One man’s food …
According to the UK’s Royal College of Physicians, one in three people suffer from allergies at some point in their lives, with foods being the most common provokers of allergic symptoms. As Lucretius said in 50 B.C., “One man’s food is another man’s poison.”
Most of the symptoms do not occur immediately after eating an offending food, but creep up on you over a twenty-four-hour period, so it is easy to live for years without knowing that a particular food does not suit you. What is more, many people may never have felt truly healthy, so do not even know that how they feel is under par.
These are just a few examples that illustrate how each person’s optimum nutrition is likely to be slightly different from anyone else’s. This book will give you the opportunity to investigate the major lifestyle factors that shape your nutritional needs and to assess your personal nutritional needs on the basis of your symptoms, not according to some arbitrary general guideline. From then on, it is a matter of educated trial and error and noticing which foods make you feel good and which ones take your energy away.
SYMPTOMS LINKED TO FOOD ALLERGY
Anxiety Diarrhea
Arthritis Ear infections
Asthma Eczema/dermatitis
Attention-deficit disorder Hay fever
Bed-wetting Headaches
Bloating Inflammatory bowel disease
Bronchitis Insomnia
Celiac disease Learning disorders
Chronic fatigue syndrome Multiple sclerosis
Colitis Rhinitis
Crohn’s disease Sleep disorders
Depression Tonsillitis
Diabetes Weight gain
A few simple tips
to help you work with your biochemical individuality
Notice after which meals you feel worse. Look for the common foods, eliminate for two weeks, then see how you feel.
Just because others can tolerate a certain food does not mean you can.
Assess your own nutritional needs (see part 6) and supplement the recommended nutrients until you are feeling healthy, full of energy, and symptom free.
Find out what lifestyle works best for you and adjust your life accordingly.
If you have a family history of particular health problems, pay particular attention to the prevention tips in this book and adjust your nutrition accordingly.
Listen to your body. It will tell you more than all the experts will.
5
Synergy—The Whole Is Greater
The science fiction of the 1960s envisaged a future in which humans would simply eat pills or powder containing the finite number of nutrients proved to be essential for the human machine to function. Yet, as each decade passes, we learn more and more about the complexities of the human body and nutrition. Of the fifty currently known essential nutrients (see this page), all interact with other nutrients and can be said to work in synergy.
Knowing this, it would be unrealistic to deprive a body of one nutrient, for experimental purposes, or to prescribe one nutrient for the treatment of disease. For example, deficiencies of vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid and iron, zinc, and manganese can all contribute to anemia. Indeed, in some circumstances prescribing one nutrient can exacerbate deficiency of another. Iron is, for example, a zinc antagonist. Both are frequently deficient. Prescribing excessive amounts of iron exacerbates an undiagnosed or untreated zinc deficiency. Since zinc is a critical nutrient for fetal development, this could have serious detrimental effects during pregnancy.
Greater than the sum of the parts
Some nutrients simply will not work without their synergistic mates. Vitamin B6, pyridoxine, is useless in the body until it is converted into pyridoxal-5-phosphate, a job done by a zinc- and magnesium-dependent enzyme. If you are zinc or magnesium deficient and take a vitamin B6 supplement to help relieve premenstrual syndrome (PMS), it may not make any difference. Studies have shown that giving women zinc, magnesium, and B6 relieves the symptoms of PMS much more effectively.
The vast majority of research in nutrition, however, has looked at the effects on health of a single nutrient. The results are not comparable with the effects of giving a person optimum nutrition, the right balance of all essential nutrients. For instance, there is little evidence that individual vitamins or minerals can increase IQ scores in children. However, the combination of all vitamins and minerals, even if given only at recommended daily allowance (RDA) levels, has consistently been shown to produce a four- to five-point increase in children’s IQ scores.15 Similar combinations of vitamins, minerals, and essential fats have produced massive reductions in aggression in prison inmates, compared with placebo, in only two weeks.16 These kinds of results are simply not seen with individual nutrients.
Many nutrients work together to keep you healthy.
There are now hundreds of studies that show that the right nutrients in combination can produce improvements in health of a different league from those provided by individual nutrients. A classic example is the combination of B vitamins needed to lower homocysteine. This toxic protein in the blood is an incredible predictor of disease risk, not only for cardiovascular disease, but also for depression, Alzheimer’s disease, miscarriage and the risk of birth defects, and many more conditions (see chapter 16). Lowering homocysteine, and hence lowering risk, is easy if you know how. You need an optimal intake of vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid, plus B2, zinc, magnesium, and trimethyl glycine (TMG).
