Sleeping Disorder...Can't sleep well?

Today, I will write about sleep. Yes, we have an epidemic of sleeping disorders all over the world, including Malaysia. Most people, are not aware that sleep, is a very important piece of pillar for optimum health and wellness. It applies to fat loss, deceleration of aging,  cognitive performance, repair and rejuvenation of physical body and cells, and of course, obesity and risks of chronic degenerative diseases. I've blogged earlier before about sleep, and I hope to write more about this particular topic in the near future. 

Sleep is such an important part of your overall health that no amount of healthful food and exercise can counteract the ill effects of poor sleeping habits. Researchers have linked poor sleep to a number of health ailments, from short-term memory loss and behavioral problems, to weight gain and diabetes, for example.

Folks, can any of you tell me what is your regular sleeping time? I bet most of you hit the bed past 12am midnight. In my nutrition and personal training program, there are more then 80% of my clients who sleep past the midnight hour. Why is that? Some say, I can't sleep if it's too early. Some did mentioned, I have hard time tuning back my circadian rhythm. What went wrong? Our DNA, particularly our biological clock, since millions of years ago, recognized sunlight and darkness as the regulation of how our hormones including melatonin and cortisol should be produced.  

A disrupted sleep cycle also adversely affects your body's production of melatonin, which is both a hormone and a potent antioxidant against cancer, thus raising your risk of breast cancer. Poor sleeping habits can also raise your levels of corticosterone, the stress hormone associated with road rage. Additionally, when your body is under stress, it releases hormones that increase your heart rate and blood pressure. Your muscles get tense, your digestive processes stop, and certain brain centers are triggered, which alter your brain chemistry. Left unchecked, this stress response can eventually lead to headaches, anxiety, and depression.

The most commonly reported sleep disorder is insomnia, having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, or the inability to get quality sleep throughout the night.In order to get a good night's sleep, you want sleepiness level to be high, and the noise level to be low. More often than not, the reason why you can't fall asleep is NOT because you're not sleepy enough, but rather because you're subjected to excessive noise, which, again, can be either mind/body/environmental type noise, or a combination of either. Therefore, the FIRST thing you need to ask yourself when you can't sleep is "Where/What is the noise?"

Typically, people will find between three to six different factors that contribute to the noise burden keeping them awake. Therefore, don't give up if you've addressed the most obvious source of noise and still can't sleep. Keep looking! You need to really evaluate your environment and your inner and outer state to determine and address ALL the contributing factors.

Now, let me give you some tips on how to improve your sleep quality. I listed out quite a long list of things to do in my last SLEEP post. If you're in the habit of spending a lot of time in front of the TV or on the computer at night, you may want to reconsider, as these technologies can have a significantly detrimental impact on your sleep:

- TV and computer screens emit blue light, nearly identical to the light you’re exposed to outdoors during the day. This tricks your brain into thinking it’s still daytime, thereby shutting down melatonin secretion. What happen then? Cortisol keeps producing and in long term, it shrink your adrenal glands. Bad news! 

- Under normal circumstances, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 or 10 pm, which makes you sleepy. When this natural secretion cycle is disrupted, due to excessive light exposure after sunset, insomnia can ensue.They stimulate your brain, thereby preventing you from falling asleep quickly. TV also disrupts your pineal gland function. These items also prevent you from getting high quality sleep if you fall asleep with them on. In fact, many teens are now getting “junk sleep” for this very reason. 

