Eat To Save Your Life

Balboa Press

Contents

Chapter One

Decades ago, physicians began warning diabetics away from sugar and sugary foods. More recently, they have raised the alarm about the dangers of eating trans-fats, and they have begun advising people to restrict their intake of certain fish due to the risk of heavy metals contamination. That is, mainstream medicine has made the connection between food and disease—but it has yet to focus on the connection between food and health.

In contrast, sailors and explorers of the "new world" made the food-health connection five hundred years ago. They learned to avoid the horrors of scurvy by eating fresh whole foods. You have likely heard the classic accounts of Christopher Columbus unloading desperately ill sailors to die on a tropical island only to return a few months later to find them not only alive, but thriving. Similarly, when scurvy devastated the crew of French explorer Jacques Cartier in the winter of 1535–1536, First Nations peoples taught the sailors to treat the disease with a tea infused with evergreen needles.

These sailors were lucky because illness and death from scurvy is not pretty. Early symptoms include bleeding under the skin and in deep tissue, receding gums and loose teeth, anemia, fatigue, joint pain, and difficulty walking—a condition that the British Royal Navy viewed as mere laziness and treated with flogging.

The problem, however, was not laziness, but low production of collagen related to low intake of vitamin C. As the disease progressed, bones began to rub painfully together, making it impossible to walk. Sailors eventually died of cerebral hemorrhage, blood loss, or convulsions.

Most physicians of the day scoffed at the idea that something in food could offer a treatment, maintaining that it was the sea air that made the sailors ill. Nevertheless, Dr. John Woodall began treating scurvy with lemon juice and ultimately convinced the East India Company to provide it to their sailors when they were at sea.

In the mid-1700s, James Lind, a surgeon's mate with the British Royal Navy, offered different remedies to six pairs of sailors afflicted with scurvy. To Lind's delight and surprise, the pair given a remedy that included a daily ration of two oranges and one lemon recovered. Eventually, the British Royal Navy was persuaded to use lime juice to prevent scurvy, but it took over 40 years of coaxing and cost an estimated 100,000 seamen their lives before the change was implemented.

Today, healthcare providers acknowledge that the vitamin C contained in citrus fruits and other foods offers a treatment for scurvy. Nevertheless, somewhat like its 18th century predecessors, modern mainstream medicine remains slow to make similar connections between dietary nutrients and health. Yes, physicians have made the connection between some nutrients and certain health conditions: iron and anemia, calcium and osteoporosis, and folic acid and neural tube defects, to name just a few. But are other nutritional deficiencies causing, or at least contributing to, a whole range of unexplained maladies in North America today? It may be possible.

Carol Johnson of Arizona State University (Johnson 2006) claims that vitamin C deficiency is more pronounced in America than iron deficiency—which is reportedly the most prevalent nutrient deficiency. Her study "A Case for C" showed that 6% of subjects were deficient in vitamin C and another 30% were depleted of it; that is, these subjects did not meet the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamin C. Johnson argues that scurvy is misdiagnosed today as polio or vasculitis simply because no one, physician or patient, is on the lookout for scurvy.

What's particularly interesting here is that physicians may be diagnosing polio (a viral cause) or vasculitis (an inflammation) rather than scurvy (a nutrient deficiency). Perhaps this is to be expected for a couple of reasons: first, of course, scurvy is perceived to be a disease of a bygone era, not of our modern age. Second, medical doctors and registered nurses get very little (if any) formal education in nutritional science; their training and profession tend to focus on pharmaceutical and surgical remedies. As a result, it may simply be unreasonable to expect a doctor or nurse trained in Western mainstream medicine to recognize a nutritional deficiency or to offer a nutritional remedy. And even if a doctor undertook extra study in the science of nutrition, medical licensing regulations under which medical doctors work typically discourage them from recommending nutritional remedies.

This focus on pharmaceutical and surgical remedies may not be surprising. After all, a great deal has been achieved in public health in the past hundred years. At the beginning of the 20th century, infections were the leading causes of death. Mainstream medicine used pharmaceutical remedies to win that fight, and it used them again in the fight against pneumonia, diarrhea, and diphtheria. The result was a dramatic reduction in rates of illness and death from these potentially lethal diseases.

