We’re in the midst of an epidemic of obesity, diabetes type 2, and cardiovascular disease, as well as cancer and immune related diseases. So what can we all do about this tragedy? Let’s cover some general information.
Fossil remains from your hunter-gatherer ancestors reveal that these were lean, had strong dense bones, with no cavities. Evidence from cave drawings and coprolites shows that they ate an eating plan consisting mainly of fruit, nuts, and wild vegetables, and some meat. This diet is about the same as those of today’s hunter-gatherer tribes.
With the advent of agriculture, mankind’s diet now use a grain-based diet. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors probably ate some grain, having discovered that wheat and rye plants which grew wild, could yield a grain, which, when cooked, could be eaten. The agricultural revolution made it possible for grains to be the staple from the diet.
People began getting most of their calories and nutrients from grain about 10,000 years back. Some 500 generations were living since then. Geneticists say that it takes between 1,000 and 10,000 generations for any significant evolutionary change.
People whose diets consisted mainly of grains, had issues with their teeth, and likely had other health issues as well. The traditional Egyptians are a classic illustration of this. They subsisted totally on grains. Mummies show cavities that is not found among hunter-gatherer tribes.
Grains aren’t unhealthy. Actually some, for example wheat or oats, are highly nutritious, providing high quality protein, together with many vitamins, minerals, and fiber. But they are a problem when they become the dominant food, at the cost of leafy vegetables and fruit. The real problem, however, comes when they are refined.
Within the 1890s machines came to be that strip all of the fiber and nutrition from grain, and extract sugar from cane, beets, or grain. The empty calorie was invented.
Empty calories deplete the body of nutrition. For every carbohydrate calorie your body burns, it requires some nutrients. Chromium is required to allow insulin to complete its job, and certain B vitamins are essential to carry out caffeine reactions of metabolizing every gram of carbohydrate. Calcium is needed for several metabolic reactions. These nutrients and many others are stripped from wheat to create white flour, sometimes simply called wheat flour, instead of whole wheat flour. Sugar is extracted from corn, beets, or cane and is added to the majority of our drinks and food, sometimes in big amounts. Use of refined sugar causes the body to rob nutrients from organs and bones in order to obtain the nutrients necessary for the assimilation and metabolizing of sugar.
Two hundred years ago the typical American ate 10 or 12 pounds of sugar annually. The only sugar that most people consumed was what was naturally contained in food. By 1928 sugar consumption involved Ten times what it really was in 1828. In 1996 the average American consumed 152 pounds of sugar!
When scientists began staring at the plaques within the arteries of people that died of heart diseases, they found fat and cholesterol deposits during these plaques and reasoned that it’s body fat and cholesterol within the diet that causes the problem. This simplistic reasoning was wrong and it has proven wrong by many people clinical studies and statistical analyses. Cardiac arrest rates do not correlate with the amount of fat and cholesterol consumed in a given population. But they do correlate strongly with the amount of refined carbohydrate and hydrogenated oil consumed. Diabetes type 2 also correlates strongly with refined carbohydrate consumption inside a population. From the mid 60s towards the mid 90s, the incidence of diabetes type 2 increased six-fold. A slight apparent increase are closely related to better reporting of the disease or people being more conscious of it, but this can be a real epidemic which is staggering! It’s incredible for the incidence of a non-infectious disease to improve by a factor of six in forty years! This much change in just one or two generations can’t possibly be hereditary anyway.
In previous centuries people ate considerable amounts of butter and lard, beef, pork and a lot of eggs. Even though many people lived into their sixties and beyond, heart attacks were unusual. The first heart attack in medical literature was described in a medical journal in 1912. Before the last century cardiac arrest were so rare most doctors could practice an entire lifetime without seeing a heart attack victim.
The French eat a diet that’s high in fat yet they suffer a heart disease rate 60% lower than Americans. Eskimos, the Masai in Africa, and the Icelanders, all ate an eating plan very high in fat but heart disease, stroke, and kind 2 diabetes were unknown for them until typical American diet was brought to them. Then they started to suffer from these diseases in the same rate that we do. Yugoslavia and the Netherlands provide similar examples.
