Changing Our Diet

You have a Crisis

What Crisis?

THESE ARE ALL MAKING US, OUR FAMILY and FRIENDS SICK AND THEY CAN KILL .

The most likely cause for obesity, diabetes, fatty liver, MS, Arthritis, cardiovascular, Alzheimer’s or depression, is CARBOHYDRATES. It makes very little difference whether it's whole grain or refined, a hot dog, tortilla, burger, pasta or whole wheat, they can all make us and our loved ones sick (if they haven’t already) and kill (if we keep eating the same way).

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has released Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2010) the most recently updated report. The guidelines are misleading in that they are written to minimize the crisis we currently have while protecting special interests. Out of the 13 members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, eight have had their sponsors among food companies, such as Danon and General Mills, soft drinks companies, etc.

There is a vast amount of research that implicates carbohydrates to modern disorders. Ignoring them, consuming excessive carbohydrates at 45-65% of total calories as recommended in the proposed Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010, is extremely dangerous to the health of Americans. While the Guidelines urge Americans to reduce the amount of added sugar, they fail to address the serious consequence of consuming carbohydrates, sugar and high fructose corn syrups. These are the major drivers of every modern disease and now an epidemic in the US.

While consuming more calories than the body needs for its daily activities indisputably result in weight gain, and vice versa, the solution is not entirely driven by a person’s rational firing of neurons. The food industry advices “All calories count” and “All calories are equal”. The Dietary Guidelines and Food Pyramids have always emphasized food portioning and the need to reduce caloric intake. Unfortunately, food portioning and controlling calories in the body’s biochemistry is a difficult task in the practical world, without altering biochemical reactions.

The Science of Eating

When an individual consumes more carbohydrates, the pancreas responds with more insulin production and release that may result in hypoglycemia before mealtime. Consequently, this necessitates more feedings, especially with more carbohydrates, which is followed by hyperglycemia during the postprandial period; more insulin produced and released; and again, hypoglycemia before mealtime.

Such a vicious cycle drives individuals to consume more foods, especially high in carbohydrates and more calories. This is a root cause creating dysfunction in energy metabolism and thus inflammation. Reversing this with carbohydrate-restricted, fat-rich diets helps individuals maintain a stable, normal blood glucose level, increased satiety, and weight loss. Reducing the amount of calories one consumes requires addressing the biochemistry of satiety and hunger.

What Do Carbohydrates Do?

Dietary carbohydrates perturb upstream response elements that result in a dysfunctional metabolic state. In plain English, they damage your liver and other organs thereafter.

Major metabolic processes like oxidative phosphorylation, gluconeogenesis, glycolysis, glycogenesis, glycogenolysis, fatty acid biosynthesis, fatty acid oxidation, ketogenesis, protein synthesis, amino acid cycles, PPP, TCA cycle and urea cycle, BAA cycle, etc are all self regulatory and are in equilibrium. Over loading one process creates energy dysfunction and/or oxidative stress.

Studies implicate dysfunctional energy metabolism in multiple diseases, such as retinopathy, schizophrenia, MDD, Bipolar disorder, IBD & cancer.

The grave and often ignored impact of carbohydrates, that chronically elevate postprandial blood glucose level on the health, include inflammation and pro-inflammation.

Inflammation, both overt and covert, clinical and subclinical inflammation, are front and center of every modern disorder, such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, fatty liver, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, Alzheimer’s and Age related Macular Degeneration.

While these look like a disparate group of genetic, chronic, age-related and social disorders, the triggers and exacerbation always seem to point towards dysfunctional fatty acid metabolism, energy imbalance and inflammation.

What Is The solution?

We need to consider three simple principles:

1) No Sugar

Our goal must be to get rid of free sugar from our homes and stop buying it. Next, is to look for sugar content and carbohydrates in every food product before we buy it. A glass of Tropicana orange juice, for example, has 22 grams of sugar. The five top selling brands of breakfast cereal have 40% sugar. Consider eating fruits instead of sugar-rich 100% fresh juice. Get rid of cereals. A child can eat three servings of raisin bran (that is 90 grams of sugar) at 8.00 am and feel hungry by 11:00 am.

Sugar is addictive. If we are drinking coffee three times daily with three spoons of sugar in each, we are are most likely addicted to sugar not coffee. Sugar substitutes are no better. While they may not add calories like sugar or fructose corn syrup, they increase your total calorie consumption even if there is no genuine physical or physiological hunger.

2) Reduce Carbohydrate Consumption to an Absolute Minimum

This is the hardest part because almost every processed food is carbohydrate dominant, as are nearly all restaurant menu items. That means we will have to spend more time preparing our own food.

Carbohydrate restriction, even in the presence of highly our own food.

Carbohydrate restriction, even in the presence of highly saturated fatty acids, decreases availability of ligand's (glucose, fructose, glycogen, and insulin) that activates lipogenics and inhibit fatty acid oxidative pathways. Carbohydrate restriction promotes fat burning instead of fat deposition. The exact reasons are unclear, but the end results are an increase in fat oxidation, decreased lipogenesis (fat synthesis), and decreased secretion of very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL). These are all highly reliable indicators.

3) Eat Fats and Proteins, They Are Good For You

Thanks to the success in publicizing Dietary Guidelines and Food Pyramids for the past three decades and unwarranted public warnings, most of us have become lipophobic. Advising low fat food has become the single worst public health disaster of the century. Fats provide satiety, in addition to the supply of essential fatty acids and amino acids. Low fats mean more carbohydrates. But until recent years, many study results have mistakenly condemned fats, especially saturated fats, for diseases. We now know that it is the presence of abundant carbohydrates that are driving metabolic dysfunction.

Several studies have shown that fats are protective in the situations of restricting carbohydrates. The fear of a short supply of blood glucose due to carbohydrate restriction is simply baseless. Through gluconeogenesis, from both fats and proteins, a stable blood glucose level within the normal range is achieved without the risk of either hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia. Carbohydrate restriction is an evolutionarily preferred dietary strategy for managing modern diseases rather than fat restrictions.

Fats, especially the essential fats like omega-3 and medium chain fatty acids, are critical to satiety and should constitute 50% of every diet. Watch this video.

But let’s not eat Carbohydrates and Fats. Together, they are deadly!

Finally, let’s eat tons and tons of vegetables. They are great for our gut microbiota and of course, provide nutrients.

Fasting

Our gene selections over several hundred thousand years were driven by cycles of Feast and Famine and Physical Activity and Rest. By evolution, these cycles are required to maintain good health. Thus we should TRY FASTING ONCE A WEEK (At least once a month). Fasting generates Ketone Bodies (a kind of energy) and they are great for our brain.