Biologically Correct Diet - 10th Installment

Here we go again.

Enzymes are a very important part of all life, in general, and to our health, in particular. Let's look at the medical dictionary definition for basic understanding.

According to Blackiston's New Gould Medical Dictionary, an enzyme is a catalytic substance formed by living cells and having a specific action in promoting a chemical change. There are at least 700 different types of enzymes in our bodies and many of them are involved with digestion. There are endogenous enzymes which are produced by our bodies and there are exogenous enzymes which must be ingested in raw foods. Without completion of their purpose, digestion would be incomplete, assimilation of nutrients would not occur, and the undigested "foods" would become toxins. Therefore, plant-derived enzymes are absolutely necessary for health-promoting digestion.

That is a factor that has been overlooked (or ignored) by the medical fraternity, the dieticians, most nutritionists, and, of course, by the various government agencies. Overlooked, that is, until just recently.

....enzymes are completely destroyed by manufacturing or culinary operations. Enzymes can withstand no cooking, boiling, frying, roasting, stewing, broiling, or pasteurizing. Cookery destroys them to the extent of...100%.
Dr. Edward Howell
Is Your Body Demanding Food Enzymes?

The length of one's life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism. But the increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential, and thus results in a longer, healthier and more vital life. (Isn't this what we all want?)
Dr. Edward Howell
Enzyme Nutrition

These studies show that plant derived enzymes are the missing link between good health and nutrition. Raw fruits and vegetables contain these enzymes. Cooked and processed foods do not contain live enzymes and, therefore, digestion is incomplete or difficult and good health denied.

What do enzymes do for us...nutritionally speaking? Enzymes break down proteins into various amino acids. They break down carbohydrates into (natural) glucose. They break down fats into fatty acids. The body is then able to use these simpler components for energy or to build new tissue. Each kind of enzyme performs one job only. And it is located in only one of the three cavities of digestion: mouth, stomach, small intestine. So, in order to have efficient and complete digestion, all of the correct enzymes must be present in the proper digestive cavity at the proper time and in sufficient amount.

Synthetic enzymes are being packaged and sold. But, why pay a high price for an inferior substitute when the real thing is available free in the BCD as Mother Nature intended?

Like all engines, enzymes need their starters. Phytochemicals are those starters. Not surprisingly, those plant-derived enzyme-triggers are found in fruits and vegetables.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Cancer Institute have stated that, if we would all eat just five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, we could cut the risk of cancer by over 50%. (Notice they forgot to say raw fruits and vegetables.) (Of course, if we cut out all objectionable foods and all medications also, we could cut the risk of cancer by 99.7%.)

The American Cancer Society told us that by the year 2000,(this statement was made in 1993) one in every two of us will acquire cancer sometime in our lives. (Not me. How about you?) Sadly, statistics show that only one in ten of us are actually eating the amount of fruits and vegetables we should be.

Phytochemicals have been shown to have the ability to remove cancer-causing substances from the body even at the cellular level.
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Enzymes Are Your Friends

Enzymes are the protein molecules that catalyze every function in our bodies - from the generation of new tissue, to healing, to digestion, to breathing. Life as we know it could not exist without enzymes.

There are three different types of enzymes, but we are concerned with only those involved in the digestive process at present. These enzymes break down the foods we eat into particles small enough to pass through the cell membranes of the digestive track and then into the blood stream. This is how each of the billions of cells in the body is nourished. If the enzymes are not present to break down the food, the cells in our bodies are not nourished...ergo, without enzymes we would slowly starve even if we ate sufficient food.

Fruits and vegetables (raw) also have these enzymes which keep them alive in much the same way ours keep us alive. When we eat raw fruits and vegetables, we ingest those enzymes and utilize them in our own digestive process. But when we cook those foods, we kill all their natural enzymes and our pancreas is forced to produce enzymes of its own. Over time, the pancreas becomes exhausted which in turn causes the immune system to grow weaker and leaves us more and more susceptible to chronic disease and the degeneration of old age...actually slow starvation.

