfect digestion a fraction of protein lectin from the lima bean survives. It may interact directly creating irritation in the stomach or intestinal mucosa or it may pass through the leaky gut and directly into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream it can take up residence in a numb er of tissues. After settling the lectin has a magnetic effect on other cells in the area. It clumps the cells together and consequently they are targeted for destruction. The immune system responds by sending a variety of inflammatory chemicals to the area to help rid it of these perceived foreign invaders.
Dr. D’Adamo tested several foods by taking their extracts and directly observing (under microscope) their effect on each of the four different blood types. Not surprisingly, the foods that had a clumping effect on the cells of a specific blood type showed similar negative reactions in individuals possessing that particular blood type. These same foods would also provoke a positive reaction in the same individuals when tested using intradermal techniques.
The conclusion reached by Dr. D’Adamo’s work is clear. Some foods will tend to be toxic to certain blood types. Certainly they will create inflammation and stress on multiple systems within the body whenever eaten. As you might imagine the ir toxicity will only be magnified in the presence of a small intestinal mucosa that is leaking peptides. These foods in effect are poisons and should be completely eliminated from the diet. More on lectins will be discussed in the Protocol section.
Several primitive cultures were aware that certain foods were unsuitable for consumption. However this didn’t stop some of them from learning how to use these foods anyway. Corn was a specific example. In a geographic area where corn grew wild one Indian tribe was aware of it but refused to eat it. Another would occasionally eat it but did not cultivate it (even though they cultivated other foods). The third tribe actually cultivated the corn, using it as a significant food source. They all no doubt had the same blood type (probably O).
The group that cultivated corn did not eat it in it’s whole form. It was first ground then alkalinized with lime before cooking. Could this combination of this mechanical, chemical and heat treating liberate enough of the harmful lectins to make corn safe? Did the Indians that avoided it completely have better health than the other two tribes?
In Reply to: Chapter VI posted by Robert McFerran on September 26, 1997 at 18:35:52:
I've been away on business for a few days and haven't been able to look at your most recent installments. I'll make a concerted effort this weekend.
"To make matters worse most physicians also take this simplistic view of food allergy."
This has certainly been our experience.
I liked the Dr Rinkel example. Well written and makes your point quite well.
Another good piece of work Bob. Good examples that are well written and make your point clearly and concisly.
Peter
In Reply to: Chapter VII posted by Robert McFerran on September 26, 1997 at 18:38:34:
Bob,
Is there any chance that you can add hyperlinks to any of the research that you've cited? I know this won't work with hard copy, but it would really add to your work in electronic format.
"This might be more immunology than you ever wanted to know"
Not so at all, I found this very concisly written and very informative.
"Rheumatologists suggest the auto-immune response as being the result of a hyper-active immune system." This would account for the use of immuno-suppressant drugs like the anti-malarial drugs that have been tentatively suggested to my wife. Even with the little bit of reading we have done so far they seemed like a bad idea. Your next statement about the system becoming immuno-suppressed due to overwork, confirms our suspisions.
Another good chapter Bob.
Thanks
Peter
In Reply to: Re: Arthritis-Searching for the Truth-Searching for the Cure posted by Robert McFerran on September 29, 1997 at 12:30:03:
"If the importance of the natural resistance of the host (in this case human beings) hasn’t occurred to you yet you’ve probably fallen into the same trap as most of our modern medical practitioners. It’s the erroneous belief that we can defend ourselves from any infectious invader, if we just have the right antibiotic."
It may be interesting to add a paragraph on some of the finding on the negative impacts of over-use of antibiotics.
Good Work
Peter
In Reply to: Chapter 9 posted by Robert McFerran on September 29, 1997 at 12:32:39:
Bob,
I'm not providing much value added here, but I am certianly enjoying reading your work. It sheds light on alot of what my wife is experiencing right now.
Thanks Again
Peter