Protein and Healing Part I

[Guest guest]

Protein and Healing

The first in a three-part series on:

Why you can't heal on a high-protein diet.

http://getalife.net.au/mag/protein_healing1_html

 

Kathryn Alexander D.Th.D

 

The high-protein diet is coming back into fashion. It has done the rounds

of weight-loss diets, stabilizing blood sugar diets and now for the next

wave of controlling " hyper-insulinaemia. " I would be the first to agree

that yes, you can manipulate symptoms through diet but I would qualify that

manipulation is not the same as healing and furthermore, it does not

address the cause of the problem.

 

What is it about protein that has given it such a high profile? Take the

overweight person who finds it difficult to go on a diet because of hunger

pangs and cravings. The theory is that calories are not the be-all and

end-all to a weight loss diet and that you can eat a high protein, high fat

diet (therefore highly calorific) and still lose weight! It's true - you

can. If the release of insulin isn't triggered by dietary intake of

carbohydrates/sugars then the cells cannot take up the excess sugar, and

protein and fat synthesis is hindered. Insulin is an " anabolic " hormone

which means that it is required for body tissue synthesis - hence the

diabetic who has a malfunction with their insulin metabolism will lose

weight and waste away unless they medicate with insulin. Certain dietary

regimes ask the client to maintain a specified acidic pH of their urine

(they test the urine with pH indicator strips). On a high protein, high fat

diet the body produces vast amounts of acids which are cleared in the urine

(placing a great strain on the liver and kidneys). Within a narrow band of

pH you will maintain your weight-losing state but with the introduction of

carbohydrate (any amount) these pH levels will change - so if you want to

keep the weight loss up you maintain your nil carbohydrate diet!

 

Let's take blood sugar control. We know that in certain individuals when

they eat carbohydrate they experience a sudden drop in blood sugar

(symptoms include lethargy and fatigue, poor concentration, mood swings,

" foggy " brain, dis-perceptions, panic attacks, hot and cold sweats, heart

palpitations) and we believe that the cause of this could be an

inappropriate insulin response - too much insulin being secreted bringing

the blood sugar levels down too much. So these sufferers are recommended to

eat high protein/low carbohydrate diets. It works - the symptoms abate

because protein doesn't stimulate such a strong insulin release as

carbohydrate.

 

Next the new wave of " hyper-insulinaemia " where we have moved on from

hypo-glycaemia (low blood sugar) to high amounts of insulin in the blood

stream. The symptoms appear to be more-or-less the same along with the

discovery of excess insulin in the blood stream. What's the answer? Reduce

the secretion of insulin by omitting carbohydrates and increasing your

protein intake. Once again manipulation of symptoms with diet- but as soon

as you go back on the carbohydrates the symptoms return. Not only this -

six months down the track on such a diet you start to experience new

symptoms of a more chronic nature.

 

A lady, aged 59 years, came to see me. She had been diagnosed with

hyperinsulinaemia and been following a high protein diet for a year.

