Food for Life: How the New Four Food Groups Can Save Your Life (5 page)

“The dietary modifications that people are trying to make now to reduce their fat and cholesterol will tend to reduce iron levels, as well,” Lauffer said. “So, the push toward a more vegetarian-style diet—less meat, and more fruits and vegetables and whole grains—this is totally consistent with all the iron information as well.”

Does that mean that people who build their menus from grains, beans, vegetables, and fruits are going to become iron deficient? “Absolutely not,”
Dr. Lauffer said. “There are many studies in vegetarian populations where the iron levels are lower than they are in a meat-eating population, but they’re certainly adequate—more than adequate, in many cases.”

Some people aggravate the problem by taking iron pills, vitamins with iron, or fortified cereals when they are not actually iron deficient. Of course, children and pregnant and nursing women do have a higher need for iron, compared to people at other stages of life, and some women may become iron deficient during their reproductive years. But many people falsely conclude that they are iron deficient because of the popular myth linking fatigue and iron.

“Fatigue is, of course, very common,” Dr. Lauffer said. But there are many causes of fatigue, and the old wives’ tale that you need more iron, more red meat or liver to boost your iron-poor blood is largely false. Anemia is not the most likely cause. You can have a virus, you can have depression or other psychological disturbances, or there could be other dietary deficiencies or diseases.”

To check your iron status, Dr. Lauffer suggests that you ask your doctor for the following specific tests, in addition to the more general hemoglobin and hematocrit that are usually run. Although general guidelines are given here, the tests should be interpreted by your doctor:

Doctors divide the serum iron value by the TIBC. The result should be 16 to 50 percent for women and 16 to 62 percent for men. Results below these norms indicate iron deficiency. Results above these norms indicate excess iron. A further test sometimes used to check for iron deficiency is the
red cell protoporphyrin
test. A result higher than 70 mcg/dl of red blood cells is considered abnormal. If two of these three values (serum ferritin, serum iron/TIBC and red cell protoporphyrin) are normal, iron-deficiency anemia is not likely. Serum iron and total iron binding capacity should be done after fasting overnight.

Unfortunately, the body has no way to rid itself of excess iron. Even if you are iron-overloaded, the body still jealously guards its iron stores. The only way to predictably reduce your iron stores is by donating blood. So this altruistic act can have health benefits for the donor as well.

The eye is, by design, constantly exposed to light. As a result it is a place where free radicals tend to form, gradually causing sections of the lens to turn from transparent to opaque.
¹⁹
These opaque parts are cataracts, a common cause of loss of sight and a common reason for surgery.

Granted, ophthalmologic surgeons are happy to remove your lenses and put in brand-new synthetic ones. But scientific studies have shown that certain foods can help keep your original equipment in good working order.

Vitamins C and E and beta-carotene pass from the plasma into the eye. The eye contains very concentrated vitamin C in particular, and together these vitamins offer substantial protection against cataracts. If you are not getting your daily fruits and vegetables, you are not protecting your eyesight. Scientists have actually measured the risk: People who eat less than three and one-half servings of fruits and vegetables per day have nearly six times the risk of cataracts, compared to those who eat more.
²⁰
Supplements of vitamins C and E also offer some protection.
²¹

Iron and copper apparently increase the risk of cataracts
²²
by encouraging the production of free radicals, and smoking adds to the problem by decreasing vitamin levels. And there are other contributing factors. People who spend long hours outdoors without protective glasses run an increased risk. The problem is the ultraviolet light, particularly for cataracts in the outer part of the lens.

Another interesting contributor is milk. Populations that consume large amounts of dairy products have a much higher incidence of cataracts than do those who avoid dairy products.
²³
The problem is not the milk fat, which, like all saturated animal fats, has lost popularity in recent years. The problem appears to be the milk sugar,
lactose
, and nonfat dairy products are under just as much suspicion as is whole milk.

Chemically, lactose is a
disaccharide
molecule—that is, a double sugar. In the digestive tract, it breaks apart, yielding two simple sugar molecules, glucose and galactose. It is the galactose that is suspect in cataracts. When blood concentrations of galactose increase, it can pass into the lens of the eye. There, galactose degrades into various molecular waste products that can lead to opacities of the lens.
²⁴

Nursing children can generally handle galactose with no problems at all. They have active enzymes in their liver, kidney, and blood cells that break it down. But nature designed the body to be weaned from milk products
after infancy, and, as we age, many of us lose much of the capacity to break down galactose. There are even some rare cases of genetic defects in which children cannot break down galactose. These children can form cataracts within the first year of life.

This problem is not the same as lactose intolerance. In fact, those who cannot digest milk, and who get all sorts of digestive problems when they drink it, are probably the lucky ones because they will avoid milk and all the problems it can cause. As we will see in
Chapter 6
, there is a great deal of evidence that milk contributes not just to cataracts but to diabetes, iron-deficiency anemia, and a surprising range of other health problems. Less fortunate are those people who can digest milk without any apparent symptoms. During digestion, their lactase enzymes break the lactose apart, releasing its load of galactose, which passes quietly into the bloodstream, contributing to problems that may not become evident until many years later. Ironically, commercial products are now sold for the purpose of aiding in the digestion of lactose. These do not reduce the galactose problem and, in fact, have the effect of increasing galactose exposure.

Investigators agree that milk sugar can contribute to cataracts—at the very least for those whose capacity to break down galactose is impaired. The problem is, we do not know who they are. We all lose some of this capacity as we leave our nursing years. Those who make dairy products a regular part of the diet are betting—or hoping—against the evidence.