Eating anything but fresh, raw foods actually weakens the immune system.

Yes, indeed. Enzyme production is a primary function of the pancreas and the harder the pancreas works, the weaker the immune system becomes.

It's hard to believe, but studies show that when people eat cooked food, the number of white blood cells (immune system "defender cells") actually rises. This is a clear indication that the body is on the defensive, which over a long period of time takes its toll on the immune system. People who ate raw foods exhibited no such increase in defensive activity.
Sunshine Health Group
466 W. Oak Ridge Rd.
Orlando, FL 32809-4041

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Enzyme therapy has been used to successfully treat several diseases - cancer, arthritis, rheumatism, shingles, obesity, circulatory and heart diseases, and sexual problems. These scientific tests have shown that enzymes strengthen the immune system and other operations of the body.

Sports medicine doctors have used enzymes to help injured players heal more quickly.

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"It is whole foods - especially fruits and vegetables - that pack the disease-preventing wallop. That's because they harbor a whole mixture of compounds that have never seen the inside of a vitamin bottle for the simple reason that scientists have not, until very recently, even known they existed, let alone made them into pills."
Newsweek 4/25/94

Well, that's enough for now. More later.
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Cooking Dictionary

Yogurt: Semi-solid dairy product made from partially evaporated and fermented milk. Yogurt is one of only three foods that taste exactly the same as they sound. The other two are goulash and squid.

Recipe: A series of step-by-step instructions for preparing ingredients you forgot to buy, in utensils you don't own, to make a dish the dog won't eat.

Porridge: Thick oatmeal rarely found on American tables since children were granted the right to sue their parents. The name is an amalgamation of the words "Putrid," "hORRId," and "sluDGE."

Preheat: To turn on the heat in an oven for a period of time before cooking a dish, so that the fingers may be burned when the food is put in, as well as when it is removed.

Oven: Compact home incinerator used for disposing of bulky pieces of meat and poultry.

Microwave Oven: Space-age kitchen appliance that uses the principle of radar to locate and immediately destroy any food placed within the cooking compartment.

Calorie: Basic measure of the amount of rationalization offered by the average individual prior to taking a second helping of a particular food.
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Longtime Health Sciences Institute members know which nutrients provide the most
effective means to help prevent colon cancer; the second-
leading cause of cancer deaths.

In 2002, I told you how a daily folate supplement may
significantly cut the risk of colon cancer for those who
have a family history of the disease. And later that same
year I examined a study that showed how a diet containing
ample amounts of fruits and vegetables may be a key factor
in preventing precancerous polyps from developing into
cancer.

I've also told you how calcium intake has been shown to help
reduce the risk of developing colon polyps. Now a new
calcium study is even more specific and more promising. The
question is: Are you getting enough of this mineral - in the
right forms - to provide adequate protection for yourself?

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Encouraging news
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In the most recent issue of the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute, researchers from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, published an analysis of data
collected from 930 patients enrolled in the Calcium Polyp
Prevention Study.

All of the study subjects had been diagnosed with colorectal
polyps. Divided into two groups, participants received
either a 1,200 mg daily supplement of calcium carbonate, or
a placebo. Two colonoscopies were conducted approximately
one year and four years after each subject's initial exams.

The researchers found that while calcium supplements may
provide some protection against the development of polyps,
the supplements proved most effective against advanced
polyps. Subjects who received calcium supplements had
generally fewer polyps compared to the placebo group. But as
the lead author of the study, Dr. John A. Baron told Health
Day News, calcium may help lower the risk of advanced polyps
by as much as 45 percent.

The subjects who experienced the greatest benefits were
those who also had high intakes of calcium in their diets,
as well as high fiber and low fat intakes (although these
other dietary interactions were described as "not
statistically significant").

According to Dr. Baron, this study expands on what we
already know about calcium's ability to prevent polyps with
the encouraging news that calcium seems to also offer
protection against polyps developing into cancer.

