Forbidden Endocrinology

Scientific Laboratory for Food Intolerance is an organization located in Canada that is at the forefront of food allergy testing. Using a multi test called ImuPro 300, they test for hypersensitivity or intolerance to certain foods(Type III Food Allergy).

Eighty to ninety percent of north Americans have some sort of food allergy or intolerance. Eating these foods can result in many symptoms, one of which being weight gain. Many of the foods that people react to are not the junk food you might be thinking of but actually healthy foods that we may be eating because we are on a diet !

One intolerance that seems to be quite prevalent, Coeliac Disease or Gluten Intolerance, happens to be directly correlated with over 200 chronic symptoms such as ADHD, Arthritis and Migraines. The gluten found in whole grains, such as wheat, is what triggers these symptoms in people with this disease, all the while they go about eating what they were told was healthy food. In fact, most people with Gluten Intolerance have no idea they are even suffering from this ailment.

As you might have guessed, one of the symptoms associated with Coeliec Disease is weight gain, or Obesity. The Science Laboratories for Food Intolerance has composed an article on 20 Diseases and Conditions Directly Attributed to Obesity. Here are a few of them:

# Cancer has many different forms and types and many of them could be prevented with more attention to eating healthy and avoiding obesity..
# Congestive Heart Failure is a condition in which the heart can’t pump enough blood to the body’s other organs.
# Enlarged Heart is another heart condition where the muscle of the heart become larger due to being overworked which naturally happens if you are overweight.
# Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is when cysts develop in your ovaries. These can burst causing even further problems.
# Gastro esophageal Reflux Disease means that stomach acid and juices flow from the stomach back up into the esophagus. It is common in overweight people.
# Fatty Liver Disease is a reversible condition where large pockets of fat accumulate in liver cells. Fatty liver can be considered a single disease that occurs worldwide in those with excessive alcohol intake and those who are obese.
# Hernia is caused when the hole in the diaphragm weakens and enlarges.
# Erectile Dysfunction is the inability to develop or maintain an erection which can be caused by a medical problem due to obesity or a psychological effect.
# Urinary Incontinence is the inability to control ones urine and is frequently associated with obesity, weak bladder and pelvic floor muscles
# Chronic Renal Failure meaning the kidneys fail to work is a much greater risk to those that are overweight or obese.
# Stroke is a lack of blood supply as the body has to work harder when you are obese.

Stay with me, this may get confusing but I do have a point to all of this madness. So, whole grains cause weight gain for those inflicted with this increasingly common disease but what about those who are tolerant to gluten? Should those individuals that metabolize gluten normally be concerned about consuming whole grains as well? Well, First of all, it is a misnomer to say that humans can ingest whole grains. We can't. Well, we can, but unless you want them to pass through you like a kernel of corn, they have to be processed. Secondly, you might not have Gluten Intolerance but if you eat too many grains, or any carbohydrates for that matter, you may become Glucose Intolerant or develop Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) . Insulin sensitivity and Glucose sensitivity go hand in hand. If you have IGT, you are probably Insulin Resistant and Pre-diabetic.

Patients identified as having an IGT should exercise regularly and limit sugar intake.

Why limit sugar intake? So your teeth don't rot out? Sure, but the main reason is to keep blood glucose levels down so to increase glucose sensitivity. In case you didn't know,cereal grains are broken down into sugar very quickly by the digestive system. It's then immediately absorbed into the bloodstream as glucose. When blood glucose(blood sugar) gets too high, the body has to release insulin from the pancreas to lower it back to normal. Constantly spiking your blood sugar will ultimately cause your body to become insulin resistant due to overexposure.

This is, essentially, why a Type 2 Diabetic doesn't produce enough insulin.


Insulin Resistance = Type 2 Diabetes


If you've read the 20 Diseases and Conditions Directly Attributed to Obesity list, you may have noticed that I left out the number one disease on the list:

# Diabetes which is a disorder where the pancreas is not producing enough or sometimes not any insulin. Diabetes can lead to a whole host of other medical issues and obesity is one of the main causes due to the body having excess glucose due to overeating.