Few medical studies, however, have taken this on board. Most just indicate that folic acid should be taken. This, by the way, is why folic acid is given during pregnancy—to lower homocysteine and reduce the risk of birth defects. So, let’s take a look at what happens if you give one, two, three, or all of these nutrients together. In a research study in Japan, patients with kidney disease, a condition strongly linked to high homocysteine, were divided into four groups: one was given folic acid alone, another B12 alone, another folic acid and B12 together, and another folic acid, B12, and B6 together. The trial lasted for three weeks.17
Here are the results of this remarkable study:
SUPPLEMENT GROUP HOMOCYSTEINE CHANGE
Folic acid alone
17.3% reduction
B12 alone
18.7% reduction
Folic acid plus B12
57.4% reduction
Folic acid, B12, and B6
59.9% reduction
Notice that this extraordinary study revealed two very important principles:
The more nutrients were provided, the greater was the reduction in homocysteine.
The right combination of nutrients at the right dose can more than halve your hymocysteine level and your risk for homocysteine-related conditions, such as heart attack and stroke, in as little as three weeks!
Notice also that no group was given all the nutrients that lower homocysteine, including B2, zinc, magnesium, and TMG. So we took six volunteers with raised homocysteine levels and gave them these nutrients. Their homocysteine levels dropped by 77 percent—more than four times as effective as the conventional medical prescription of folic acid to lower homocysteine. That is the power of synergy and that is why the results provided by optimum nutrition are in a different league from those you read about in single-nutrient trials designed by “pill for an ill” medics.
Another example of this is provided by the interplay of antioxidant nutrients, such as vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, lipoic acid, and anthocyanidins, which are abundant in berries. They have some effect in isolation but are much more effective when they work together. They, like all nutrients, are team players.
How antioxidants work together. A free radical, for example, from a French fry, is disarmed by vitamin E, which is recycled by vitamin C, which is recycled by glutathione, which is recycled by anthocyanidins. Coenzyme Q10, beta-carotene, and lipoic acid also help. These are the essential antioxidants and they work together.
In the figure above you can see
why. Free-oxidizing radicals, sometimes called free radicals or oxidants, are the bad guys produced from anything burnt, be it a cigarette, exhaust fumes, fried fat, or burnt meat. The free radicals are like red-hot sparks that can damage your body. The antioxidants are like flameproof gloves that pass these hot potatoes along the line, gradually dissipating their potentially damaging properties. You need all of them to do the job properly, and that’s why I pay less attention to studies using just one nutrient than to multinutrient approaches.
The principle of synergy is a fundamental aspect of the optimum nutrition approach. This book enables you to assess your own needs taking into account the principle of synergy. You may achieve better results by eating the right foods and taking the right combination of nutrients at lower doses than those you have supplemented before. Such is the power of the synergistic effect of nutrients.
A few tips on nutrition synergy
There is no substitute for whole foods (any unrefined and unprocessed foods), which contain hundreds of health-promoting substances, the importance of many of which we have yet to discover.
Eat a varied diet, choosing from a wide range of different kinds of food.
Do not supplement your diet with individual nutrients without also taking a good all-round multivitamin and mineral supplement.
Do not take a large amount of an individual B vitamin without also taking a B complex or a multivitamin.
Do not supplement your diet with a large amount of an isolated antioxidant nutrient (for example, vitamin C, E, or beta-carotene) without also taking a good all-round multivitamin or antioxidant formula.
6
Antinutrients—Avoiding the Vitamin Robbers
Optimum nutrition is not just about what you eat—what you do not eat is equally important. Since the 1950s over thirty-five hundred man-made chemicals have found their way into manufactured food, along with pesticides, antibiotics, and hormone residues from staple foods such as grains and meat. Many of these chemicals are “antinutrients” in that they stop nutrients from being absorbed and used, or promote their excretion.
Gone are the days when healthy eating meant simply getting the right balance of nutrients from your food. Now an equally important part of the equation is avoiding harmful chemicals and protecting yourself against those that cannot be avoided. Many of today’s diseases are caused just as much by an excess of antinutrients as by a deficiency of nutrients. Take cancer, for example. Three-quarters of all cancers are associated with an excess of antinutrients, be it cancer-causing chemicals or excessive free radicals as a result of smoking. Many health problems, from arthritis to chronic fatigue, can follow from an overload of antinutrients exceeding the body’s capacity to detoxify itself. Once this threshold is exceeded, toxins such as pesticide residues accumulate in fat tissue, common drugs from alcohol to painkillers become increasingly toxic, and even the otherwise harmless by-products of the body making energy from carbohydrates start to accumulate, bringing on muscle aches and fatigue.
Nowadays in the U.S. alone we get through every year a staggering two million tons of food chemicals, one hundred nineteen billion alcoholic drinks, three hundred seventy-five billion cigarettes, four hundred million prescriptions for painkillers, and two hundred fifty million prescriptions for antibiotics. In addition, fifty thousand chemicals are released into the environment by industry and five hundred million gallons of pesticides and herbicides are sprayed onto food and pastures. Together, this constitutes a staggering onslaught of man-made chemicals and pollutants, with undeniable global health and environmental repercussions.
Making up the deficit
Even refined food that is free from artificial additives is not neutral. Any food you eat that requires more nutrients for the body to make use of it than the food itself provides is effectively an antinutrient. Living on these foods gradually robs the body of vital nutrients. In fact, two-thirds of the calories in the average person’s diet in the Western world come from these foods. That leaves one-third of the diet to provide not only enough nutrients for general health, but also enough to make up the deficit resulting from nutrient-deficient food and to combat other antinutrients, from car pollution to pesticides.