Initially her symptoms of low energy, bloating, digestive difficulties and

cravings did improve but after six months on the high-protein plan the

symptoms returned more aggressively along with weight increase, fluid

retention, a racing brain and insomnia. She still maintained the diet but

took Chinese herbs to help the symptoms. This helped for a while but then

it seemed as though even the herbs would not help. When we looked over her

case history we could see that she was very toxic; from a very young age

she had suffered food allergies and candida, she had taken the

contraceptive pill for 12 years (synthetic sex hormones inhibit the

flushing of bile from the liver and therefore detoxification) and by the

age of 36 years she had an abnormal smear, followed by a hysterectomy with

cysts being identified on the ovaries. Later she took HRT (hormone

replacement therapy) for a period of 4 years. By the time I saw her she was

extremely toxic, deficient and the liver was stagnant.She assured me that

there was no way she could go on the detoxification plan as all the

carbohydrates would make her worse. I did persuade her to try the high

vegetable and fruit diet along with juicing and we worked out a diet where

we omitted all the foods she was allergic to (gluten, tomatoes), removed

all the oils including nuts and seeds (expect for flaxseed oil), and

reduced protein to a minimum (100g non-fat yoghurt daily, brown rice and

legumes twice/week and a little fish). By the next month all the digestive

difficulties had abated, she had lost 4 kg, was not suffering cravings or

hunger, was sleeping better and had no hot flushes or mood swings. However,

she did feel as though her body was " locked " up with toxicity with pains

and stiffness in the joints. I recommended warm baths and warm castor oil

packs on the areas of stiffness and pain to allow the circulation to

nourish and remove toxicity. She continues to improve, step-by-step, as the

body heals itself.

 

Of course, good quality protein is essential for growth and tissue

maintenance particularly during infancy, childhood, adolescence and

pregnancy. But the question arises - how much is enough and how much is too

much? The average requirement is 1g of protein /kg of body weight which for

the average 50-70kg person means the equivalent of say 200g meat or fish

and 4 slices of bread per day - 64g. The body does not lay down excess

protein. If you eat protein in excess to your requirements then the surplus

is either converted to carbohydrate or fat by the liver and the amine

portion (the nitrogenous portion which makes it a protein) is converted to

urea and eliminated by the kidneys. Excess protein creates acidity and puts

a strain on the kidneys which will later affect the heart.

 

Protein metabolism is under the control of our hormones - insulin, growth

hormone and the sex hormones for the laying down of protein, and the

corticosteroids for the breaking down of protein (cortisone is the natural

stress hormone which is why you cannot heal if you are under stress as it

opposes tissue synthesis and regeneration). The growth spurts from

childhood through to adolescence are controlled by high levels of growth

hormone and the sudden increase in sex hormones which, during puberty, rise

to eight times the adult levels. Growth hormone and the sex hormones begin

to fall after puberty until they reflect the stable adult levels by the

early 20s. Growth hormone becomes practically non-existent after reaching

30 years. So the health/sport professionals found that if they wanted to

increase body muscle mass then it was necessary to take anabolic steroids

along with a high protein intake. High protein intake on its own will not

increase muscle size. Muscles store a very limited supply of protein

(4-6kg) and after this capacity is reached excess dietary protein has to be

broken down and discarded. Exercising increases muscle tone and size

because the more you " work " your muscles the greater their capacity to

store carbohydrate fuel (not protein - muscles do not use protein for

energy). Beware of the high protein message if you are seeking fitness.

 

Let's leave the manipulation of symptoms and come back to healing which

deals with the cause or the " why " you have that imbalance - not the " how "

or the mechanisms involved in that imbalance. Most treatment often revolves

around the " how " but in order to truly resolve imbalances we must address

the " why. " For example " why " should a person appear to have too much

insulin - we can address " how " to reduce its secretion but unless we

address the why or the cause then nothing is going to change and on a high

protein diet the situation will inevitably deteriorate.

 

In order for the body to heal, no matter what the imbalance, it has to

release its toxic load and rebuild its nutrient status. When this occurs,

the vitality rises and healing begins. The body's intelligence (not the

brain) will determine which areas will be healed and in what order.You must

imagine your body like a house which requires touch-up jobs, renovations

etc. from time to time. The workman you call in to do the job will only be

as good as your vitality - in fact we could call him Mr. Vitality. In a

toxic, deficient body, Mr. Vitality isn't very vital and does a bodged job.

But maybe that's OK as long as it's covered over until later down the

track, when the toxicities and deficiencies are greater, Mr. Vitality can't

do the job at all and you require on-going medication - not to do the job

but to allow you to wear blinkers and ignore the area that needs attention.

However, once you have started to detoxify and rebuild, Mr. Vitality

returns unannounced to attend to those bodged-jobs, to do the job properly

which often means chipping out the old stuff and reworking the area until

it is as good a new (well almost!). So here we come to the crux of the

matter - what do we need to do to detoxify and rebuild?

