Food for Life: How the New Four Food Groups Can Save Your Life (24 page)

Insulin is produced in specialized cells in the pancreas. Damage to these cells causes insulin-dependent diabetes in children and young adults. Mounting evidence shows that insulin-dependent diabetes is linked to dairy-product exposure in infancy. Epidemiologic studies of various countries show a strong correlation between the use of dairy products and the incidence of diabetes.
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Cow’s milk proteins can enter the infant’s bloodstream and stimulate the formation of antibodies.
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In turn, antibodies that can attack and destroy the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells have been found in insulin-dependent diabetics.
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A recent report in the
New England Journal of Medicine
adds substantial support to the suggestion that cow’s milk proteins stimulate the production of the antibodies, which in turn destroy the insulin-producing pancreatic cells.
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Researchers from Canada and Finland found high levels of antibodies to a specific portion of a cow’s milk protein, called
bovine serum albumin
, in every one of the 142 diabetic children they studied at the time the disease was diagnosed. Evidence suggests that the combination of a genetic predisposition and cow’s milk exposure causes the childhood form of diabetes, although the genetic predisposition is fairly common, and there is no way of identifying with certainty all children who are predisposed. Antibodies can apparently form in response to even small quantities of cow’s milk proteins, and it seems to make no difference whether the proteins come from regular cow’s milk or cow’s milk formula. Cow’s milk proteins can even reach a
breast-feeding baby if the mother drinks milk. These proteins pass into her bloodstream and into her breast milk.

The destruction of insulin-producing cells occurs gradually, especially after infections which cause the cellular proteins to be exposed to the damage of antibodies. Diabetes becomes evident when 80 to 90 percent of the insulin-producing beta cells are destroyed.

While the
New England Journal of Medicine
report was the first to bring the dairy-diabetes link to the lay public, researchers and clinicians have long suspected this possibility. It may well be that avoiding cow’s milk would prevent the vast majority of cases of insulin-dependent diabetes.

Hypoglycemia is a frustrating problem. The symptoms are often vague and may elude diagnosis. Doctors are frustrated with it, too, because they often find that people who believe they are hypoglycemic clearly are not, yet the true cause of their symptoms may remain unknown.

Hypoglycemia means low blood sugar. Symptoms include headache, poor concentration, fatigue, confusion, palpitations, anxiety, sweating, and tremulousness. These are caused by the brain not getting the glucose it needs, and also by adrenaline and related hormones becoming more active when blood sugar falls.

Hypoglycemic episodes are brief, lasting from minutes to hours. If the affected individual does not have some food or the episode does not correct on its own, the blood sugar will continue to drop and fainting, seizure, or coma will result in a matter of hours. A person who feels out of sorts for days on end should look for another cause of the problem.

The best-known type of hypoglycemia occurs after eating. It is rarely life-threatening, but it can be very annoying because of the weakness, faintness, or palpitations it causes. After a meal, blood sugar rises, and then begins to fall. If it falls too quickly, the symptoms of hypoglycemia can begin. The exact cause is unknown, but it is generally assumed to be due to the body’s insulin, whose job it is to remove sugar from the blood, doing its job too well and reducing blood sugar too far. About 5 percent of people run low blood sugars (below 50 mg/dl) after meals, although it causes most
of them no problem and they are usually not aware of it. What seems to be important in causing symptoms is
how fast
the blood sugar drops.

If hypoglycemia occurs after an overnight fast rather than after eating, it may be due to one of any number of medical conditions from hormone deficiencies to tumors, and is more serious than that which occurs after meals. Pregnancy can also disrupt normal sugar metabolism and lead to hypoglycemia.

Diabetics can become hypoglycemic. If they have used too much insulin, or have eaten less or exercised more than usual, they may begin to feel shaky and tired. They soon learn that sugar or other food will make these feelings go away.

Alcohol can reduce blood sugar, particularly in poorly nourished people who go on a drinking binge. When the liver is preoccupied with trying to break down and remove alcohol from the body, it loses much of its ability to maintain blood sugar adequately.

