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There was a mis-statement in my previous posting - I said that I had read
that if you have high insulin (which tends to happen to people who are
overweight or insulin resistant, I think) - arachidonic acid is more
likely to be converted into pro-inflammatory compounds.  I misread
something else - what actually happens is that if you have high insulin,
the linoleic acid that you eat is more likely to be converted into
arachidonic acid.  Linoleic acid is the omega-6 fat that people get most
of in their diets.  Arachidonic acid is just plain pro-inflammatory,
whether you have high insulin or not, it would appear.

People who are allergic have a higher ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in
their blood, and high omega-6 consumption is linked to getting allergies.
Allergies and inflammatory diseases have increased in the last few decades
in the U.S., and there's some evidence that this is because people are
eating more omega-6 fat.  I didn't find research about trying a
low-arachidonic acid diet for hayfever or sinusitis - although I've seen
things on the internet about vegetarian diet helping allergies.  But
arachidonic
acid does get converted to inflammatory prostaglandins and leukotrienes,
which are involved in allergic inflammation (and i suppose other
inflammation).  A vegan diet helps rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and
other inflammatory conditions.  Reading that, I used to wonder - why would
they
try vegan?  What's special about a vegan diet?  Likely, it has no
arachidonic acid.

Looking into what is an anti-inflammatory diet, I was struck by the fact
that the scientists, when doing clinical trials of various diets, tried
things like vegetarian diets, very low-fat vegan diet, fasting, ...  The
people who ought to know what is likely to be anti-inflammatory don't put
their patients on a low carbohydrate diet, or even a Mediterranean diet.
They do the exact opposite of the currently popular low-carbohydrate diet.
If anybody knows of peer-reviewed studies that show that kind of diet is
anti-inflammatory, tell me of them.

I think that celiacs and food intolerant people in general have been *so*
badly let down by mainstream medicine.  Many of us have had to look for
answers on our own - and there are a lot of people getting rich by writing
nutrition & diet books that tell people that eating similarly to how they
already eat is best - meat, lots of fat.  And from what I've read, this
kind of diet is likely to be pro-inflammatory, it might perpetuate the
food intolerances that we have developed, it might perpetuate allergies
that many of us have.

Why?
A low-carbohydrate diet is high-fat, you're going
to get a lot of saturated fat and a lot of omega-6 fat, which are
both pro-inflammatory.  Eating a lot of fat makes it much harder to get a
good omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.  And, a low-carbohydrate diet is probably
high in (pro-inflammatory) arachidonic acid.

There is the candida question - what if these food intolerances are
related to Candida?  You probably do decrease the candida population by
eating a low-carbohydrate diet.  But - there isn't any actual evidence I
know of that Candida is a problem.  It might be.  Researchers recently
found out that many people suffering from sinusitis have an immune
reaction that's not an IgE reaction to fungus - Aspergillus I think -
that normally lives in people's sinuses.  Candida is allergenic, and maybe
people who have a "candida problem" do actually have an immune reaction to
their intestinal candida.  But - even if this were true, a
low-carbohdyrate diet isn't necessarily how to solve the problem.  It
seems like a low-fat high-carb diet is better for your immune system &
inflammatory problems.

There's a severe split between what the medical research and nutritionists
back as a good diet
and what a lot of popular books say.  I mean, question the establishment,
by all means!  But, if questioning the establishment means taking the word of
salespeople as truth, people are going to harm their health.

I got a lot of responses saying, in effect, "high-carbohydrate diet is bad
because it has a lot of grains and grains are bad".

But I was intolerant to all grains - members of the grass family - when I
did food challenges.  I'm on a grain-free diet now, and there's actually
plenty to eat that's low-fat; and also a fair amount of choices of starchy
foods that are low-fat.

If the various allergists who told me flatly that allergy shots are the
only thing you can do to cure allergy, who got me to get allergy shots for
a year and a half that made me sick for days, are wrong and I can relieve
my allergy problems significantly by eating less arachidonic acid, less
fat, less omega-6, with fish oil supplements - they really have badly let
me down.

I don't expect diet necessarily to help quickly.  Allergies, and from what
I've heard, food intolerance and celiac disease, develop in a vicious
circle.  You get a reaction, the tissue that reacts gets inflamed,
inflamed tissue reacts more.  The immune system problems build up over
time.  I *think* it might be related for me to eating fructose - maybe
that raised my insulin levels, which is pro-inflammatory.  So an
anti-inflammatory diet might decrease my immune system problems over
time.

I'm not talking about curing gluten intolerance with diet -  at least for
me, the things that changed when I stopped eating gluten and those other
foods were so drastic, I don't want to mess with it.  It was like coming
down from being permanently on a mild hallucinogenic drug.  Among other
things.

I have gotten quantitative about it.  I wrote a little computer program
that makes it easy to keep track of saturated fat, total fat, arachidonic
acid, omega-6 and omega-3, which is available on my web page.  Getting
quantitative matters, in *actually* not eating a high-fat diet, not
just in one's imagination; in *actually* having a good omega-6 to
omega-3 ratio.

It's important to quantify things.  It's a good way to sort out claims
that are made in popular books.  Like, years ago I tried the zone diet
- not to lose weight, but for my carbohydrate intolerance.  I followed
his instructions exactly.  I got a lot more carbohydrate intolerant, I
was also eating a great deal of omega-6 fat and more saturated fat than
before, despite all his "scientific" talk about the importance of omega-3
fat.  The USDA database has been very helpful to me in finding out what's
actually in food, rather than what somebody claims is in the food.

I stopped taking borage oil supplements - they have gamma-linolenic acid
in them, which may be converted into arachidonic acid, it's not clear.

Laura

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