The 2 master hormones of metabolism are insulin and glucagon. These two hormones operate in opposition to each other. Many people think only of blood sugar when they think of insulin, but it has many functions.
Functions of insulin:
1. Carries glucose into all cells (except red blood cells and cells that comprise the lens from the eye)
2. Is essential within the conversion of protein and sugar into fat
3. Causes fat to become stored in body fat cells
4. Puts metabolism into fat cell function mode
5. Increases manufacture of cholesterol
6. Causes the kidneys to retain water, potassium, and sodium
7. Stimulates the growth of cells that line within arteries, thus decreasing the inside diameter of the arteries.
8. Decreases the elasticity from the arteries
9. Converts glucose into glycogen (a kind of carbohydrate that is kept in the liver and muscle groups)
10. Carries proteins in to the cells
Functions of glucagon:
1. Energizes the conversion of glycogen into glucose and releases it into the bloodstream
2. Converts protein and fat into glucose
3. Releases fat from fat cells to become burned for energy
4. Puts metabolism into the fat burning mode
5. Reduces manufacture of cholesterol
6. Causes the kidneys to release water, potassium, and sodium
7. Reduces growth of cells that line the inside of the arteries
8. Boosts the elasticity from the arteriesv
9. Breaks down glycogen into glucose for use for energy
10. Carries amino acids out of the cells
Without insulin the body could not survive long, because glucose wouldn’t be able to get into the cells. Without them, your body couldn’t store fat for use when meals are scarce. In its absence, a person could eat for their heart’s content and not put on weight. Our physiology has become an intricate system designed to store fat in times when food is plentiful and burn it when times are lean and meals are hard to find.
When you eat meals, the pancreas secretes insulin, which in turn shuttles the glucose (also proteins, sodium, and potassium) to your cells. If there is an excess of glucose within the blood, some of it is stored as glycogen, plus some is transformed into fat and kept in the fat cells. If you don’t eat for several hours your blood sugar levels begins to fall. Your brain recognizes this and energizes the pancreas to release glucagon, which stimulates the breakdown of glycogen that is kept in the liver and muscles. Glucagon enables us to lose our stores of fat and glycogen when we fast. Glycogen breaks down into glucose, thus keeping blood sugar from dropping any further. If you continue to fast, your reserves of glycogen will run out per day or two. When it expires, glucagon stimulates the discharge of fat in the fat cells and stops working the fat into chemicals referred to as ketones. The body burns up ketones for energy before you run out of fat.
Your body is not equipped to cope with large amounts of sugar suddenly entering the bloodstream. This will cause the pancreas to overreact and convey an excessive amount of insulin. After an initial increase in blood sugar levels and consequent burst of energy, the blood sugar levels will fall too low. If you do not consume any more carbohydrate, your pancreas will secrete glucagon. This hormone may cause the blood sugar levels to slowly rise to normalcy levels by wearing down glycogen within the liver into glucose and releasing it into the bloodstream. Most people will consume more sugar-laden food or drink before their blood sugar returns to normalcy and cause another surge of insulin and repeat the cycle. Because of constantly high levels of insulin and low levels of glucagon, your LDL cholesterol (the so-called bad kind, and also the only kind the liver makes) goes up. Your blood pressure will go up. The body will be in a fat-storage mode.
When you were a young child and you ate something sweet, your pancreas needed to secrete only a tiny quantity of insulin in response to the rise in blood sugar levels. After many years of consuming refined carbohydrate, the insulin receptors in your cells dwindle responsive to insulin as well as your pancreas required to secrete larger comes down to perform the same job. This is known as insulin resistance. Another reason for insulin resistance is chromium deficiency. Refined carbohydrate causes a deficiency in chromium along with other minerals. Chromium is really a critical component of the insulin receptors around the cell wall.