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A note on calcium
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As the Dartmouth-Hitchcock study suggests, one obvious way
to support the effectiveness of calcium supplements is to
make sure you include plenty of calcium-rich foods in your
diet, such as salmon, cabbage, kale, carrots, and yellow, green, or
waxed beans.

As I mentioned above, the type of supplement used in the
study was calcium carbonate. And as HSI Panelist Allan
Spreen, M.D., told us in the e-Alert "Absorbing it All"
(4/19/04), calcium carbonate is the most common, most
readily available and least expensive type of calcium
supplement. But the carbonate form does have two drawbacks:
It's not as well absorbed as some other inorganic forms of
calcium, and it binds the most acid.

The latter problem presents both a potential plus, as well
as a minus. Some scientists believe that calcium's ability
to bind acids may be the very reason it protects against
cancer. But binding digestive acids may also result in poor
absorption of nutrients and indigestion. So if a 1,200 mg
supplement of calcium is taken daily, along with good
sources of calcium in the diet, keep an eye out for
digestive problems that may be managed by adjusting the
dosage of the supplement.

In addition, Dr. Spreen notes that, "Calcium is not found in
nature (in edible form) without magnesium, and they
therefore should always be given together."

Foods that are high in magnesium include leafy green
vegetables, whole grains, bananas, apricots, beans,
and nuts.

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Added prevention
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In the opening of this e-Alert I mentioned folate, which
deserves a little elaboration.

A 2002 study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers,
and Prevention showed that those with a family history of
colon cancer may cut their risk by as much as 50 percent
with a supplement of 400 micrograms of folate daily. In
addition to supplements, spinach and asparagus provide good
sources of folate.

And if you do decide to supplement with folate and calcium,
consider taking one more important preventive step: Ask your
doctor about arranging for a colonoscopy, which is
recommended every three to five years for everyone over the
age of 50; especially those with a family history of colon
cancer.
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These days, it's much easier to avoid carbohydrates in your
diet than it is to avoid actually HEARING about low-carb
diets. Last week I watched a sitcom that used a low-carb
diet as a plot device! Arggh! Sometimes I want to
shout, "Enough already with the low carbs!"

That said... Today I'm going to take a look at
carbohydrates. And before you shout, "Jenny! Enough already
with the low carbs!" let me just say that the information I
have for you today isn't about low-carb diets, per se; it's
about recognizing the difference between good carbs and bad
carbs. Because there are certain carbohydrates that are
useful in our diets, and then there are the carbs we should
avoid at all costs.

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Carbohydrates 101
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The topic of carbohydrate types was prompted by an e-mail
from an HSI member named John who wrote, "You should be
educating the people about the difference between refined
carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Refined
carbohydrates are bad and complex carbohydrates are good."

John is on the right track here, but we need to tweak the
terminology a little bit. I asked our nutrition specialist,
HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., to elaborate on John's e-
mail, and he started out by noting that carbohydrate foods
are basically broken down into two groups: "simple"
and "complex" carbohydrates. And both of these groups can be
further broken down into "refined" and "unrefined."

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Nutrient needs
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Let's start with the "refined simple" carbohydrates - what
Dr. Spreen calls "the sweet stuff" - which includes "all the
sugars of one form or another." And as he points out, the
key word is "refined" because it represents the removal of
nutrients required for the metabolism of the contained
sugar. Without those nutrients, Dr. Spreen says, "Your body
must draw from body stores of nutrients to metabolize the
sugar. And draw it will. Once those stores are overtaxed
disease sets in, or at least undesirable symptoms that hit
wherever your body's weakest link happens to be. This
removal of nutrients is the key to our demise, in my
opinion.

"But, it gets worse. Not only does the refining process
remove nutrients, but it also concentrates the sugar within
the simple carb food. This causes overstress on the
pancreas, the organ responsible for removing sugar (glucose)
from the bloodstream and shoving it into muscle cells to be
burned as fuel. This overstress manifests as insulin over-
secretion, causing (for a while, anyway, until it gives up)
low blood sugar swings with a subsequent vicious cycle of
blood sugar over-shooting and under-shooting as the body
tries to auto-regulate.

