Part 4 (1/2)

How the body terrain responded to the two different types of lipids was an important key to rebalancing the system and rebuilding membrane permeability. Revici and his team found that some pain syndromes would respond to positive polar lipids, and other types of pain would need negative polar lipids, which has to do with essential fatty acids versus saturated fats. He found this to be true for hemorrhage control, vertigo, hay fever, arthritis, certain cancers, and a variety of other pathologies. The principle is how the body is organized to handle the positive or negative polar lipid medicines. In the treatment of cancer, he found that the body varies at different phases of the cancer as to whether it responds to positive or negative polar fractions.

The point again is, how the body handles what it is given is the most important factor. This is directly opposite to the allopathic approach, which gives the same medicine to everyone at every stage. The anabolic/catabolic lipid system seems to have a more dominant role in chronic diseases than for people who are in general good health. I mention Revici's work in depth because it is a powerful scientific support making the same statement about biochemical individuality from a different standpoint. The fact that at different phases of a disease process one may need a different diet, nutrient supplementation, or medicine should alert us to the importance of always trying to be sensitive to the mysterious and wonderful flow of our own physiology, even in our healthy state. The Ayurvedic system is a more global system that helps us understand how to live a balanced life as well as develop a diet that flows with the energy of the seasons, the times of the day, the life stages, and our overall lifestyle. This will become more clear in Chapters 4 and 5 on Ayurveda.

Endocrine Types.

THE ENDOCRINE SYSTEM is ANOTHER FACTOR to be considered in determining optimal diet. It is less of a dominant factor in individuals than the oxidative and ANS physiologies. Endocrine type plays its biggest role in the process of body rate and type of growth. This is particularly true in regard to body shape and weight distribution. This work was pioneered by Dr. Henry Harrower, Dr. Henry Bieler, and Dr. Elliot Abravanel. They found four basic body types: pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, and gonadal. They believed certain foods have specific stimulatory effects on certain endocrine glands. An accurate identification of the endocrine type helps us make food choices that are most supportive of a person's endocrine metabolism.

One way to recognize your type is to look at your body shape. Pituitary types tend to have a large head in relations.h.i.+p to their body. They tend to be creative and intellectual and to like dairy products. Their weight tends to acc.u.mulate all over rather than in specific areas. The adrenal type tends to be long, strong, and powerful with a thick, muscular body, broad shoulders and waist, and squarish head and fingers. Their weight tends to acc.u.mulate in their belly and across their shoulders. They have strong digestion and tend to crave meat and salty foods. They are usually warm, outgoing people with strong endurance. Thyroid types are tall and thin with long fingers. They put on weight around the midsection. They tend to be nervous and to have an erratic flow of energy. The gonadal types (who are mostly women) tend to be pear-shaped with weight on the b.u.t.tocks and thighs. Their upper bodies are smaller than their lower bodies. They like fatty and spicy foods. They tend to be nurturing, steady, and responsible people.

In viewing diet intake from the endocrine perspective, we learn what foods to avoid. If we eat foods that overstimulate our key energy endocrine gland, the gland eventually becomes exhausted. The metabolic rate slows down and we gain weight according to our endocrine type. Pituitary types should avoid dairy products. Thyroid types should avoid a high-complex-carbohydrate diet and go to a high-protein, moderate-fat, and low-carbohydrate diet. Adrenal types do best if they minimize red meat, salt, and cheese. Gonadal types do best if they minimize saturated fats and spicy foods.

As an overview, the endocrine system approach helps to point out which organ system needs to be fed for optimal functioning and weight loss.

Acid-Base Balance.

THE NEWER FINDINGS ON THE OVERRIDING EFFECTS of the autonomic and oxidative systems on the acid/base diet have made the traditional viewpoint of alkaline or acid foods far less important, since what matters is how we respond to the food in terms of becoming acidic or alkaline and not so much the food itself. This traditional view still remains more of a guideline for ANS-dominant people. See Chapter 11 for more on acid-base balance.

Blood Type Approach.

BLOOD TYPE GIVES us AN INSIGHT into our genetic inheritance. It gives us a specific guideline about what foods to minimize in our diet. There are some anthropological extrapolations and dietary generalizations that have been popularized about the different blood types. I find these anthropological extrapolations quite inaccurate. For example, at a recent live-food, vegetarian talk I gave in Honolulu to active and successful live-food vegetarians, about 50%, including myself, were type O. According to popular theoretical extrapolation, those who are type O should do best on a high-flesh, protein diet. I know my health and the health of many of these type Os significantly improved upon becoming vegetarian, according to self-reports.

The only thing specifically worth paying attention to are the high-lectin foods that have been scientifically doc.u.mented and which may be detrimental to us if eaten in excess. The foods we want to minimize are those containing lectins that are reactive with our blood type, or lectins that react with all blood types.