To test for hypoglycemia, doctors can check your blood sugar after fasting and after a test dose of glucose. They will look for blood sugar dropping below 50 mg/dl after a glucose test, or 60 mg/dl after an overnight fast.

The treatment for after-meal hypoglycemia used to be a low-carbohydrate diet. Doctors reasoned that since carbohydrate is what stimulates the release of insulin, a low-carbohydrate diet would keep insulin in check. Some people do feel better on such a diet, but unfortunately, when carbohydrate is taken out of the diet, there are only two things that can go in its place: protein and fat. So the low-carbohydrate approach can lead to far worse problems than it attempts to solve: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and overweight, to name a few. In addition, some research suggests that when people begin low-carbohydrate diets, their ability to handle sugar gets even worse. In other words, a dietary indiscretion leads to worse hypoglycemic episodes than they had before they began the diet.

A better approach is to eliminate simple sugars such as candies and sodas, and to
increase
complex carbohydrates such as rice, vegetables, and beans. These foods tend to allow a more gradual absorption of glucose and a blunted insulin response. For some, it helps to select intact grain products such as brown rice, and avoid ground grains such as in pasta or bread. Some people also need to avoid fruit. Try frequent small meals instead of three large meals each day.

If you feel tired after meals, your problem may not be hypoglycemia. It
may be due to one of two factors. First, fat in foods causes people to feel sleepy. After a greasy meal, the viscosity (“thickness”) of the blood measurably increases. This may be a contributor to the after-meal slowdown that many people feel.

A second contributor is sugar, but by a mechanism totally unrelated to hypoglycemia. Sugar causes an increase in a brain chemical called serotonin, as described. In turn, serotonin makes us feel sleepy or irritable. The solution to this problem is a balanced menu from the New Four Food Groups.

It is impossible to turn on the television these days without a commercial for the fiber in breakfast cereals; fiber in whole-grain crackers or bread; fiber in popcorn, oatmeal, and seemingly everything else. The explosion of awareness of the need for fiber began with a dedicated missionary surgeon in Africa, Dr. Denis Burkitt, whom we met briefly in
Chapter 3
.

Fiber was actually his second medical breakthrough. Dr. Burkitt first became famous for identifying, and later curing, the first human cancer found to be caused by a virus, and Burkitt’s lymphoma and the Epstein-Barr virus are now studied by every first-year medical student. But on the heels of this discovery, Burkitt set about to find out why certain diseases were epidemic in England and Western Europe, yet were extremely rare in Africa. Appendicitis was very rare in Africa. Diverticular disease (small pouches in the wall of the large intestine) occurs in most older Western adults, but was quite rare in Africa. The same was true of hemorrhoids, varicose veins, hiatal hernia (part of the stomach rising into the chest cavity), and colorectal cancer.

He surveyed hospitals in Africa, India, and elsewhere and was able to track where diseases occurred. And he made a striking observation: in cultures that Westernize their diets, these conditions emerge gradually and in a particular order. Appendicitis is one of the first. Hemorrhoids occur soon thereafter, followed by varicose veins, colon polyps and colon cancer, hiatal hernia, and diverticular disease. This was exactly the same order as these diseases tend to appear in individuals. Appendicitis can occur in children, varicose veins and colon cancer in mid-life, and diverticular disease
in later life. He reasoned that the same factors that cause these diseases in individuals must cause their emergence in cultures undergoing a transformation of diet.
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To make a long story short, the answer was fiber, although Burkitt soon added considerations about fat and other factors. Fiber is found only in plants, so traditional diets of grains, vegetables, beans, and fruits are loaded with fiber. Meats, dairy products, and eggs contain no fiber at all, so diets centered on animal products tend to be low in fiber. In addition, modern refining processes extract the fiber from grains as whole-grain flour is turned into white flour, and brown rice into white rice. The result of the modern fiber-depleted diet is a whole string of ills, from constipation to colon cancer, and even such unlikely problems as varicose veins and hemorrhoids. In the following sections these surprising links are detailed.