Worries can take great toll not only on your ability to sleep, but it also creates a vicious cycle of stress. I might have mentioned before in my earlier post,  but I would like to elaborate yet again, probably some new pointers. Two very important contributing factors that can make sleep elusive are:

Light - If your bedroom is not already pitch dark at night, I highly recommend installing blackout shades or thick drapes.Even the barely noticeable light from a streetlight, a full moon, or your neighbor‘s house can interfere with the circadian rhythm changes you need to fall asleep. You want your bedroom as pitch black as possible. Alternatively, wear an eye mask to block out light, but this is a poor second best option. Also hide your clock, so that its glow won’t disturb you. Ideally, you’ll want to avoid using electronic clocks in your bedroom, as they emit not just light, but also electromagnetic radiation, which can also disrupt your sleep. In fact, electric clocks have a very high magnetic field, as much as 5 to 10 mG up to three feet away. If you are using an electric bedside clock, you could be sleeping in an EMF equivalent to that of a powerline. Also avoid electric blankets for this same reason.

Temperature - Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 21-22 degrees. Many people keep their homes and particularly their upstairs bedrooms too warm. Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is quite cool, as low as 60 to 68 degrees. Keeping your room cooler than 16-18 degrees or hotter than 23 degrees can lead to restless sleep. This is because when you sleep, your body's internal temperature drops to its lowest level, generally about four hours after you fall asleep. Scientists believe a cooler bedroom may therefore be most conducive to sleep, since it mimics your body's natural temperature drop. For an additional boost, try taking a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This increases your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you are ready for sleep.

Last but not least, you can also consider taking a melatonin supplement, which will help boost sleepiness. It likely will not be enough to counteract or override excessive “noise” however, so do make every effort at addressing the various forms of noise, as discussed above. Ideally, it is best to increase your melatonin levels naturally, by exposing yourself to bright sunlight in the daytime and complete darkness at night.

Doing this regularly will promote proper functioning of your natural circadian rhythm, which is essential for a proper sleep cycle. However, if that isn't possible, you can consider a melatonin supplement. It's is a completely natural substance, made by your body, and has many health benefits in addition to sleep. But unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to find melatonin supplement in Malaysia. And what do most people who suffer from sleeping disorder go for? Yes, sleeping pill. Folks, this substance will be the last thing you need. 

In scientific studies, melatonin has been shown to increase sleepiness, help you fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep, decrease restlessness, and reverse daytime fatigue. Till, then, I gotta run. 

Personal Training: Before and After?

One of my clients, before and after pics(14 weeks). Lost about 22 pounds of body fat, gained 1kg of muscle and the 'love handle' is almost gone. Keep up the good work and train hard! It's all about good nutrition and the right way to train and exercise.


                                                                           BEFORE

 

AFTER

Vegetarianism (Part 12)

Good Day everyone. Today, this will be the last post for this topic and it will be a long post. I hope reading this post will not bore you to death. Let's talk abit about USDA as well as insulin. Our country(Malaysia) food pyramid guide follows very similiar to what USDA had 'planned' for all of us. According to USDA, we should be eating a diet that is 60 percent carbohydrates. Your body will turn that carbohydrates into almost two cups of glucose, and each and every molecule has to be reckoned with.

Does any of you know that with that amount of sugar in the bloodstream, would lead to coma and death if humans didn't have a way to process sugar, and fast. So, the body comes equipped with a mechanism to clear sugar from the blood, but it's a mechanism that agriculturalists wear out. Elevated sugar levels stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone responsible for nutrient storage. Its primary purpose is to get excess sugar, amino acids and fats out of the blood and into the cells.

Sugar, is the most dangerous of those three, as too much sugar can cause serious consequences very quickly. So, insulin most important job is to keep the blood sugar level out of the red zone. It does this by binding with insulin receptors, which are proteins on a cell's surface that remove sugar from the blood. Insulin is the switch that turns on the insulin receptors, which they do the work of moving glucose into the cell.

When the blood sugar levels are constantly spiking from a diet of high carbohydrates, the amount of insulin required to deal with that will, over time, damage the insulin receptors, blunting their ability to work. Yet, the high levels of sugar still need to be lowered, and lowered quickly. So, the pancreas pumps out even more insulin, which forces temporarily forces the insulin receptors into action but ultimately creates still more damage.