As pharmaceutical remedies were proving their worth, nutritional remedies appeared to be losing their value. Soils across the globe were degrading, but in varying degrees. Plants grown in different parts of the world or in different parts of the country, for that matter, did not contain consistent levels of nutrients—at least in part because the quality of the soils varied from place to place and farmer to farmer. How could a physician rely on a nutritional remedy if it could not be measured or controlled? As the use of pharmaceuticals became more successful and more widespread, and as plants (and the soils they grew in) became an increasingly complex issue, nutritional remedies were slowly overshadowed.

Today, the issue of nutrition and its connection to health is hotly debated in medical circles. Medical schools, researchers, physicians, and governing bodies engaged in modern mainstream medicine generally allow little room for nutritional remedies. Healthcare providers in complementary healthcare argue that natural remedies, including food supplements, have a more viable place in healthcare than drugs. Others see the issue in neither black nor white, but in varying shades of gray—where there is room for integrative treatments that combine both mainstream and complementary practices.

Exploring this lively and sometimes intense debate is beyond the scope of this book. The intention here is to draw from solid scientific research to teach you about your own biology, to let you decide whether the foods and food supplements you eat may play a role in your overall well-being, and to help you make informed decisions when you shop. First, though, let's examine a few reasons to consider learning about this at all.

SOME FREAKY FACTS

When you experience a nutrient deficiency, your body will try to alert you. It may send a message via any combination of seemingly inconsequential symptoms: aches and pains, circulatory problems, cognitive impairment (such as brain fog, poor concentration, or memory loss), dandruff, depression, fatigue, infections, insomnia, irritability, or low energy levels. As Dr. Timothy Smith (1999) indicates, these situations tend to "drive doctors up a diagnostic tree". This frustration occurs because the underlying cause is difficult to pinpoint—especially for those who have not been trained in the science of nutrition and nutritional deficiencies.

In these situations, standard medical tests seldom show that anything is abnormal, leaving both physician and patient at a loss. This is the point at which you or your physician or perhaps family, friends, or employers may misinterpret the symptoms as laziness, a bad temper, hypochondria, some kind of mental or character weakness, or simply as normal aging (an old standby that patients seem to accept all-too-readily). Your body's message has been sent and received, but grossly misunderstood.

So you force yourself to go to work, to pull up your socks, to get on with it. It's the modern-day equivalent of flogging a sailor in the early stages of scurvy. Like those sailors, you want to regain your health—but how? As Dr. Smith points out:

If doctors do prescribe treatment, they usually bypass nutritional supplements in favor of drugs such as anti-inflammatories, antidepressants, tranquilizers, and the like. These not only mask symptoms but also deplete nutrient stores even further. This accelerates the degenerative process, which is the forerunner of disease and aging. (Smith 1999)

If a physician cannot diagnose or treat your symptoms or if you simply choose to ignore them, you may succumb to a more serious illness (an event, as it's known in medical terminology). It's important to realize, however, that ill health is seldom an event—it's a process. You become ill one mouthful at a time, one sedentary day at a time, one nutrient-deficient, inactive week at a time.

Despite the best that medical technology can offer, a heart attack or stroke can kill you or permanently debilitate you or, at the very least, leave you unable to play a game of baseball with your children. If you have a leg amputated due to diabetes (which is the leading cause of amputations), you may never again hike a favorite trail or dance a much- loved tango. In fact, once you become ill, you may end up in treatment for the rest of your life.

As these examples illustrate, disease can severely affect your life. Unfortunately, many people do not realize just how severe the changes may be, nor do they realize how great the risks of developing a serious illness may be—but the evidence is all around them.

Here are some freaky facts you need to know.

The First Freaky Fact

According to the American Diabetes Association (2011), 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.

In the USA, this disease affects about 11.3% of the population over the age of 20, and prevalence is increasing by about .5% per year.

To make matters worse, another 79 million American adults are pre-diabetic (showing signs of early diabetes), and a Canadian study by Lipscombe and Hux (2007) published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet reported the prevalence of the disease in Canada increased by 69% between 1995 and 2005. The greatest increase was found among younger people aged 20 to 49 years.

It's a frightening situation because diabetes greatly increases your risks of cardiovascular disease. Diabetes often brings with it other complications that occur with far greater frequency than many people think: erectile dysfunction, blindness, nerve damage often leading to amputation, and kidney disease (with its own set of complications). In the middle-aged and elderly, high blood sugar often results in poor memory as well.