Loss of focus also causes insulin resistance. And no doubt, many people have a genetic predisposition for insulin resistance, that is even more reason behind them to be cautious how they eat and to make sure they get enough exercise. With the pancreas having to produce excessive amounts of insulin simply to regulate blood sugar, you choose all the problems of hyperinsulinism. It’s a few genetics as to which problem will hit you first, obesity, hypoglycemia, hypertension, or diabetes, etc, but eventually a number of of these problems will arise should you continue to consume refined carbohydrate. The body overproduces insulin in response to some rapidly rising blood sugar level; consequently blood sugar drops dramatically in a handful of hours. Lots of people who pass a glucose tolerance test have severe insulin resistance. They passed the exam as their blood sugar checked out normal a couple hours after given a sugar solution, but their pancreas needed to secrete abnormally large amounts of insulin to deal with a little bit of sugar.
Eventually a person reaches the point where the pancreas is producing just as much insulin because it possibly can, but the cells in the body are so resistant against it that a lots of of insulin can’t bring blood sugar down. This person will fail the glucose tolerance make sure be diagnosed with diabetes. Doctors will make matters worse when they prescribe insulin injections at this time in time, although sometimes drugs are given to make the body’s cells more sensitive to insulin. A change of diet as well as an workout program will often bring insulin sensitivity up to acceptable levels.
Type 2 diabetes shouldn’t be confused with type 1 diabetes. They are two different diseases. Type 1 diabetes may also be called juvenile onset diabetes, because it usually strikes an individual when they are very young. It happens whenever a virus or toxin (or even the child’s own defense mechanisms) destroys the insulin producing cells within the pancreas. Type 2, however, normally takes 2 or 3 decades of high use of refined carbohydrates before it becomes apparent. Diabetes type 2 turns into type 1 if left unchecked because the insulin-producing cells (Beta cells) may become weakened and rendered nonfunctional by the continued over stimulation caused by a diet high in refined carbohydrate. This is whats called beta cell burnout. When this occurs, the result is your body. Without any insulin, blood sugar levels rises to dangerous levels and also the hormone glucagon takes over. Without any insulin to oppose its actions, glucagon begins to waste away your body. The person loses weight no matter how much they eat. They urinate excessively and therefore are thirsty all the time. Cholesterol falls to dangerously lower levels. At this time the individual has no choice but to inject insulin throughout their life.
Many will be genetically more prone to certain effects of hyperinsulinism than others. For example, in certain individuals obesity may be the first sign of hyperinsulinism. For others high blood pressure or high Cholestrerol levels levels could be the first sign. In some individuals hypoglycemia will be the first symptom. But no matter what your genetic makeup, you can’t escape all of the effects of hyperinsulinism if it remains unchecked. You can’t change your genes but you can alter your diet plan. And you can get off the couch and use just a little.
You shouldn’t be afraid to eat fat. The only types of fat that are unhealthy are altered or refined oil and hydrogenated oil. A deficiency of dietary fat is really a dangerous condition and can kill you if prolonged. No properly done study has ever shown a convincing link between high-fat consumption and cardiovascular disease. Fat is vital towards the health of nerves, skin, the defense mechanisms, and merely about anything else within your body. And fat may be the just one from the three macronutrients (carbohydrate, fat, and protein) that doesn’t stimulate producing insulin when consumed. It makes you feel full, so you’ll eat less. Fat, like fiber, slows the digestion of protein and carbohydrate, thus blunting an upswing of serum glucose that results from eating meals. This really is good since the insulin fact is much slower and more even, and also the person goes longer without feeling hungry again.