Now, there is so much insulin in the blood that by the time it's all bound to the insulin receptors, blood sugar levels will to be too low. This cycle, of high blood sugar ---> too much insulin ---> low blood sugar, is called hypoglycemia. I've told many of my friends and colleagues about this state, I hope they remember it. It ends when the sufferer, biologically desperate to raise her blood sugar levels, puts another dose of sugar into her mouth with a sweaty shaking hands. Well, that will help, for an hour or two, until her blood sugar crashes again and the whole process starts over. Sounds familiar?

Where it really ends is in Type 2 Diabetes. The resistant insulin receptors demand too much insulin, more then the pancreas could ever make. The chronic excess sugar destroys the nerves, the heart, the arteries and the retinas too. Despite every advance in medical science, a diabetic's life can be shortened by one third! Such, are the wages of civilization's dietary sins.

Because insulin also controls a number of other basic life functions, high levels of insulin will cause damage throughout the body. Insulin triggers cholesterol synthesis, activating the enzymes that spur cholesterol production. Bear in mind, I have mentioned in my earlier cholesterol post, about only 80-85% of total cholesterol is made by the body, the rest of it, is dietary. This is why, a low fat or low cholesterol diets have proven useless. Everyone of your cells both makes and needs cholesterol, most of it is produced by your liver.

Too much of insulin triggers the growth of smooth muscle cells that line the arteries, thickening the walls and reducing elasticity. Blood volume of the arteries shrink, which means the heart has to pump harder, which is another way of saying, 'high blood pressure'. Insulin also triggers the kidney to retain fluid, which again increases blood pressure. Arteries with less elasticity are more prone to plaguing and arterial spasm. Insulin, also increases oxidation of LDL particles. I'm sure some of you by now, know that there is not only one LDL, but in fact, there are two LDL particles.  What damages them? Too much blood sugar and insulin.

Sugars are able to attach proteins all over the body and start a reaction that creates permanent damage to the cells. This process is called glycation and fructation, for glucose and fructose respectively. Check this out, year in and year out, from the time we were born, this damage by the process accumulated in our bodies, over a lifetime it wreaks the most havoc in long-lived proteins, including elastin, the protein that gives youthful elasticity to the skin. DNA, the genetic blueprint present in all cells, and collagen, the structural protein mass, occurring in tissues all over the body, including the hair, skin and nails, the walls of the arteries and veins, and the framework of bones and organs. Damage to these critical protein structure results not only in such cosmetic maladies as wrinkles and age spots, but in serious health problems ranging from cataracts to failure of major organs, such as kidney and the heart.

All these, that's just from ingesting SUGAR. The excess insulin required by that ingestion makes it even worse, as insulin raises the rate of oxidation of the LDL particles. So, on a carbohydrate-based diet, there's a lot sugar can do damage, and that sugar requires insulin that adds even more damage. Once impaired, the LDL heads for the arterial walls. There, it sets off an immune reaction. The body's defenders, the macrophages, will attack and disremember the LDL, creating inflammation and bits of deranged cholesterol. Those bits, are now bioavailable and will be used by the body in the formation of plaque.

Insulin triggers the production of fibrinogen, which is the substance used in the first stage of clot formation. Insulin, also stimulates the kidneys to dump both magnesium and potassium, which can lead to heart arrhythmias and life threatening fibrillation. Is there any stage of coronary heart disease missing from this indictment?

The counter balancing hormone to insulin is glucagon. Well, most people have yet to know this hormone, as both are secreted by your pancreas. When your blood sugar levels are in free fall and headed for the crash, glucagon's job is to get those levels back up. It does this by stimulating the body to burn its reserves of energy, and with some help by both adrenalin and cortisol as well.

Adrenalin prepares you for the fight or flight situation. It forces energy out storage and cranks up the metabolism in your muscles, getting you ready for action. One of the ways it free up more energy for your muscles is by shutting down your digestive systems. The presence of adrenalin suppresses the stomach's production of hydrochloric acid.