Exactly what extra quantities of key nutrients we need to combat these antinutrients is not known, but it is certainly well in excess of recommended daily allowance (RDA) levels. Take vitamin C, for example. How much does a smoker need to consume every day to have the same blood level of vitamin C as a nonsmoker, assuming they both start with the same dietary intake equivalent to the RDA level? The answer is in excess of 200 mg, roughly quadruple the RDA, according to research by Dr. Gerald Schectman and colleagues at the Medical College of Wisconsin.18 The same is true if you compare heavy drinkers with teetotalers. A heavy drinker needs to take in at least 500 mg a day, six times the RDA, to have the same vitamin C blood level as a nondrinker. And what about pollution? If you live or work in an inner city, what is your need for antioxidant protection? Certainly it will be higher than the RDA and, in the case of vitamin C, which detoxifies over fifty undesirable substances including exhaust fumes, a daily intake of 1,000 mg (1 gram) is more likely to be optimal.
Chemical self-defense
To a large extent, man-made chemicals have been allowed into the food chain as long as they have not been associated with any health risks. Their “antinutrient” status has never been an issue. Tartrazine or E102, one of the more common food-coloring agents, is a case in point. It has long been known to cause allergic reactions and hyperactivity in sensitive children, and Dr. Neil Ward and his team from the University of Surrey in England wanted to know why.19 They gave two groups of children identical-looking and identical-tasting drinks, except that one contained tartrazine. They measured the children’s mineral levels before and after they consumed the drink. Those who had the drink containing tartrazine became hyperactive and exhibited a decrease in their blood levels of zinc and an increase in the amount of zinc excreted in the urine. What the researchers had found was that tartrazine robbed the children of zinc, a deficiency of which is associated with increased risk of behavioral and immune system problems.
This is only one of hundreds of food chemicals to be tested in this way and, of course, it raises the question as to what safety criteria a chemical must meet before being allowed to enter the food chain. Or are new chemicals simply innocent until proven guilty? While the legislation on “novel foods” is becoming more stringent, the concept of testing for antinutrient effects is not yet on the checklist.
The pesticide problem
Labeling on food does not tell you everything. Unless you eat only organic food, one in three of all the foods you eat contains traces of pesticides.20 In fact, the amount of fruits and vegetables consumed by the average person in a year has the equivalent of up to one gallon of pesticides sprayed on it.
The first family of pesticides was organochlorines. These proved so toxic and nonbiodegradable that most have been banned in the U.S. and Europe (though not in many food-exporting developing countries). They were replaced by organophosphates, and in the United Kingdom alone more than ten tons of pesticides are now applied to crops every year. Many of these compounds are known to be carcinogenic, linked to birth defects or decreased fertility, and toxic to the brain and nervous system. Pesticide exposure is associated with depression, memory decline, aggressive outbursts, and Parkinson’s disease. According to Professor William Rea, director of the Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas, it is also linked to asthma, eczema, migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, and rhinitis. We are exposed to pesticides not just in our food but also in our homes via pest control, as well as in the wider environment, especially if we live in or near agricultural areas, where there are now numerous campaigns to ban pesticide sprays drifting over neighboring communities.
You may be wondering why the government allows pesticides in foods if they are so harmful. The argument given is that at very low levels they are not harmful to humans, yet the t
ests used to establish the safety levels are done only on individual pesticides. No one has tested or can test the infinite number of combinations of pesticides we are all regularly exposed to. In 1998, three of every four lettuces tested carried more than one pesticide residue, and up to seven different compounds were found on individual lettuces.21 Multiple residues on other foods, including apples, pears, carrots, oranges, celery, and strawberries, are common, and of course several different foods are usually eaten at any given meal. It all adds up to a cocktail of pesticide residues, the combined toxicity of which is almost completely unknown.
Studies have shown that pesticides in combination may be hundreds of times more toxic than the same compounds alone.22 Also, individuals with poor detox function, the young, the elderly, and the stressed, are far more susceptible to toxins than the average healthy adult, so “safe levels” are relatively meaningless for many. Washing produce with water has little effect on these residues as most are formulated to resist being washed off by the rain. Tests with potatoes, apples, and broccoli have shown that between 50 and 93 percent of residues remained on produce after washing with water.23 You should aim to reduce your exposure to pesticides in your diet by choosing organic foods as often as you can.
Genetically engineered food
The long-term consequences on the ecosystem and on our health of genetically modified (GM) foods are also unknown. One of the main aims of the genetic engineers is to make crops such as soybeans or corn resistant to particular types of herbicide. In other words, the crop can be sprayed, all weeds will die, the plant will be contaminated, and the yield will be increased. Guess who profits from the increased sales of the herbicides and the GM seeds?
The New Optimum Nutrition Bible Page 4