 

Let's start at a point where 20th century science catches up with the old

healing techniques of the preceding centuries. This brings us to the work

of Dr. Max Gerson. For those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Gerson's work, he

was a physician working until the time of his death in 1959, with chronic

degenerative disease and cancer and he developed a specific regime of

detoxification which remains unsurpassed to date. Dr. Gerson observed and

recorded that on a low sodium/high potassium diet (vegetable juices,

fruits) the kidneys eliminated high amounts of sodium and with this tissue

oedemas reduced, tumours started shrinking and the patient started healing.

(Sodium is always elevated in damaged/diseased tissues and is the most

fundamental enzyme inhibitor. A damaged cell, swollen with sodium and

water, cannot oxidize but sinks into fermentation, throwing out more toxins

which then damages adjacent cells and the condition perpetuates). In

cancer, Dr. Gerson noted that supplementing with a specific mixture of

potassium salts (potassium acetate, gluconate and mono-phosphate) in the

vegetable juices that the elimination of sodium was increased and healing

accelerated. However, he noted that the inclusion of protein in the diet

reduced sodium elimination, retarded detoxification and slowed the process

down. In fact it is impossible to reduce sodium levels in the body on a

high protein diet as the more acidic waste you produce from a high protein

diet, the greater the amount of sodium reabsorbed by the kidneys.

 

Dr. Gerson also found that in cancer dietary protein stimulated tumour

growth and that patients with a higher protein intake could not be saved.

We have more corroborating information on this through the work of Thomas

Tallberg (M.D. Helsinki University) who has isolated certain amino acids

(building blocks of protein) as growth factors for specific tumours. Of

course the suggested scientific answer to this is to amend the food through

genetic modification ie. genetically modify non-pathogenic bacteria to

induce them to consume these specific amino acids in foods.

 

Dr. Gerson also noticed that when he restricted dietary protein the immune

profile changed - the white T cell count went up. This is the branch of the

immune system which fights tumours, viruses and fungi and generally

reinforces the whole immune response. With the oedemas shrinking from

around tumour sites (indeed any damaged tissue), the blood supply along

with a heightened immune cell profile can access the damaged area and start

the healing process. After 6-12 weeks Dr. Gerson recommended the addition

of 200g of non-fat yoghurt or 100g of no-fat/no salt pot cheese to the diet

which was sufficient to keep the immune system intact. Severe dietary

restriction of protein for a prolonged period can have an adverse effect on

the immune system - so just enough had to be supplied to maintain the

immune system and yet not inhibit detoxification.

 

We have also discovered that protein restriction in patients with

auto-immune disease often leads to the complete remission of that disease.

The work of Dr. Robert Good using dietary restriction of protein and

calorie in animals supports the fact that in genetically determined

diseases (SLE - systemic lupus erythematosus) if such a diet is implemented

at weaning then the animals did not go on to get the disease; or those who

were left to develop the disease went into regression upon the initiation

of the restricted diet. Dr. Good went on to replicate these findings in

mice who were genetically predisposed to mammary tumours.

 

So we come to the question how much can a high protein diet be blamed for

the rising incidence in chronic disease? Obviously this is only one factor

in the whole toxicity/deficiency debate - but what is clear both from my

own experience and through recorded data is that high protein diets inhibit

detoxification and healing.

 

There is a further debate on " cooked " versus " uncooked " protein. There is

some protein in most foods - in animal meat we are looking at around 20%;

in raw grains 12%, raw legumes 25% and nuts, 20%; in vegetables around 2%

and in fruits 0.5 - 3%. (The actual protein content of cooked weight grains

and legumes when they have " swollen " with water is reduced by two-thirds:

therefore legumes are 8% and grains between 4 - 8%). When protein is heated

or when foods are preserved through pasteurisation or the addition of

vinegars/acids then the protein structure changes its shape. Observe what

happens to an egg white when cooked, or to raw fish soaked in lemon juice -

you can visibly see the transformation. The protein has straightened out

from its normal globular form. The digestion of altered protein does not

pose too much of a problem for a person with a strong digestion (provided

that it is taken in moderation); but as we get older or if we become sick

or show symptoms of an impaired digestion (bloating, flatulence,

heart-burn/indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome, allergies) then this

altered protein can and will cause problems. The body's digestive enzymes

can digest protein in its globular form because it has a recognisable shape

so the enzyme fits like a lock and key and " opens " the protein breaking it

into single amino acids. I describe the digestion of protein like the

eating of a foreign language. The words need to be broken down into their

single letters before the body can recombine them into your own language.