Well, thats fine for the occasional sabertooth tiger attack, but what about eating a high carbohydrate diet 3 meals a day? This is equivalent to three times being attacked by the tiger daily, everyday. You can damage your stomach ability to produce hydrochloric acid, and anyone with blood sugar problems is at risk. The resulting condition is called gastroparesis. Anyone heard of it before?

Gastroparesis, is commonly occurs in those who are either diabetic or hypothyroidism. You have to realise, that blood sugar regulation is closely tied to the functioning of the stomach and the health of the nerves. Very low carbohydrates diet have been successfully used in virtually all stomach disorders because it has been found that insulin is intimately tied up with acid production, the pressure of the esophageal-gastric sphincter and the hormonal control of other stomach functions. Lowering insulin levels through a low carbohydrate diet, is the first step to resolving this disorder. Who says you need drugs from conventional doctor?

So here are some questions for you, vegetarians. Do you feel sick when you eat? Specifically, does your stomach feel bloated, or like it takes a long time to empty? It's not your blood type, and it's not because you are naturally meant to eat light. Simple, if you can't eat food your body needs, it's because you have damaged your digestion, from too many blood sugar highs and lows, as well as too much adrenalin. Can this be fixed? Of course my friend. It can be fixed, but you are going to have to eat real protein and fat and not sugars. You need to leave adrenalin for emergencies only.

Cholesterol is, of course, to almost everyone, known as a 'villain', surely nutritional vegetarians will stand behind. The Lipid Hypothesis, as I've discussed months ago in my Cholesterol posts, referred to the theory that ingested fat causes heart disease, particularly saturated fat. It is the stone tablet that the Phrophets of Nutrition have brought down from the mountain. We have been shown one way, true way, that cholesterol is the demon of the age, the dietary Black Plague, a judgement from angry GOD. That at least is what the priests of the Lipid Hypothesis declared, having looked into the entrails of.....rabbits. Damn rabbits!! Whoever had read my cholesterol posts earlier, or whoever realized about this pathetic health scam, you surely know what I meant.

There is a huge array of epidemiological studies that show no correlation between saturated fat consumptionm cholesterol levels and heart disease. First of all, let's check out the paradoxes such as French Paradox, the Greek Paradox, the East African paradox, the Swiss Paradox, etc. These contries have high cholesterol and saturated fat consumption, yet low levels of heart disease.The French consumes four and half times as much butter as Americans, but look at the comparison of heart disease rates between these 2 countries. Furthermore, the Masai of Kenya, eat a diet almost entirely based on meat, milk and blood. On average, Masai warriors ingest 300 grams of animal fat everyday! Yet heart disease is unknown.

Another epidemiological study discovered the Pacific Island paradox. Coconut is a staple food of the people of Pukapuka, and coconut oil is more highly saturated then animal fats. Big part of their calories is in the form of saturated fat. Cardiovascular disease was absent, as were degenerative diseases in general.

How about the Japanese? They increased their consumption both of total fat and animal fat over 250% since 1960's and they are now the longest living people in the world. Consumption of both animal protein and fat increased significantly, as one would expect during a time of economic prosperity. Blood cholesterol also increased, while blood pressure and strokes went down. Check this out. A survey of 40000 Japanese subjects found that over sixteen year period, those who ate the most eggs, dairy products and fish, had 28% lower risk of stroke then those who ate them least.

Want more? India. Over a million of people were examined for incidence of CHD. Guess what? The highest rates were in Madras, and the lowest rates were in Punjab. Their dietary difference? In disease prone Madras, fat consumption was lower, and consisted of polyunsaturated vegetable oils. In Punjab, milk products supplied the fat, and with much lower polyunsaturates. The Punjab men has average of overall lifespan of 8 years longer then those in Madras.