Fiber is part of the body’s waste removal system. In the digestive tract, fiber holds water, keeps stools soft, and moves wastes along quickly. A good way to become constipated is to build your diet on poultry, fish, yogurt, beef, cheese, or any other animal product. They contain no fiber at all, and the more of these you send down your digestive tract, the less fiber your body has to work with.

Advertisers would have us believe that fiber comes from breakfast cereals. Actually there is fiber in all grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes, and the New Four Food Groups bring you plenty of fiber whether you eat breakfast cereal or not.

The diet of most Westerners supplies only about 10 to 20 grams of fiber per day. A menu from the New Four Food Groups can easily double that.

At the risk of evoking graphic recollections of Freud’s theories about toilet training, it should be pointed out that the American habit of one bowel movement per day or even every other day is not the norm in countries where a high-fiber diet is prevalent; there it is typical to have two or more bowel movements per day. More frequent bowel movements and softer stools are easier on the intestinal tract than fewer, smaller, harder stools.

The appendix is a small fingerlike tube that projects from the intestine in the right lower part of your abdomen. When the appendix becomes inflamed, there is little choice but to remove it surgically. What the surgeon finds is a swollen, red, and sometimes ruptured organ.

Appendicitis is still rare in societies on traditional high-fiber diets. But countries undergoing economic transformation and rapid dietary change soon need surgeons ready to excise the cause of the right lower abdominal pain.

Dr. Burkitt found that the first step in the cause of appendicitis is a blockage of the opening of the appendix by a small firm bit of stool. Infection, inflammation, and pain then follow. High-fiber diets keep the stools soft, so blockage of the appendix tends not to occur.
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It may well be helpful for people to keep their appendixes. There is some evidence that the appendix was not put in the body simply to give surgeons practice in a fairly simple operation. Like the tonsils, the appendix may have an immune function. Indeed, certain cancers, particularly Hodgkin’s disease (a form of cancer arising in the lymph nodes), are more common among people who have had these organs removed.

The cause of varicose veins is not exactly dinnertime conversation. But Dr. Burkitt’s findings have explained what had previously been a medical enigma. So even though these facts are not very pretty, I will describe them in some detail.

The swollen tortuous veins we call varicose veins are common in North America and Western Europe, but rare in Asia and Africa. Medical texts have attributed the condition to pregnancy, the upright posture, and prolonged standing, but none of these explanations has held up. After all, there is no shortage of pregnancy, upright posture, or standing in Africa and Asia, where varicose veins are rarely found.

The heart pumps blood out to all parts of the body through a system of arteries. Veins return the blood back to the heart. The veins in the legs have quite a job to do. They not only have to send blood a long way back up to the heart, they also have to work against gravity. The leg veins have a system of valves that are designed to keep blood from falling backward toward the feet, not unlike locks in a canal.

People on constipating, fiber-depleted diets often strain to pass stools. One or two such episodes can be innocuous enough, but people who strain to pass stools on a daily basis are putting a considerable amount of force on their abdomens. This force pushes blood backward out of the abdomen and down the veins of the legs. Daily straining destroys the valves in the veins. One after another, from the top of the leg on down, the damaged valves lose their ability to keep blood from slipping back down. The result is swollen and distorted veins. Ordinary physical exertion, by the way, such as sit-ups or lifting heavy objects, tightens the abdominal muscles but does not greatly increase the pressure within the abdominal cavity, and is not likely to increase your risk of varicose veins.

The destruction of the valves has also been implicated in the formation of blood clots in the veins. These blood clots are of particular concern not only because of the damage they cause in the involved leg (phlebitis), but because pieces of the clot can dislodge and travel up to the heart, where they are pumped out again to lodge in the lungs. If you were to take X-rays of the pelvic area of a group of Americans or Europeans, you would see tiny shadows on the X-rays of most of them, right where the veins that come up from the leg are located. These are old clots that have become calcified. If you were to X-ray a group of Africans who consumed a traditional diet, you would find these old clots in fewer than one person in five.
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