If these proteins are only partially broken down then you get foreign

protein (or words) entering the system. These are toxic, they are foreign

and the liver has the job of mopping them up and dealing with them. If the

liver cannot cope they enter the systemic circulation and set up

inflammatory reactions in the tissues and joints. Inflammatory diseases are

often aggravated by cooked protein which is why the raw food diet is

advocated in so many of these cases.

 

So while we can promote low protein diets, we can also say that protein

taken in its raw form may not be a burden on the system. Dr. Gerson used

the juice of raw veal liver (it had to be fresh, not frozen - no more than

48 hours old - so that it was replete with living enzymes), the equivalent

of 750g of raw liver juiced daily and found that patients responded better

to the therapy. Nowadays we cannot use the raw liver with safety because of

the risk of cross contamination in the abattoir from camphylobacter, an

infection of which would be disastrous to the immuno-compromised patient.

 

Although a detoxification therapy is predominantly raw (the huge volume of

juices consumed which must be prepared fresh, hourly) some foods are

cooked. On a diet therapy it is important that the patient is able to

digest their food and absorb the nutrients. It is very important to

understand that a weakened digestion can be overpowered with raw foods; the

patient will not digest such foods and not extract the nutrients and the

condition will worsen. Therefore juicing of raw fruits and vegetables and

cooking of others becomes essential. The removal of all the fibre in

juicing minimizes the digestive burden and the nutrients from the juice can

be absorbed easily. The patient can then consume vast quantities of

minerals and enzymes without having to eat the whole amount.The slow

cooking of vegetables and potatoes and oatmeal does not pose the problem of

cooked proteins as the protein molecule is less damaged by slow cooking but

also the protein content of foods required is minimal (less than 2% in

vegetables). The bonus of cooking is that the carbohydrates become

partially digested. The long carbohydrate chains are reduced to shorter

chains and glucose thereby lifting the burden of digestion. You can tell

this by the sweeter taste of most vegetables in their cooked state to their

raw state.

 

Many people who have an apparent digestive intolerance of carbohydrates

(bloating, flatulence, diarrhoea) will opt for the high protein diet to

manage their symptoms but it is worth remembering that the digestion only

becomes impaired as a consequence of general nutritional deficiencies in

the body brought about by poor quality foods and poor eating habits over a

long period of time. As the gut has one of the highest rates of tissue

turnover/renewal, symptoms will usually manifest here before anywhere else

in the body. Unfortunately this is a vicious cycle - the more compromised

the digestion becomes, the lower the general integrity of the entire body

and over a long period of time the body will become weaker giving way to

chronic disease. The local symptoms manifest as carbohydrate intolerance

(bloating, flatulence) as these are the specific symptoms of fermenting,

undigested sugars in the gut. However, poor digestion is not exclusive to

carbohydrates as many believe. If you are not digesting your carbohydrates

then you are not digesting your proteins but you will not have the

uncomfortable local symptoms from the partial digestion of protein in the

gut - hence by removing carbohydrates and increasing protein your symptoms

of discomfort will abate. But bear in mind that you may be setting yourself

up for deeper problems associated with the high protein diet: excessive

burden on the liver and kidneys, gradual accumulation of sodium and fluid

in the tissues which " drowns " the cell and inhibits its activities and the

potential problem of " cooked " proteins and the onset of inflammatory disease.

 

In the next two articles you can discover how to ascertain how much and

what type of protein you can safely take in a detoxification plan and how

to overcome some of the problems associated with excess protein,

dehydration and the acceleration of the degenerative process.