Next, we then have China. Well well. What can I say? There is a bizarre and entrenched myth among the health concious in the West that the Chinese don't have cardiovascular diseases. the idea is that they eat lots of rice and vegetables and very little protein and fat, are healthy. The truth of the matter is that the Chinese do indeed have cardiovasular disease, and lots of it. The rates of death from cardiovascular disease suffered by both rural and urban Chinese males is almost indistinguishable from the rate experienced by American males, while the rates of cardiovascular deaths for both rural and urban Chinese women is significantly higher than those of American females.

The past fifteen years have seen a reduction in fat consumption of almost 25 percent, due to the relentless badgering of the medical establishment and the willingness of corporate food manufacturers to fabricate an endless array of ridiculous information about fats and cholesterol, cheap polyunsaturated vegetable oils that have been chemically altered. Consumption of fat has gone down, and we are getting fatter and higher rates of heart disease?

As I've mentioned before in my cholesterol posts, twenty five percent of the body's cholesterol is in the brain., the brain that is made up of over 60% of saturated fat. Without fat, our neurotransmitters literally can't transmit. Fat is also preferred by our nervous systems. Without this substance, your brain would be almost entirely useless. The name of this wonder substance? CHOLESTEROL!

Low cholesterol means low seratonin levels, which means depression. Cholesterol is essential for the brain's seratonin receptors. In fact, people on low fat diets are twice as likely to die from suicide or violent death. Low fats diet increase anger, depression and anxiety. Low cholesterol levels occur more often amongst criminals, individuals diagnosed with aggressive conduct disorders, homicidal offenders with histories of suicidal attempts and violence related to alcohol. While ratings of anger hostility slightly declined during the high fat diet period, they significantly increased during the low fat, high carbohydrate diet period.

There are two things going on here. One is that the human body and its brain need saturated fat and cholesterol. The other is that while polyunsaturated fats are essential but they are only needed in tiny amounts. The quantities currently consumed by almost all of us, are damaging both body and brain. Until very recently in human history, non one used discrete polyunsaturated vegetable oils, or at least not for food. They were used to make glue and paint!

High consumption of polyunsaturated fats have been shown to contribute to a large number of diseases such as increased of cancer, heart disease, immune system dsyfunction, damage to the liver, reproductive organs, lungs, digestive disorders, depressed learning ability, impaired growth and weight gain. A big problem with polyunsaturated fats is their tendency to oxidize very easily, or go rancid, when expose to air, moisture and heat, not to mention when these oils are used in cooking. Whereas saturated oils are stable because every carbon is paired with a hydrogen.

When I recently just attended a class (nutrition), and the trainer was saying that cholesterol causes heart disease and caused formation of plaque, I just shake my head and thought to myself, "Do you even know what you are talking about?". Someone with no solid real knowledge about nutrition, is trying to conduct a class about nutrition? That's just plain silly. The trainer also mentioned that our liver can only store up to about 500g of glycogen. What happen to Von Gierke's disease? Thats the type 1 storage glycogen disease which proved that human liver can store to basically unlimited amount of glycogen stores.

Folks, you gotta know, cholesterol don't just gum your arteries for no reason. Think of cholesterol as 'Dark Knight' the movie, where dark knight is in fact a true hero, but he was mistaken as a villain. Cholesterol has been protecting us for thousands and millions of years. Blaming cholesterol for CHD, is like blaming the fire fighters for the fire.

Whether it's sugar and insulin or polyunsaturated fat which are causing the damage to our bodies, it is cholesterol that keeps us from dying, and then takes the blame for killing us. That is utterly absurb! You don't listen and follow everything you study or being told. You grab the knowledge, use common sense and connect the dots the best you can and ask yourself, "Does it make sense?".

Anyway, I'm going to finish off this post right about now. It is a long post, and I'm tired. I've been falling behind a bit lately on my sleeping cycles, thats bad, I'm trying to catch up slowly on my lost hours in bed. What I can say, after you've read every post in this vegetarianism topic, do have an open mind, do some research, connect the dots and always have the readiness to change and move forward. It's your life, your health, and the freedom of choosing your own food, eat according to how humans are supposed to eat since thousands and millions of years ago. We are still having the same genes inherited from our primal ancestors, the hunter gatherers, the caveman, whatever you wanna call it, eat real foods, eat according to your metabolic requirements, eating for energy.

