Good Nutrition

Kinkajou: What is Good Nutrition?
Modern Medicine makes a number of Predictions. But then why should traditional medicine advice conflict with that given by our learned experts of today?

Erasmus : The answer lies in perspective. A diet can be good from one person’s point of view, but still make the person unwell. A patient can receive a low cholesterol diet, a weight loss diet, a gluten free diet, a high essential fatty acids diet, a high protein diet, a low carbohydrate diet and many more. These diets all aim to achieve specific things for specific people, so from the point of view of a cardiologist a low fat and low cholesterol diet is beneficial, while a high essential fatty acid diet is not. A person who is experiencing behavioural problems may well find quite the opposite is acceptable or useful.
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Kinkajou So in what situations should specific diets be used to give "Good Nutrition" ?

Erasmus : One of the most studied clinical conditions and diets in the world relate to cardiovascular disease. There is no doubt that if you eat a low fat and low cholesterol diet, there are extensive mortality and morbidity advantages to a person who has a bad heart, angina, or who has had a heart attack in the distant past. High cholesterol corrodes the arteries and assists atherosclerosis to develop. The arteries block. People begin to show symptoms of heart attacks, angina, stroke, gangrene of the limbs, infarcts (arterial blockages) causing damage to organs throughout the body e.g. the kidney is a typically silently affected organ affected by atherosclerosis.

 Diet restriction of food intake is a clumsy method of reducing lipids (Cholesterol and triglycerides collectively known as fat to most people), in the blood stream. Doctors have found that medicines do it better. The big pharmaceutical companies have invested serious research to demonstrate that their medicines actually reduce the risk of atherosclerosis: namely heart attacks and stroke. Reducing fat and cholesterol whether by diet or by medicines actually does work to make people live longer or live better. Back To Good Nutrition Top

 DR Xxxxx : The "fly in the ointment" comes, as there have been some case reports of

• Increased infection risk: appendicitis, occasionally pneumonia
• Increased risk of memory loss
  For More Clinical Information: See :>>

  These types of events are relatively common in the average population, so the pharmaceutical companies attribute the findings to coincidence. The difficulty lies of course in that changes in minor hard to measure things like this are difficult subjects for research and it is difficult to prove a causal link between cholesterol lowering and these symptoms. Time scale is important also.
  
  The Paill Spectrum model would predict that if these symptoms are seen, they would typically be long term results of cholesterol lowering, not short term consequences. Mortality and morbidity changes due to lessened cardiovascular disease would in fact swamp the changes seen with Paill Spectrum disease progression. In fact if the person is getting memory loss from multiple small strokes (essentially asymptomatic), they may look like their memory is in fact improving with cholesterol lowering therapy. Back To Good Nutrition Top
  
  Paill Spectrum causes memory loss by a different mechanism and over very long lead times, so it is not hard to lose (not see) the clinical effects of the illness, especially where other pathological processes (i.e. mini strokes) may cause similar symptoms for different reasons.

   It is hard to see the effects of one type of treatment, when there are two conflicting underlying reason responsible for the observed trends.

  
  
  

DR Xxxxx : The problem with cholesterol lowering arises when doctors treat people who have no symptoms at all with cholesterol lowering treatment to very low levels. These people were never sick in the first place. It is much harder to show mortality and morbidity (illness) advantages of cholesterol lowering treatments in these patients.

 Perhaps that is because the lead times to the development of disease symptoms are longer, so that it becomes easier for conflicting trends resulting from treatment to begin to show their effects. Yes, you can still see advantages to cholesterol lowering in “normal “ people, but these advantages are far more difficult to measure, as the actual measured advantage is much lower.

 In summary, cholesterol lowering, whether by diet or medicine has specific advantages for specific people with specific medical conditions. So it should be obvious that good nutrition is “good” depending on the clinical state (wellness) of the patient. Such advice needs to be individualized based one what is important to achieve for the patient. Back

Not everyone's idea of healthy food, but it still has a lot to recommend it

So the question still remains. What is good nutrition?

Kinkajou: What follows is
"The Paill Spectrum Slant on Good Nutrition".

DR Xxxxx : Good levels of B12, Folate and zinc intake are important.

Whether it is useful to eat high bioavailability zinc foods in contrast to taking tablets remains to be seen.