When your body receives a blood glucose spike from the diet, insulin is released if it isn't burned as fuel immediately. Insulin will lower blood sugar by one of three methods; storing sugar as glycogen in the liver, then muscle tissue, and finally it will convert the remaining sugar to saturated fat to be stored for later use(body fat). What does that mean? Basically, without getting too technical, It means if you become insulin resistant, you'll be storing fat every time you eat. I don't think I have to explain this;

Too Much Fat = Obesity.

Continued.......

Forbidden Endocrinology

To wrap this up:

Is obesity really one of the causes of diabetes or is it a symptom diabetes? Better yet, is obesity a symptom of the cause of diabetes? Make sense? It will. When you consider that many of the diseases and conditions in the list above, as well as many others, are usually preceded by diabetes, you might you might begin to connect the dots. The dots that lead directly to Insulin.

You might even start to find that if you control insulin and blood sugar levels by eating a low grain and carbohydrate diet, you'll end up preventing diabetes, heart disease, cancer and nearly all chronic illnesses.

-Dev

[edit on 9-9-2008 by DevolutionEvolvd]

Sounds interesting. I want to read up on it some more.

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


Interesting ideas, Dev. I believe I might even want to look in on this more.

reply to post by TheDemonHunter


Yes, some independent corroboration would be great. I look forward to seeing what both of you find.

-Dev

So...

In other words, Dr. Atkins was right. Eat more beef!

(Not sarcasm, I believe in the high protein diet.)

It's more of a focus on not eating cereal grains and processed carbs, as well as staying away from High Glycemic fruits and vegetables.

Think about this. Atkins worked fast for two reasons. One, eating a low carb diet will cause you to lose water weight, fast. Two, if you replace processed carb calories with protein calories, you'll have the same amount of calorie intake, but due to the Thermic Effect of Food you will burn more calories. Protein is more difficult to break down than fat and carbohydrates.

-Dev

Study sees longterm benefit of blood-sugar control



So it would seem that regulating insulin levels by controlling blood sugar is smart. It's seems pretty obvious that a low fat, high carb diet is not helping diabetics in preventing these chronic illnesses.



I can think of a few studies off the top of my head indicating that low carbohydrate diets positively affect serum glucose and cholesterol.

It does make basic common sense if you think about it.

What do other omnivores eat? Nuts, seeds, fruits, bugs, meat when they can find it, maybe some leaves .. but do they eat grass? Generally speaking, only herbivores - cows, horses, goats, etc. eat grass. And grains are .. grasses.

So, whether you believe in creation or evolution, our bodies were not designed or evolved to eat grains, especially not refined and processed grains. Nor were they designed to cope with refined and highly concentrated sugars.

We overwork the pancreas for years by forcing it to deal constantly with a rollercoaster ride of blood sugar levels caused by eating concetrated sugars and refined carbohydrates, and then we wonder why it gives out on us.

Alternative nutritionists such as Weston A. Price, Sally Fallon, Mary Enig, and Kaayla Daniel have been trying to tell us for years to eat only natural, whole, unprocessed foods (which generally excludes grains unless they are sprouted or fermented).

So, Devo.. was your OP point really about the evils of whole grains, or more about their contribution to obesity? I'd love to get into some of the other pharmaceutical causes of obesity, especially in women, but I don't want to derail your thread.

Nice research thanks for sharing

I agree for the most part of it except for a few points.

1. It's true that consuming too much carbohydrates do make you fat and prone to have insulin resistance but eating no carbohydrate at all or eating too little doesn't seem like such a good idea. I think it's all about moderation-eating the right kinds of carbohydrates in the right amount. It's an essential source of energy. If we don't eat enough carbohydrates we'd have to increase our consumption of protein and fat as a substitute for the energy we need. Too much protein can be harsh on your kidneys, too much fat--well, we all know.

2. Asking whether diabetes causes obesity or obesity causes diabetes is like asking what came first between the egg and the chicken. The two problems are intertwined. They both need to be dealt with, if you lose weight your blood sugar levels will be more easily controlled.

3. Type 2 diabetes isn't exclusively attributed to insulin resistance alone. Type 2 diabetes patients have some degree of insulin resistance AND insulin deficiency. Insulin is an anabolic hormone.