Vegetarianism (Part 11)

I was a bit in a hurry when I finished off my last post, and I will continue to discuss a bit more about grains and how lectins works and react in our body. After this post, I will most likely finish off the vegetarianism topic with the final post, probably in a week's time, hopefully I have some free time as I'm very busy since months back.

I plan to blog about grains, whole damn long discussion about grains, and more people need to know how destructive grains are, to human body and health. Most of us thought that grains are good for us, cereals are good and breads are safe to eat. Although I reveal some of the evil side of grains, it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Now, let's continue some of the stuff I left off in my last post, and I would like to discuss a bit more about lectins.  The profound destruction that lectins are capable of lies in the autoimmune response they can trigger. The protein sequence in some lectins is almost identical to tissues of human body. Once the lectins passed through the compromised tight junctions and into the bloodstream, they cause tremendous and tragic damage in a process called 'molecular mimicry'.

The immune defense system attacks the foreign proteins, and having learned to identify that sequence as an enemy, ot goes on to attack the similiar sequences in the human body. The lectin in wheat, is made of amino acid sequences that mimic both joint cartilage and the myelin sheaths that cover our nerves. Other lectins are nearly identical to the filtering mechanism of the kidneys, the cells of the pancreas that produce insulin, the retina, and the lining of the intestines. And once turned on, the immune system doesn't turn off.

Lectins confuse the immune system, teaching it that some primary parts of us are 'them'. The lesson learned becomes the terrible suffering of a body attacking itself, the autoimmune diseases such as ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, systematic lupus, diabetes type 1, multiple sclerosis and etc. Also, not to forget about thyroid inflammation to allergies to skin rashes to asthma.

The molecular mimicry of lectins may not be the only catalyst for autoimmune diseases. There may be other causes of autoimmune diseases as well, such as viruses and bacteria, particularly load of foreign substances that triggers an autoimmune cascade.

Now, majority of epidemiologists do not know that a horrible disease such as multiple sclerosis is most prevalent in cultures where wheat and rye are staple foods. In the archaeological record, rheumatoid arthritis, which leaves very grim evidence in skeletal remains, follows wheat and corn around the world.

Has anyone heard of celiac disease? It is absolutely caused by cereal grains, and celiac sufferers are at risk of other autoimmune diseases as well. There are also much much more times to be schizophrenic. Paleopathologists tell us that "autoimmune disorders do not seem to have plagued humans prior to the adoption of an agricultural way of life. Well, that's because it's grain that can turn the body against itself. Agriculture has devoured us as surely as it has devoured the world.

Meat contains protein, minerals, and fats, fats that we need to metabolize those proteins and minerals. In contrast, grains are basically carbohydrates, what protein they do contain is low quality and lacking amino acids, and comes wrapped in indigestible fiber. Grains are essentially sugar with enough opioids to make them addictive.

What can I say? The biological truth will hard to swallow by most people, especially the ones who have been enjoying them almost their whole life for decades. Just think of someone telling you to stop eating your favourite food, would you? The ugly truth, but these are the facts.

The essential amino acids, the so called building blocks of protein. They are essential, because humans can't make them, and we can only eat them. Likewise, they are essential fatty acids, which can only be ingested, not made. How about carbohydrates? There is no such thing as essential carbohydrates. The actual amount of carbohydrates required by humans for health is ZERO.

Every cell in your body can make all the sugar it needs. That included the cells in your brain. Yes, our brain do need glucose, which is precisely why our body can make glucose. What the brain actually needs is a steady supply of glucose, too much or too litle will create a biological emergency that can result in coma and death, as any diabetic will tell you.