Iron, a comparable mineral has very low absorption when taken from tablet sources (3-4%) while the bioavailability of heme- iron from meat containing foods may approach 50%. Meat is unfortunately a more expensive way to ingest iron. Lifestyle and food choices are hard to alter, so tablets are usually recommended. Back To Good Nutrition Top

Good levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acid intake are beneficial, but these are probably best obtained by use of supplements, rather than altering dietary intakes.

Is fresh best? One cannot doubt that food composition changes when food is stored. For example the year round supply of bananas, oranges and apples that we all take for granted is due to the use of industrial cold storage for fruit. It is quite possible that one may be eating fruit that has been in cold storage for up to nine months. Sitting in a cold dark room almost in suspended animation must change the chemical composition of fruit.

 But whether this is important to dietary vitamin, mineral or other intakes (e.g. anti-oxidants), remains to be seen. For More Information see:

  DR Xxxxx : Avoid wheat or gluten like food proteins if you are allergic. If you are not allergic, there appears to be no downside to the consumption of these types of foods. Back To Good Nutrition Top

 Avoid any food to which there may be a mild allergy, even if no rashes or other harmful consequences are easily obvious. The importance of allergy relates to frequency of intake, so it is likely that minor intakes of minor food allergens may not be important in the scheme of things.

 It is likely that minor food allergies are a lot more common than hitherto suspected. I have a very small number of patients who have one or two wet coughs after eating a Macdonald’s meal. It sounds like an allergic process to a food additive may well be the underlying cause. These people may well best avoid the types of food that trigger their reaction. These issues are rarely that simple. The addition of food preservatives is important to ensuring food safety for the rest of us. So it is not acceptable to blanket ban a “preservative” additive when many other people may end up suffering harm (e.g. from bad food), than may be injured by allergy. (which only a small number of people may have).

 Cholesterol lowering and fat free diets are important for prevention of cardiovascular disease. However, immune processes generally run better at higher cholesterol levels. Certainly, many doctors have seen that very ill people drop their cholesterol as their body chews up the cholesterol reserves to build cells to help fight infection.

 So the Paill Recommendation, is that in the absence of any specific indication to alter cholesterol levels (e.g. heart attack or stroke), cholesterol lowering and low fat diet is worthwhile to reduce cholesterol levels to physiological (normal or usual) levels.  Certain sorts of high fat foods may be acceptable for the natural anti-oxidants or more specifically for the high levels of Omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids that they contain. Some of the nuts especially fall into this category. Excessive cholesterol lowering is to be avoided.

 Patients who are experiencing hypoglycemia or weight gain may benefit from a lean protein diet with low GI carbohydrates.

 High protein, low carbohydrate is probably not a good idea, though when taken to extreme the metabolic changes resulting   from extreme carbohydrate restriction will cause ketosis and weight loss through basic TCA (Krebs’s cycle or metabolic) mechanisms.

 High carbohydrate if inappropriate (high) GI will lead to a cycle of hunger and eating that in patients with Paill Spectrum liver metabolic changes, will exacerbate weight loss.

 There is a large list of foods that traditional Chinese medicine suggests avoiding. Dr. Xxxxx states that currently in the absence of clinical impressions, he would have no opinion either pro or against in regards the consumption of these foods. Back To Good Nutrition Top

 Paill Spectrum nutritional recommendations are likely to play an important role in diabetic diets and obesity controlling diets. Nutrition is a major factor in controlling Paill Spectrum infection. Very good symptom responses are possible with nutrition alone. Do the right thing for the right reason.

Just what exactly is Celiac Disease really?

DR Xxxxx : Doctors can prescribe medicines, but strangely they can’t make you better. So why do so many people flock to Naturopaths, even though they can’t prescribe medicines or pharmaceutical drugs to treat you. It is because Naturopaths, unlike doctors can make you better. Nutritional and dietary therapy (choosing healthy foods) can make a huge difference to your health. (So, what is really new in this statement to most of us?)
But if you want to preserve your health, you need to make the right decisions. Many of our health recommendations are based on what specific commercial interests are keen to sell us. “Good for You” in the Paill Spectrum model is a very specific thing. Many of the “healthy” recommendations made by friends or health professionals are potentially damaging to our health.
Choosing medicines that make you feel good, does not guarantee that they are good for you. Make sure you make the right decision for yourself as others have.



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