Patients with insulin resistance > insulin deficiency have somewhat enough insulin but the insulin can't make it's action in lowering blood sugar but instead stimulates the build up of fat. These patients tend to be over weighted.

Patients with insulin deficiency > insulin resistance don't have enough insulin so they can't control their blood sugar levels and can't store fat or glycogen, thus most appear to be skinny.

Thanks for the comments Mandrake!

My first post was really to introduce a correlation. I didn't go into details mainly cause I didn't have enough room, but also because it gets confusing all at once.

eating no carbohydrate at all or eating too little doesn't seem like such a good idea. I think it's all about moderation-eating the right kinds of carbohydrates in the right amount.

Exactly why does it seem like a bad idea? Also, moderation is such a general term, especially when it's followed by, "Eating the right kinds in the right amount." What are the right kinds? What are the right amounts? If you're adhering to recommendations by the USDA and ADA, I would suggest that you are neither eating the right amounts nor the right kinds.

It's an essential source of energy

I beg to differ. Have you ever heard of an Essential Carbohydrate? I haven't. I've heard of essential fatty acids though. That's fat.

Imagine this. I put 100 people on a secluded island. 50 people eat only carbohydrates and 50 people eat only fat and protein. In a year, the carbohydrate group will be dead. Our bodies were designed to burn fat during day to day activities and only burn sugar during extreme physical activity. You can actually get all the carbohydrates you need from protein and fat. You would probably die in a day if you had to rely on sugar as your only fuel source.

Tell me, if the body is designed to burn sugar as it's main fuel source, how come it doesn't and store sugar for later use? It actually converts glucose to fat for storage. Hmmmm

Too much protein can be harsh on your kidneys

This is not true. The only people that should be worried about increased protein consumption are those who have kidney disease already. Dr. John Berardi tells it like it is....

....... there is absolutely no data in healthy adults suggesting that a high protein intake causes the onset of renal (kidney) dysfunction. There aren’t even any correlational studies showing this effect in healthy people.

He's one of the top researchers in sport's nutrition. I love that guy!

too much fat--well, we all know.

Oh god. Looks like we think we all know! Looks like you need to get your fats straight (see how I did that ). Here's the skinny on fats....

1. Low fat diets are ridiculous!
   
2. Dietary fat does not translate into body fat, contrary to what most people think
   
3. Eating a low saturated fat diet while eating a moderate to high carb diet is an oxymoron. Carbs are stored as saturated fat.
   
4. Most saturated fats are good for you.
   
5. Omega 3's are anti-inflammatory and help prevent cancer
   
6. Omega 6's are pro-inflammatory and promote cancer.
   
7. Margarine is horrible for you, cook with butter or coconut oil.
   
8. Fat usually only causes damage when it is oxidized or rancid. This happens when they break down from high heat.
   
9. Trans fats, hydrogenated fats are bad.
   You knew that though!
   

Wanna read about fat? Check out The F Word or The Truth About Saturated Fats. These are two of the best, most comprehensive articles I've ever read concerning fat. Dig in!

if you lose weight your blood sugar levels will be more easily controlled.

Why not control your blood sugar to lose weight?

The insulin deficiency you're talking about is relative. Type 2 diabetics that require insulin still have high insulin levels but two things cause them to become insulin dependent. The pancreas gets taxed so much that it loses it's ability to produce high levels of insulin and because they are so insulin resistant, they need those high levels. So the only way to get the amount of insulin needed is to inject it. These patients would have a mild form of type 1. 80% of type two diabetics are just flat out insulin resistant. The other 20 would be the former that I described.

Insulin is an anabolic hormone.

Anabolic indeed. Just ask a bodybuilder what effects insulin has on his body. Cancer anyone? High levels of insulin may promote it. Why? For the reason you just said, it's anabolic. It causes cells proliferation. Even cancer cells. And, since insulin is usually transporting sugar, and since cancer loves sugar....high insulin levels just might be a problem.

Again, thanks for the reply. Check out the links I provided and let me know what you think.

-Dev

Originally posted by mandrake
...It's true that consuming too much carbohydrates do make you fat and prone to have insulin resistance but eating no carbohydrate at all or eating too little doesn't seem like such a good idea. ...