A partial list of diseases caused by high insulin levels includes heart disease, elevated triglycerides, high blood pressure, blood clotting problems, colon and other cancers, type 2 diabetes, gout, sleep apnea, obesity, GERD, peptic ulcer disease, PCOS and others. These are serious diseases and we accept them as normal because they are ubiquitious.

We eat the foods our culture provides, we then get sick. But then almost everyone is sick, and who doesn't know someone who has diabetes, heart disease, cancer and arthritis? In this case, very few people question it. Folks, what we are left with, are cravings, both vague and unbearable, that we are taught ourselves to fight. There is a difference between after eating a meal, you feel full and nourished. One can eat McDonalds and feel full, and the other person can dine organically grown whole foods skillfully cooked and feel nourished, and not left like a piece of brick stuck in your gut undigested for hours with bloating in your lower abdominal and dealing with flatulence.

Let's just say, it is the quality of the ingredients, REAL FOOD. Real protein, real fats from animals. Listen to your body, a listening that must make your body known to you, less mysterious and more beloved. the listening is hard, and you will have to past through the craving that those foods produce, the addictions to intense sweeteners, the biological emergencies of blood sugar swings.

Now, whats the difference between complex carbohydrates and sugar? Does anyone know? Whether complex of simple carbs, all carbohydrates are sugars. The only difference is whether they are individual sugar molecules or a string of sugar molecules. Glucose is the simplest sugar, made of single molecule. Sucrose, the table sugar, is made of two molecules, hence, a disaccharide. Sugars with more molecules are called polysaccharides. These includes grains, beans and potatoes. Why don't these differences matter? It is because our digestive system can't digest the long chains. So our bodies break them down into simple sugars.

So, whether it is a fat free bagel, a quarter cup of sugar from sugar bowl, a canned of soft drink, a baked potato or even a handful of jelly beans, by the time your intestinal tract gets finished snipping the links of those starch and sugar chains, it's all been reduced to....SUGAR, specifically to glucose. In the end, metabolically there is no difference between eating a baked potato or a can of soft drink.

Anyhow, please go read my sugar posts which I blogged months ago if you are seriously interested about what sugar can do to our body. I will finish off the final post for this topic hopefully this week. Stay tuned.

Vegetarianism (Part 10)

The first myth of the nutritional vegetarians, is that we aren't meant for meat. Most of us ate grains, and a lot other leafy green things. Never mind that grains were not even in existence for the majority of our time on earth. Grains have to be grounded, soaked, and most of all, cooked. Grains can't be eaten raw. Don't believe, then try it out yourself? You will get sick. This is true for grains, beans and even potatoes. They contain toxins, politely known as anti nutrients, to stop animals and people like us from eating them. Just because plants can't scream, doesn't mean they wan't to be eaten. And just because they don't have claws or teeth, doesn't mean they aren't fighting back.

First of all, plants produce enzyme blockers, which act as a pesticide against insects and other animals, including us. Our digestive systems utilize many enzymes to break down and absorb food. When the food is seeds(E.g beans and grains), the seeds resist by blocking those enzymes. The most common enzymes that grains try to disrupt are proteases, which digest protein. Proteases include the stomach enzyme pepsin and the small intestine enzymes trysin as well. Other chemicals interfere with amylase, the enzyme that digests starch, and hence are called amylase inhibitors. 

Beans, grains, potatoes also use lectins, which are proteins that fill a huge variety of functions in both plants and animals, though the exact function of many lectins is still unknown. In order to understand the damage that these substances can do to human body, you first need a basic primer on human digestion. Well, that's what I call it Digestion 101. 

Well, I'm not going in depth on how our GI tract works, but let me brief you guys a bit about digestion. Our digestive tract has one tough job to do. It has to sort through a huge array of foreign substances, the things we swallow, the junk we put in our mouth, and decide what's nutrient, and what's danger. The ones deemed nutrients have to be broken down into the smallest possible components and then absorbed. This work is so labor intensive that your intestines measure approximately twenty two feet. Can you believe it is that long? To increase the work capacity, the intestines are folded up into compacted gathers called villi. Heard of it? 