A diagnosis of diabetes is life-altering and potentially life-threatening. Necessary lifestyle changes and monitoring practices may be portrayed as "simple" in everything from medical literature to television advertising, but diabetes is not necessarily easy to manage.

The Second Freaky Fact

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cardiovascular disease (which is really a group of diseases often resulting in heart attack or stroke) is the world's leading cause of death. The WHO projects that, by 2030, almost 23.6 million people around the world will die every year from cardiovascular disease.

Today, the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (January 2011) states that "about every 25 seconds, an American will have a coronary event."

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also reports that about once every minute, an American will die from a coronary event. They further estimate that over 785,000 Americans had a new coronary attack in 2009 alone; of these, 470,000 will have a recurrent attack.

In the United Kingdom, the British Heart Foundation (2011) reports cardiovascular disease accounts for 124,000 deaths each year. The foundation also reports that cardiovascular disease imposes a burden of nearly 30 billion per year on the healthcare systems of the UK. No wonder healthcare systems around the world are overburdened and government budgets are bursting.

These costs don't even take into account the huge economic losses suffered as a result of illness and death of patients still in their working years, nor do they include the economic costs borne by families and friends who love and care for the patients. When it's all added up, these indirect costs actually exceed the costs directly attributed to the various EU healthcare systems—and we can't even begin to tally the immeasurable price of worry and heartbreak as families lose fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters to illness that is largely preventable.

Yes, you read that right: mothers and sisters and daughters are becoming ill and dying, too. While cardiovascular disease sometimes is considered a man's disease, women account for almost 50% of deaths due to this killer—and these deaths are not confined to older women, either. The CDC website states that "heart disease is the third leading cause of death among women aged 25–44 years and the second leading cause of death among women aged 45–64 years."

Unfortunately, even in the face of these shocking statistics, many people are still buying greasy or sugary foods, serving them up on overly-large plates, and mindlessly chowing down in front of a screen. Even when a heart surgeon cuts a person open from collar bone to navel, many recovering patients do not change their dietary and exercise habits. After all, as the CDC points out, 60% of people having a coronary attack likely will have a second—and that second one is a real killer.

With statistics like these, it's obvious that looking after your cardiovascular health is really more than a personal choice; it's an economic responsibility and a moral imperative. If the CDC is correct in stating that 80% of cardiovascular deaths are a direct result of poor lifestyle choices, then what you put in your mouth (food, drink, and tobacco) and how physically active (or inactive) you are really does make a difference.

The Third Freaky Fact

In recent years, medical practitioners have seen the prevalence of inflammatory response disorders take off like a rocket. For example, the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/asthma) reports that asthma is the third-ranking cause of hospitalization among children under 15. In fact, in a classroom of 30 students, three likely will have asthma.

In addition, Alzheimer's disease, allergies, certain aggressive forms of cancer, and many other life-altering illnesses have all been linked to inflammation.

As you have read, cardiovascular disease is the world's leading killer. It, too, has been closely linked to the inflammatory process.

The CDC also reports that 50 million Americans have been diagnosed with arthritis, and it anticipates one in every two Americans will get this painful disease sometime during their lives.

It's important to understand that arthritis is not necessarily part of a natural aging process (as patients often are told).

It's important to understand that if you're dealing with arthritis, or any other inflammatory response disorder, the inflammatory response is your immune system's first response to injury. The redness, swelling, and pain typical of any inflammation constitute a warning that problems exist at the cellular level and that your body is attempting to repair itself. When inflammation becomes chronic, however, it can damage healthy tissues.

In medicine, the suffix "itis" at the end of a medical term indicates the condition is an inflammatory response. Arthritis, bursitis, colitis, gastroenteritis, gingivitis, and any other conditions ending with "itis" are all inflammatory responses.

It's crucial to address the source of an inflammatory response and not to simply mask the symptoms with anti-inflammatory drugs. Masking symptoms without adequately addressing the underlying cause can create a chronic condition. Failing to find the cause of the inflammatory response and just masking the symptoms is a little like switching off the fire alarm in a burning building: you turn off that annoying warning bell, but it does nothing to put out the fire.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Eat To Save Your Lifeby Gloria Askew Jerre Paquette Copyright © 2012 by Gloria Askew, RRN and Jerre Paquette, PhD. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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