"Ah, but it gets even worse. Another problem in most
refining processes of simple carbs is the fact that nearly
all fiber is removed. The fiber slows the release of the
sugar into the system, easing the signal to the pancreas to
release too much insulin too fast."

And it's the fiber in fruits - which are unrefined simple
carbohydrates - that helps make the sugar in fruit so much
healthier than the sugar in refined carbs. That's why, as
Dr. Spreen points out, the same healthy benefits are not
found in fruit juice, "which is concentrated almost
universally, and processed in other ways. It's better to eat
your fruit, with clean edible skins. That way you've lowered
the amount of sugar taken in, along with the fact that the
natural fiber is still on board and the sugars are not as
concentrated as they would be otherwise."

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The good and the bad
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As John stated in his e-mail, "complex carbohydrates are
good." And generally speaking, there is some truth in that.
But Dr. Spreen points out that, 'going complex' may not be
all it's cracked up to be.

"The basic complex carbs are the edible starches. That's
flour, bread, cereals, grains and the like, along with most
vegetables. Most of this group makes up the huge 'base' of
the so-called Food Pyramid; that moronic image from
government bureaucrats, which is in large part responsible
for the unimaginable amount of obesity rampant in this
country.

"Starches are simple carb molecules (sugars) that are linked
together by special bonds before they can be used by the
body as sugar. That can be a good thing, since the enzyme
process needed for that breakdown takes time to work, and
that delay slows the release of the sugars into our system
(the same problem caused by refined simple carbs).

"Unfortunately, the same principles apply in the case of
refined complex carbs as to the simple ones: the sugars can
be concentrated; they can have the necessary nutrients as
well as the fiber removed.

"As soon as a starch hits enzymes in your mouth, the
starches begin the digestion process, and breaks down to
(you guessed it) sugar. If those starches start without the
nutrients and especially the fiber they originally
contained, they are not only inferior foods, but they're
also inferior foods with automatically concentrated
starches, because the fiber's gone. As soon as the starch
breaks down to sugar, you're back to a refined simple carb."

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Hot potato
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Nearly all our starches today are refined. And according to
Dr. Spreen, it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to
find 100% unrefined pastas, breads or cereals. Yet we've
historically been told that pasta and bagels are
excellent "diet foods"!

And then there's the baked potato. Writing about this third
food item thrown into the daily "diet" lunch, Dr. Spreen
says, "The baked potato is as close to a pure, refined
starch as you can get without actually refining it. I'd tell
patients, if they felt obliged to eat a baked potato, to
shell out most of it, add some butter, and eat the
remainder, including the skin. That's not only where the
fiber is, but also where much of the nutrition is, too.

"So be careful when you dig into a load of pasta or bagels.
In terms of trying to lose weight, you're literally playing
with a 'hot potato.'"

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... and another thing

In the 17th century, noted herbalist Nicholas Culpeper wrote
that the herb sage could "heal" the memory, while, "warming
and quickening the senses."

Warm AND quicken my senses? Sign me up!

Culpeper wasn't the only herbalist (and certainly not the
first) to recognize that sage can help improve memory. Now -
centuries later - scientists believe they know why.

An enzyme called acetylcholinesterase (AChE) breaks down a
chemical called acetylcholine that is typically deficient in
Alzheimer's patients. Researchers from the Medical Plant
Research Centre (MPRC) at the Universities of Newcastle and
Northumbria in the UK have shown that sage inhibits AChE.

A study conducted last year by researchers at MPRC
demonstrates the possible results of inhibiting AChE.
Researchers gave 44 subjects either sage oil capsules or
placebo capsules containing sunflower oil, and then
conducted word recall tests. The group that received sage
oil turned in significantly better test results than
subjects that took placebo. However, researchers say that
further tests are needed to fully determine just how far-
reaching sage's effect may be on memory.

Sage can be found in health food stores and from many
Internet sites. And although sage oil has no known side
effects, it would be wise to discuss this supplement with
your doctor or health care provider before using it on a
regular basis.

To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson, Health Sciences Institute