Next, microvilli, are even smaller folds. They comprise what's called the brush border, the area where digestive enzymes break proteins down into amino acids and starches into sugars. Once food is completely broken down, the lining of the gut lets the nutrients into the bloodstream through what are called tight junctions. These are specialized seals between the lining cells. We need to be protected from all sorts of contaminants and toxins that travel from the outside world, past our teethm and through our stomachs. The tight junctions are the place where substances are either absorbed or rejected. If the substance is too big, too scary, too hamrful, too foreign, it can't get through these tight junctions. But if anything smaller and simple, such as water, sugar, ions and amino acids, gets a pass.

That's one mechanical way our intestines keep us safe. Another is through rhythmic contractions that keep the input moving through the intestines. The constant motion stops unfriendly bacteria from setting up residence. And the lining cells are continously shedding, so any bacteria that have managed to grab a hold of our guts are carried away. 

If these mechanical methods fail, our guts can also mount an immunological defense, and it's a very specialized defense. The usual immune response elsewhere in the body involved inflammation. Not so in the gut, and if you picture the surface of a tennis court folding itself into half a square inch, you will see why. There is no room for inflammation, not if that area wants to absorb nutrients too.

Inflammation would weaken the tight junctions, rendering us vulnerable to dangerous substances that could slip into our bodies. Instead, the gut operates its own rapid response team. Specialized cells take any invaders prisoner. Also, another set of cells, called lymphocytes, will start manufacturing poisons to kill the foreign invaders or invading substances. Bear in mind that the armed lymphocytes will remember the face of the invader forever, so that if one like it ever cares to  show up again, the immune response will be swift and sure.   

Well, eating grains causes mainly 3 problems. The first, is that a grain based diet, will include too many starches and sugars, which will overload the intestines. The gut in turn will pass them on undigested to the colon. These sugars create so called 'bacterial picnic' and the colon's normal population of bacteria experiences exponential growth. Not so fun for a so called picnic right? 

This over productive fermentation can then surge back into the gut, causing an inflammatory response which blunts microvilli, impairs proper digestion and absorption, and in the beginnings of a vicious cycle, sends even more incompletely digested foods downstream. Most crucially, the tight junctions are damaged, letting substances like lectins pass through into the bloodstream. And the lectins themselves may bind to the wall of the intestines, altering their permeability and their function.

So, you must now be wondering, what are lectins? Well, think of lectin as a protein containing a key that fits a certain type of lock. This lock is a specific type of carbohydrate. If lectin with the right key comes in contact with one of these 'locks' on the gut wall, or artery or gland or organ, it opens the lock. Which means, it disrupts the membrane and damages the cell and may initiate a cascade of immune and autoimmune events leading to cell death. 

Lectins, don't break down without a fight. Once they are ingested, neither hydrochloric acid nor digestive enzymes can destroy them. Please do REMEMBER this fact! Remember your cereal breakfast you are eating every morning? A cereal grain lectin, is heat stable and resistant to digestive breakdown in humans and has been recovered intact and biologically active in human feces. Folks, that means your POO aka SH*T. 

By the time a meal clears the stomach and enters the intestines, any protein we have eaten should have broken down into amino acids. This helps keep larger components from passing through the wall of the intestines and into the bloodstream. But, because lectins can be quite high, consequently their transport through the gut wall can exceed that of other dietary antigens by several orders of magnitude. 

Lectins, can also bond to the walls of the intestines and damage their permeability. Their bonding creates everything from shortened villi to changes in intestinal flora to cell death. This combination of sheer concentration of lectins and damaged guts means that lectins pass through the intestines whole. Bear in mind, once they get past that basic defensive barrier, they wreak havoc all over human body! Boom! 

So, to all grains lovers, you might want to think seriously about enjoying those bakeries, breads, cereals, which you find most of the time satisfy the cravings that have been haunting you so ages. To be continued...