Lectins are protein antigens that bind to the surface of red blood cells or white blood cells. They can set off allergic symptoms or they can act as hemagglutinins. A hemagglutinin is something that binds to our red blood cells or white blood cells and causes them to clump together and disrupt the flow of blood or lymph in the tissues and/or damage organs. These lectins are found in both plants and animals. They are present in about 30% of the foods commonly eaten in the American diet.

Lectins were first discovered in castor beans. In 1945 researchers found that lectins could be blood type-specific when they found that lima beans agglutinated blood type A. Lectins are found most commonly in edible cereals, beans, seeds, nuts, fish, and sh.e.l.lfish.

The following is a list of blood type-specific lectins and panhemagglutinins reported in the literature by Laura Powers, Ph.D., with whom I have had a personal communication on lectins.

The second list is of panhemagglutinins, which means foods that affect all blood types to some extent.

Lectins, in many cases, may be resistant to destruction through cooking, our digestive acids, and proteolytic enzymes. If between 1 and 5% absorb into the bloodstream from a big meal, it is on the border of setting off an immune reaction. If our intestinal IgA antibodies are low, if we have a permeable bowel syndrome, deficient stomach hydrochloric acid or proteolytic enzymes, lectin absorption will be even higher. Cooking food may decrease the lectin amount. Sprouting may also help to minimize the lectin effect. Dr. D'Adamo has reported that if one sprouts wheat, its lectins are significantly minimized so people who normally cannot eat wheat because of their sensitivity to wheat lectins are able to eat it. I have observed the same thing. More research has to be done on the effect of sprouting nuts, seeds, and grains in terms of minimizing their lectin potency.

Researchers have found that feeding high-lectin diets to animals creates significant pathological lesions in the small intestine and thymus as well as in the liver, pancreas, and spleen. The higher the circulating lectin-specific antibodies, the more toxicity They found that diets high in lectins produced high levels of circulating lectin antibodies.

In humans, lectins have caused significant damage from raw or under-cooked kidney beans and hemolytic anemia from Mexican fava beans in individuals with a genetic deficiency in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. When these lectins are eaten in excess they can cause intestinal damage, disrupted digestion, protein malabsorption, carbohydrate malabsorption, other nutrient deficiencies, type-two allergy and other responses, and hemag-glutination.

Digestive distress is one of the most common problems that lectins instigate. They can actually cause nausea and vomiting and damage to the microvilli of the small intestine, which is where we absorb our food. From this comes gas bloating and fluid retention. One research paper found that lectins can even promote growth of harmful bacteria in the intestine. When the lectins bind to the microvilli in the small intestine they can cause an inflammation that blocks the production of enterokinase, which is needed for protein digestion. The long-term ingestion of lectins that do this can actually result in a protein deficiency. They cause similar problems with carbohydrate absorption. One researcher found that lectins can reduce the glucose uptake by 50%. Some lectins, including those in wheat germ and jack beans, can even bind to insulin receptors on the cells and interfere with glucose metabolism. Some people theorize that the high lectin content in grains can create inflammatory bowel disease.

Gliadin, which naturally occurs in wheat germ and other high-gluten grains, has been shown to cause inflammatory bowel disease. I have found that clients with high gliadin antibodies and bowel inflammation and digestive disorders experience a definite improvement when they avoid high-gliadin grains. These are primarily the high-gluten grains: wheat, barley, rye, and oats.

Lectins can cause a variety of immune reactions as well as direct hemagglutination of the red or white blood cells. The type of immune reaction depends on the type of antibodies they stimulate. Research shows that they most often stimulate the production of IgG and IgM antibodies, which are typically found in 80% of food allergies. Some of these symptoms include general fatigue, headache, achiness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and eventually immune exhaustion. Research has shown that there is a direct relations.h.i.+p between the severity of the symptoms and the number of antibodies. These IgG and IgM antibodies may also form large antibody-antigen complexes that can combine with white blood cells and immune complement protein factors in the blood. These complexes can deposit in the tissues, organs, and blood vessels, and may be involved in 50% of food allergies. Typical symptoms from these complexes are fatigue, headache, arthritis, muscle pains; liver, kidney, gallbladder, heart, and blood vessel inflammation and destruction, and other diseases; as well as a variety of mental imbalances including irritability, depression, fearfulness, confusion, hyperactivity, learning disorders, and even schizophrenic-like symptoms.

Antibody-antigen complexes may also cause an IgE antibody reaction with the release of histamine in the mucous membranes, resulting in such symptoms as hay fever, rhinitis, asthma, hives, eczema, and hyperactivity. These reactions may also be the cause of delayed reactions of up to three days with migraines, brain allergies, joint and muscle pain, bladder inflammation, gallbladder symptoms, and heart and blood vessel disease.

Lectins can agglutinate red blood cells and lymphocytes. When lectins congregate in large numbers they can cause enough red cell damage to create a hemolytic anemia and jaundice. A literature search by Laura Powers, Ph.D., has found one hundred nineteen dietary lectins reported. Sixty-five of these are blood-type-specific hemagglutinins, and the other fifty-four are panhemagglutinins that can react with any blood type. These lectins bind to the surface of the red blood cell of up to two dozen blood groups, making over 400 sub-blood types. Once the lectins bind to the red blood cells they trigger killer cells, monocytes, or neutrophils, which attach to the red blood cell to cause the agglutination.