I can only eat about 20-30 GRAMS of carbs a day. Any more than that, and no weight loss. (Hint: a single slice of bread has between 20-25 grams of carbs)

Impaired Glucose Tolerance? Chancealot?

Anyway, I remember you posting in one of my other threads, Think Doctors Know Nothing About Nutrition, you posted this......

I'll agree with you there! The very first time I went on the Atkins diet, here was my breakfast: 4-6 eggs, and 1/4 to 1/2 pound of bacon. I wasn't losing as much weight as I thought I should. Now, the "traditional nutritionist" would say to cut out some of the food. What did Atkins' book say? Add more fat! (i.e., "calories"). So I did.

I then started eating 1/4 stick of REAL butter in addition to the eggs and bacon. That's right, I dipped my bacon in butter. Cardiologists nightmare, right? The only "problem" was: I WAS LOSING A POUND A DAY! I lost 30 pounds in a month, something "real" nutritionists will tell you is impossible without severely restricting your diet. I didn't go hungry once, and didn't exercise!.................. you'll swear I'm doing crack AND speed!

That was a good post and I hope you don't mind me quoting it here. I like the fact that if you eat just a few grams of carbs you can't lose weight, but if you intake more fat you drop it like it's hot. I love it. Thanks for sharing that Chancealot.

-Dev

Ah, the smell of affirmation: www.ultrawellness.com...

You see, in two recent studies, (David Ludwig) found that the main factor that determines changes in body weight and waist circumference (also known as belly fat) is how your body responds to any type of sugar, carbohydrate, or glucose load.

Once again, it's not dietary fat that causes weight and fat gain. It's boils down to your carbohydrate consumption.

Over the last 15 years, I have tested almost every one of my patients using a test that most doctors never use. In fact, it is even harder to find in the research, except in this pioneering work by Dr. Ludwig.

This test is cheap, easy to do, and it is probably the most important test for determining your overall health, the causes for obesity, and your risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and premature aging.

One simple test? A test that can determine your risk for a multitude of diseases that are associated with aging? Why, what could it be? It's not a blood sugar test or a cholesterol test. Nope.

It tests your insulin level.

In one study, for example, Dr. Ludwig and his colleagues followed 276 people for six years. They found that those who were the highest insulin secretors had the biggest change in weight and belly fat compared to the low insulin secretors. And people who were high insulin secretors and ate low-fat diets did even worse.

Very Interesting. While I do believe that restricting dietary fat intake is not a good idea, I don't think that it was the direct reason for such a poor showing in this study. Eating a low-fat diet basically forces one to consume a high-carb diet. So the reason for high insulin levels isn't because of a lack of fat, it is more likely attributed to an overabundance of carbs.

Dr. Ludwig also found that the patients who ate a low glycemic load diet -- which lowers blood sugar and keeps insulin levels low -- had much higher levels of HDL “good” cholesterol and much lower levels of triglycerides.

It appears that the best way to address your cholesterol is not necessarily to eat a low-fat diet, but to eat a low glycemic load diet, which keeps your blood sugar even.

Oh my. Now don't get glycemic index and glycemic load confused. Glycemic index is the measure of the effects of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels while glycemic load is based on portion size. The latter is much more accurate in terms of blood glucose effects.

Gotta love corroboration!!!

-Dev

So what foods are we designed to eat then?
Meat, like in the hunter/gather age?

This article is ironic or me. I just realized the other day I am allergic to gluten but I never realized that until now.

The thought that it might be why people are obese is a very "odd" thought, but it does seem like it could make some sense....

I have an odd disease that when my body temperature rises above a certain point (when I'm working out for example) my skin becomes INCREDIBLY itchy all over, and apparently people with my disease have died from asphyxiation (because this disease causes your skin to swell if your body temperature rises too high).

I am a workout nut, thank god I've never had trouble breathing while working out.

But anyways, the point of me telling you this, is that whenever I consume wheat before I workout, I get the "super itch". But most of the time, if I refrain from wheat for 2 hours or more before working out I'm fine. XD

Which is why i am allergic to wheat :\

Originally posted by Heike
What do other omnivores eat? Nuts, seeds, fruits, bugs, meat when they can find it, maybe some leaves .. but do they eat grass? Generally speaking, only herbivores - cows, horses, goats, etc. eat grass. And grains are .. grasses.