You need to scrupulously avoid hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils they don’t exist in nature, except in minute trace quantities in some meats. Trans fats (hydrogenated oils) possess the unique property of lowering good cholesterol and raising the so-called bad cholesterol simultaneously. They raise triglyceride levels. They likewise have a bad affect on the body’s inflammatory system by disrupting the amount of certain substances in the body called eicosanoids. They suppress certain anti-inflammatory eicosanoids, and boost the degree of inflammatory eicosanoids. This will cause inflammation from the interior arterial wall. Additionally they gum in the cell wall, adversely affecting cell receptors, such as the insulin receptors. By reducing the efficiency from the insulin receptors they result in a person being insulin resistant. As America’s use of saturated fat fell dramatically throughout the twentieth century, our use of trans-fats, refined oils and refined carbohydrates skyrocketed. The incidences of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes went through the roof.
The public continues to be led to believe the refined, highly processed oils that line the shelves from the grocery store are healthy. Those bottles of golden colored oils have labels which tell you they are cholesterol-free or polyunsaturated. The truth is, those oils are very unhealthy. Do you think the corn oil within the grocery store bears any resemblance whatsoever to the oil that is in the kernel of corn?
The problem starts with the method which is often used to extract the oil from its source. The most well-liked approach to the industry is to use cause problems to extract the oil. Our prime temperatures used destroy the majority of the healthy components of the oil, including most of the vitamins. The molecular structure of the oil is altered. The oils are refined after extraction. The thick, heavy components can be purchased to companies that use vegetable oil because the base for several lubricants or any other industrial products. The light-colored oil that continues to be is definitely an unhealthy and unnatural creation that is devoid of nutrition.
Expeller-pressed oil is better than heat-extracted oil, but the ruthless used in the expeller process creates heat. Typically the temperature of the oil is raised to temperatures of 180 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes the nuts or seeds are heated to 250 F prior to being placed in the expeller, since the temperature makes the expeller process more efficient.
Many oils are extracted using a solvent, usually hexane. The problem with this may be the solvent is impossible to totally remove in the oil after it is extracted.
When mechanical pressing is performed without heating the source of oil first, method . cold-pressed extraction. This process alters the oil under every other type of extraction. Unfortunately, sesame seeds and olives are the only sources which will yield a large amount of oil out of this process.
High serum cholesterol levels, particularly high levels of Cholestrerol levels, have long been blamed for causing arteriosclerosis and heart disease, though there’s never been any solid evidence to support this hypothesis. The simple truth is, the only type of cholesterol that is damaging to the arteries is oxidized cholesterol. While it is true that LDL oxidizes easier than HDL, the amount of oxidized cholesterol within the blood depends a lot more around the quantity of antioxidant within the diet than you are on Cholestrerol levels levels. Cholestrerol levels may be the only kind that the body can make and it is vital alive.
Cholesterol is a vital substance in the body. It’s a major component of the myelin sheath which surrounds nerve cells. This myelin sheath insulates nerves like the insulation on wires. To place it in simplistic terms, this is exactly what keeps your nerves from “short-circuiting.” Cholesterol is required through the body to create many hormones, including estrogen and testosterone. It is needed by the liver to create bile, that is required for the absorption of fats. Cholesterol under the skin is transformed into vitamin D by ultraviolet light penetrating your skin. It is an important element of the cell wall of all cells. The majority of the cells in your body can handle making their very own cholesterol and will do so if the serum level of cholesterol falls lacking.
The cholesterol that’s present in arterial plaques is part from the recovery process. It’s a component of the scab that forms on the wound. Its presence in arterial plaque is an indication the inner lining from the artery is damaged as well as in need of healing.
In case your cholesterol is below 180, you’re at a high risk for stroke. Amounts of 200 or even a little higher, aren’t any cause for concern. In case your ratio of LDL to HDL is simply too high, its likely since you are eating too much, or eating the wrong kinds of food. Smoking enhances the degree of Cholestrerol levels because it is manufactured in response to the arterial damage brought on by the chemicals in tobacco smoke. In case your cholesterol is extremely high, say, above 300, it should be brought down by eliminating refined carbohydrate, hydrogenated and refined oils, and if you smoke, you should quit. High cholesterol is really a symptom of artery disease, not really a reason for it. Poisoning your liver with cholesterol-lowering drugs is not the answer.