How harmful are these lectins that exist in 30% of our dietary intake? The answer lies in the amount of active lectins that get into our system. A significant amount of lectins do not break down when they are cooked and during the digestion process. When they have not been broken down, somewhere between 1% and 5% get absorbed into the blood. Higher amounts may get into the system when high-lectin foods are eaten raw or there is a deficiency in stomach acid, proteolytic enzymes, or secretory IgA (the immune complex that lines the digestive system).

In susceptible people, lectins taken in a high amount can cause a variety of specific symptoms, immune exhaustion, and generally diminished health, well-being, and growth. The situation is complicated by the fact that food sensitivities cannot directly be predicted by blood type. Although hemagglutination is related to blood type and amount of lectin eaten, there are other reactive mechanisms that affect the amount of hemagglutination.

My approach to the lectin issue is to pay attention to what one is eating and specifically how much one is eating. I am an O blood type for whom sunflower seeds are a lectin. As a vegetarian, I eat sunflower seeds on a regular basis. Through bio-kinesiological muscle testing, I found that I could have up to three tablespoons of sunflower seeds without any adverse effects. (A simple muscle-testing procedure is to hold the food at the thymus and see if it weakens an outstretched arm extending laterally from the shoulder; it is about 89% accurate.) This means the lectins from the three tablespoons of sunflower seeds do not create a high enough concentration to cause a reaction. I do not, however, eat sunflower seeds with every meal or even every day, but I do not avoid them entirely.

The same approach should hold true for all the panhemagglutinins. Monitor the amount of intake and see if there is any reaction, or muscle-test each food for sensitivity. Any food you find on the panhemagglutinins list or blood type-specific list that you eat a lot of, I strongly suggest you monitor. For example, blood types A and B would do well to pay attention to their response to soy products. Type As might want to check their response with corn and blackberries. People with blood type B may want to check their response to sesame seeds, cocoa, and black-eyed peas. Those with blood type O should be aware of how they respond to blackberries and sunflower seeds. Those with type M might want to see how they respond to wheat.

The panhemagglutinins can affect all blood types, so again, any food that we eat in excess on this list may cause difficulties. The conscious approach is to check each food we particularly like on these lists. I, for example, test fine when I eat two bananas at one time, but test weak with three bananas. As conscious eaters, we need to find the balance for ourselves.

High-lectin foods are best avoided, or at least thoroughly cook them, especially grains or beans. Improving the fire of our digestion with herbs and digestive enzymes, particularly proteolytic and hydrochloric acid, should help. Dr. D'Adamo found that sprouted wheat did not cause a lectin problem for those sensitive to the wheat lectin. I don't find this to be true for the legumes. Because of this we do not serve sprouted legumes at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, except for small amounts of garbanzo beans, because the others tend to cause gas.

More research needs to be done on the effect of sprouting and the was.h.i.+ng away of the lectins from the various grains. Grains are a high-fiber and high-quality food, and if one needs to have grains, I suggest cooking them unless they are sprouted. Plenty of fiber can be obtained from fruits and vegetables, so grains are not needed for fiber. Some recent unpublished research by Laura Powers studying immune globulin G and E suggests that all blood types, O, Ai, A2, B, A1B, and A2B, have moderate to highly reactive responses to eggs and dairy.

Recent popular books have made broad generalizations about using blood type as a guide for just about everything. Laura Powers, Ph.D., one of the few experts in this field, personally communicated to me that such stereotypes are not doc.u.mented in the nutritional literature. I and several other mature holistic health pract.i.tioners concur that these claims are still in the realm of extrapolated anthropological theory and generalizations.

Further complicating all this controversy is the fact that the various blood types have subdivisions such as blood type Ai and A2 and blood type B1 and B2. These subcategories will react with different susceptibilities to lectins.

My own experience as a person with blood type O was that my health, strength, and vitality significantly improved when I became a vegetarian, despite what the Blood Type advocates say about Type Os supposedly being better suited to flesh-eating. I have also found a significant number of very healthy vegetarians who are type O. These data directly invalidate the anthropological theory approach to blood type.

Because of this, the only lectin data I trust is that which is reported in the scientific literature. The lectin lists from popularized books on the subject have not been doc.u.mented or made available as actual data when pract.i.tioners have asked for it. I raise this point because the more restrictions we create in our diets, the more difficult things get for people. Until more data is available in the scientific literature, the list of one hundred and nineteen lectins is what we have. This lectin list should not rule our lives. It is only a list of foods of which we should be aware so we can experiment with the quant.i.ties and types of food that positively or negatively affect us. Avoidance of high-lectin food to which we are sensitive can often alleviate many physical symptoms.