Heike gives a nice little summation of a typical omnivore's diet. Think Paleolithic. Anything that can be hunted, fished, gathered or plucked. That's a very basic foundation. Of course, with specific goals or even for certain diseases, one would adjust accordingly.

The point is, stay away from foods that raise blood sugar and, in turn, spike insulin levels. If you can do that, you'll be in great shape!

Remember though, this is a very basic. Eating foods that spike insulin levels can be very beneficial to certain athletes, if you apply proper nutrient timing. Conversely, a type 2 diabetic would want to avoid insulin spikes like the plague.

-Dev

I remember running into someone at the gym that had the exact same problem.

It happens to be a symptom that only 2% of Coeliac Disease sufferers encounter.

# Dermatitis herpetiformis; this itchy cutaneous condition has been linked to a transglutaminase enzyme in the skin, features small bowel changes identical to those in coeliac disease[10] and occurs more often (in 2%) in patients with coeliac disease.[3]

So you have been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease?

This entire subject area is incredibly frustrating to me because it's overwhelming. There's so much we don't know or are misinformed about, and it's not easy to dig out the truth among so many conflicting theories and studies.

What I do know suggests that we are gravely misinformed about what a healthy diet is, and that part of the reason for that is that poor diet, poor health, eating disorders, and obesity are a multi billion dollar industry. Just go to the grocery store and look around you at the diet labels, the low fat labels, the fiber labels. If everything were taken off the shelf that lists some claim related to helping you be healthy, lower cholesterol, lose weight, etc. the store shelves would be half empty. If everyone were happy with their weight and reasonably healthy, whole brand names and companies would go out of business. Who would eat all those tasteless little diet dinners and low-fat snacks if they didn't think they needed to eat them in order to lose weight, lower cholesterol, have a healthier heart, and so on?

The diet and weight loss industry puts people - particularly women - on an endless merry go round of dieting, losing weight, returning to a "normal" diet, gaining weight, dieting, losing weight, ad infinitum. Every women's magazine and the TV shows lead us to expect "lose 10 pounds in one week!" or "lose 30 pounds in 30 days" or "it's not to late to fit into that swimsuit before Summer." A good, informed doctor or weight loss specialist will tell you that it's not healthy or safe to lose more than 2 pounds a week, but every pill, drink mix, and diet plan out there promises instant gratification and implies that it's your own fault if you don't succeed as promised.

The average doctor will tell you to lose weight and then hand you a stapled copy of a "one size fits all" 1200 calorie diet, or the AHA diet, or something similar, and leave you to your own devices. Some studies indicate that between 9 million and 13 million people - mostly women - in the US have undiagnosed or subclinical hypothyroidism. Impaired adrenal function, food allergies, insulin resistance, hormone imbalances, estrogen Hormone Replacement Therapy, leptin problems, and others make up a confusing mishmash of medibabble, and no one can tell you which of these problems you actually have. Besides which, if you have more than one of them you're really out of luck - most of the "plans" are individual to each specific problem and don't play well with others.

Why isn't there anyone who knows about all this stuff and can guide an individual through it? Why isn't there anyone who can run some tests and do some evaluations, and then design for you a long term plan of proper nutrition and treatments that will enable you to reach and maintain a healthy weight? I don't know, but I suspect that it's because, if such specialists existed they'd put the diet and weight loss industry out of business, or at least cut into their profits.

And the worst of it is, in my opinion, that all the while "they" have us convinced that it's all our own fault. We're gluttons, we're weak-willed, we're lazy, we don't care enough to take care of ourselves, we're slobs, we eat snacks at the TV all evenings and weekends and we're couch potatoes .. the list goes on and on, piling shame and guilt and failure and self-loathing on top of all the other problems .. and what do women tend to do when suffering negative emotions and stress? Right .. EAT!!!

/rant

Awesome rant girl! Starred.

Gravely misinformed is an understatement. So many people are stuck on old, outdated information. Even nutritional myths are being spouted out by professionals as truth.