Harvard researchers studied a community in Framingham Massachusetts for fifty years. This is the most thorough and thoroughly done study on diet thus far. They proved that heart disease correlates rich in levels of cholesterol and obesity. They showed that obesity and levels of cholesterol were lowest in those who ate the most fat and cholesterol. They also demonstrated that people who ate the most saturated fats had 76% less incidence of ischemic strokes. You won’t hear much about this study because it proved exactly what the food and drug industries do not want you to definitely know.
Logic would dictate when cholesterol is merely passively deposited in arteries, then it would be deposited in veins too. How come the coronary arteries those that seem most impacted by cholesterol deposits? They are constantly flexing, and this action would actually impede any substance from receiving full payment for their inner walls. The continual flexing of the coronary arteries causes tiny tears in the membrane if the artery is not healthy. If an individual is lacking in certain nutrients, for example vitamin C, his arteries cannot be healthy. If an individual eats an excessive amount of protein, particularly protein, then your level of homocysteine in the blood will be high. Homocysteine is definitely an protein that is a result of the breakdown proteins, particularly animal protein. It attacks the inner lining from the arteries. Vitamin B6 very effectively destroys homocysteine, but people who consume a lot of refined carbohydrate are deficient in B6, along with the other B vitamins.
How much meat do we really need? Hunter-gatherer tribes don’t eat as much meat because the average American, and they’ve strong, healthy bodies… People who become strict vegetarians live long, healthy lives as long as they stay away from processed foods.
Although some meat in the diet is most likely not unhealthy, too much can cause a variety of problems, particularly if the meat originates from steers which are fed a diet of corn and soy. One thing the meat industry doesn’t want you to definitely know would be that the fat inside a steer that grazes on grass and eats no grain, resembles rather closely body fat such cold-water fish as salmon.
For milk, it is full of protein with all of the essential proteins, and has lots of vitamins and minerals. In the raw, unprocessed state, milk is nutritious. The milk within the grocery stores continues to be pasteurized to kill germs. It’s been homogenized to give it a regular texture and keep the cream from floating up. Pasteurization destroys all the enzymes and many from the vitamins. Additionally, it kills off bacteria that help with its digestion. The enzymes which are destroyed within the pasteurization process aid in the absorption of minerals such as calcium.
Homogenization causes problems too. To be able to realise why homogenization is bad, you should know some about two substances, plasmalogen and Xanthine oxidase (XO for short). Plasmalogen is a type of phospholipid that’s found in brain and spinal chord tissue, and on the inner lining of your arteries. The epithelial lining of the arteries is a protective coating within the artery. 30% of it is comprised of plasmalogen.
XO is an enzyme that’s based in the liver, where it serves many functions, one of these would be to destroy used plasmalogen. Plasmalogen and XO cannot exist in the same location for long because XO destroys plasmalogen. The liver has certain safety mechanisms to keep XO from escaping into the bloodstream. Cow’s milk is extremely high in XO. In unhomogenized milk, the XO is destroyed within the stomach and intestines by the digestive process. The homogenization process creates extremely small balls of fat called liposomes. These liposomes form a protective layer around the XO, keeping this enzymatic juices from contacting it. The XO will then go into the bloodstream intact and will be released from the liposomes. Plasmalogen within the inner lining from the arteries is gradually destroyed from many years of consuming homogenized milk. Your body tries to repair the damaged arterial wall by attaching cholesterol into it. That’s the reason the plaques located on the arterial wall of heart disease patients are full of cholesterol. These plaques are wrongly blamed on fat and cholesterol within the diet.
Milk is promoted as something that will build strong bones. True, milk has a lot of calcium, but milk can in fact result in a net lack of calcium in the body. Ponder for a moment the truth that the USA has got the highest per capita consumption of milk products and also has the greatest per capita rate of osteoporosis. There are two reasons for this.