So far, we have seen that foods can help protect us from free radicals. A menu of vegetables, fruits, grains, and beans provides beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, and selenium. Such a menu is very low in fat and contains no cholesterol at all. These foods not only help neutralize and eliminate free radicals as they form; they also actually reduce the production of free radicals by keeping fat and iron intake at appropriate levels and providing omega-3 fatty acids that are more stable than those in fish products. What were once thought of as modest foods are actually enormously powerful foods for health.

There is much more to this story than free radicals, however. Foods also affect hormones in both men and women, with very surprising effects.

Some men keep full heads of hair into their seventh and eighth decades. Others begin balding in their twenties. Until recently, men squinted at the slow recession of their hairlines, resigned to the idea that nothing could be done. Potions of all kinds, whether rubbed onto the scalp or swallowed, were all but useless. The march of time left a wide trail across the male scalp.

Several pieces of evidence might make men more optimistic. Studies have shown that while heredity is an important factor in baldness, it does not fully account for it. Within families, one male might have more aggressive loss of hair while others are spared somewhat. Also, certain drugs—most notably minoxidil—affect hair growth. Originally prescribed to reduce blood pressure, minoxidil has a limited ability to wake up dormant hair follicles, particularly at the crown. While most men get very little effect from it, some do see results and that, again, indicates that baldness is not only a matter of genetics.

If baldness is not just genetic, what else contributes to hair loss? It is caused by an interplay of heredity and hormones. Heredity, of course, is not within our control. But scientific evidence shows that the action of hormones on hair follicles may be affected by what we eat. There are hints that one’s hairline may not be so easily eroded when dietary factors are on our side. First, let us look at how hormones affect hair loss. Then we will take a look at the role of foods in that process. Keep in mind that exploration in this area is far from finished, but a substantial amount is known right now.

In 1942, J. B. Hamilton published a series of observations that have been quoted by dermatologists ever since.
²⁵
He had studied men who had had the misfortune to have their testes removed owing to medical problems. The reasons for the surgery varied, but Hamilton noted that, as the years went by, none of these men became bald. Even those whose family trees gleamed with bald heads never lost their hair. Later, many of these men received testosterone injections. The results were rapid: their hair fell out, and their baldness approached that of other male family members. If the testosterone injections were stopped, the baldness stopped advancing. And if the men came from families with little baldness, then the hormones did not cause much hair loss.

Hamilton’s studies showed that testosterone is critical: without it, you won’t go bald. Testosterone affects women, too. In families where baldness is common, women also carry the genetic capacity to become bald. They will
usually not show it, because women have far less testosterone than men. But if enough male hormones find their way into a woman’s bloodstream, either through medication, a hormone-producing tumor, or other abnormality, she can develop male-pattern baldness. (This is different from diffuse hair loss, which occasionally occurs in women and which should be evaluated by a dermatologist.)

In the hair follicle, testosterone is converted to a much more powerful hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Under the influence of DHT, normal hairs become thinner, then are replaced by tiny fine hairs, and eventually the follicles die off.
^26
,
27
Those parts of the scalp affected in male-pattern baldness—the frontal hairline, the temples, and crown—are more sensitive to testosterone and are quicker to convert testosterone and its precursors into the more powerful DHT.
^28
,
29

DHT is a paradoxical hormone. It causes hair to grow on the face and chest. At the scalp, it makes hair fall out. Some speculate that baldness is nature’s way of keeping the head cool, compensating for the beard’s blanket effect on the face.
³⁰
It is true that the area of skin denuded by baldness is about the same size as the beard area, but shaving off your beard will not slow your hairline’s retreat.

While hormones are, in part, controlled by heredity,
^31
,
32
they are also affected by the foods we eat. As is true in so many other health concerns, fingers are pointing to fatty diets. People on Western-style diets—that is, the pork chop and roast beef diets on which most of us in America were raised—have more testosterone in their blood than do people on lower-fat diets or vegetarian diets.
^33–
39

Lest anyone think it is manly to eat foods that elevate testosterone levels, it has to be pointed out that the same foods also increase estrogen, the female sex hormone, in both men and women.
^34
,
40
In addition, body fat actively converts testosterone into estrogen. As fatty diets add to one’s girth, more and more estrogen is produced, which is why overweight men often have breast enlargement, as is evident on every beach in America. Obesity actually lowers the amount of testosterone in your body and increases estrogen. And foods affect hormones very quickly—within just a few weeks.
^38
,
34

None of this would matter much if testosterone were kept under control. But fatty diets do not just increase the amount of testosterone in the blood. They also reduce the amount of
sex hormone binding globulin
,
⁴¹
a protein
whose job is to hold on to sex hormones and keep them inactive until needed. With less of this carrier protein in the bloodstream, more testosterone roams free, ready to enter the hair follicle.

Different people are affected by hormones differently. The amount of testosterone that will cause hair loss in one person may not have an effect in another. Can a boost in testosterone caused by foods lead to early or more aggressive baldness? Scientific studies so far give us only clues, but they do indicate that changes in hormone levels can affect how many hairs go down the bathtub drain.

For all of us, the amount of testosterone in the blood changes seasonally. It is lowest in the spring and peaks in the fall.
^42–
45
And during the springtime lull in testosterone levels, hair growth is maximal. As hormone levels rise toward fall, there is substantial hair loss, averaging about sixty hairs per day—more than double the rate at which hairs fall out in the spring. The annual cycle is apparently similar in men and women.
⁴⁶