Milk is very full of phosphorus. Phosphorus competes with calcium for absorption. The ideal ratio of calcium to phosphorus for optimum absorption of both minerals in the human intestine is 2.3 to at least one. Human milk includes a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 2.3 to at least one. Cow’s milk includes a ratio of 1.3 to 1. Our prime phosphorus content causes the majority of the calcium to feed the digestive tract without having to be absorbed. Raw milk comes with an enzyme that enhances calcium absorption, and therefore will lessen this problem to some extent, but this enzyme is destroyed within the pasteurization process.
Incidentally, steak, poultry, corn, and potatoes are high in phosphorus. These foods can greatly reduce calcium absorption. The worst offender of all is of course, the soda, or soda. Sodas are extremely high in phosphorus, and if drunk with a meal, will make sure that little or no calcium will be absorbed from that meal.
Milk is a highly concentrated supply of protein and too much protein causes loss of calcium. When an excessive amount of protein is consumed in a meal, a lot of the surplus amino acids from the protein are turned into the crystals (urea), though some will be turned into fat and kept in your body’s fat stores. The kidneys must attach calcium towards the uric acid in order to deal with it. The parathyroid glands detect falling levels of serum calcium and excrete a hormone that triggers calcium to leech in the bones in to the blood. Maintaining a particular degree of calcium within the bloodstream is critical and the entire body will require calcium from the bones to keep the blood level of calcium constant. This can cause a significant lack of calcium from the bones over time.
Drug companies and food companies do not want you to definitely know the real cause of high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels. They’d lose a lot of money if enough people knew how easy it is to manage these complaints by lowering consumption refined carbohydrate and trans-fats. The Food industry makes much more money on processed, refined grain-based food than on meats and vegetables. Most doctors aren’t acting dishonestly when they prescribe these drugs. They merely understand what they’re taught in school of medicine, and those schools receive huge grants by drug and food companies, consequently they have a big influence on what’s taught
Many people don’t want to take the time to educate themselves about nutrition and therefore are content to have their nutritional information from the press. They hear or read about the latest study which supplies evidence for this or that notion, but never begin to see the main issue. Nor do almost everyone has a basic knowledge of nutrition or physiology. An ignorant public is just what the food and drug industries want. They do not need to participate in some kind of conspiracy. They merely depend on the mental laziness and apathy of the person with average skills. Nonetheless, there are some examples of what can certainly be a conspiracy to help keep certain facts in the public.
Kilmer McCully discovered that a protein called homocysteine causes plaque to form in arteries. The protein methionine is a vital constituent of protein in meat. It breaks down into homocysteine within the bloodstream. Vitamin B6 converts it to methionine. McCully discovered that a B6 deficiency brought on by consuming refined carbohydrates elevates homocysteine levels dramatically. After publishing an article relating to this in 1977 he lost his grant support. He lost his positions at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. He would be a victim from the food industry. They did everything they might to help keep his findings from being made known to the public. Now his discovery is acknowledged as being important, but it’s not well known towards the public.
People have eaten diets high in fat and cholesterol since time immemorial. If you factor out those who died of infectious disease prior to the creation of vaccines and antibiotics, the life span expectancy a few a hundred years ago was virtually the same as today. But people were lacking heart attacks and strokes. Obese people were a small minority.
Just before today’s diet, cardiovascular disease and kind 2 diabetes were virtually unknown. Refined carbohydrate doesn’t even exist in nature, and is probably responsible for more death than cigarettes. There’s nothing wrong with eating grains, as long as you eat whole grains, and eat lots of vegetables and some fruit. Eat fruit, but avoid fruit juice since the extraction of juice results in a power of sugar. Eat plenty of green, leafy vegetables. Eat some meat if you like, try not to overload. Don’t be afraid of eggs. They are very nutritious. Eat all kinds of nuts, especially raw. Peanuts, technically a legume, are very good for you. They’re a packed with protein and vitamins, and high in healthy fat. White potatoes are fine if eaten in small quantities and try to with high-fiber vegetables. Eaten alone, potatoes will lift up your blood sugar at a extremely fast rate and also have been proven to improve the chance of type 2 diabetes if eaten often.