Tag Archives: obesity

Keep Your Enemies Closer

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Yesterday morning I looked down and saw a tiny ant crawling along the inside of my left elbow. I felt an urge to flick it away, but not to squash it. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, I thought.

Researchers have discovered that the communities of microbes living in the guts of normal-weight individuals differ significantly from those in the guts of obese individuals. Researchers are also finding evidence to suggest that some common autoimmune diseases (like asthma) may result from decreased early exposure to bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that, in previous centuries, would have primed our young and immature immune systems, and protected us—later on—from these sometimes devastating autoimmune diseases. 

The extensive use of broad-spectrum antibiotics in beings of all kinds, including both humans and livestock, is being linked to a myriad of consequences, including severe secondary infections like C. dificile colitis, against which we might ordinarily be protected by the community of healthy bacteria harbored in a normally functioning gut.

You might say that the bugs are our friends. Maybe not that, but they are certainly our neighbors.

When my children were young and felt ravaged by the latest cold virus, I explained that it was helping them to grow their “antibody library,” which would be protect them as they grew. We strengthen the bugs and they strengthen us. We occupy the same space. We are not at war. We inhabit their world, and they inhabit ours.

Why does an obese individual’s gut harbor a different community of bugs? I am going to guess that one aspect may have something to do with what those bugs are fed. Perhaps if we feed them real food, the ones that work with us will thrive. And maybe if we feed them ultraprocessed, food-like items, the ones that work against us thrive, and the good neighbors cannot survive. Other bugs have moved in to take their place.

Have you ever made a project with papier mache? The recipe for papier mache, consisting of just flour, water, and salt, results in a glue that dries rock hard. You can count on that. Why does paper mache last so long? Simply put, it doesn’t disintegrate because bacteria don’t eat it. I am not sure what white flour does to the neighborly bacteria in our guts, but I will never be convinced that it nourishes them. Being fed bread and water puts me in mind of prisoners in solitary confinement.

The bugs in our gut are related to our health in every way we can imagine, and a great many more than that, I suspect. That’s why I recommend that you keep your microbiological friends close and your enemies closer. They may not be enemies at all.

 

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning

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When people want to talk with me about the blog, these are the kinds of questions they usually ask: “I went to your website and saw a lot of interesting posts, but where should I start? What is the first thing I need to understand?”

First, there is a huge difference between real food and manufactured calories. Second, manufactured calories are a major factor in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes, as well as the rising rates of many other diseases, such as breast cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer.

Let’s take a field trip, out the back door, and into a field of growing wheat. Pick a single grain, and take a good look, and what do you see? Each grain contains a bran fiber coat; an endosperm (primarily starch); and a germ, which is rich in nourishing oils. Approximately 200 years ago, humans figured out how to strip away the coat and germ, so that only the pellet of white starch remained. Manufacturers call this “white flour.”

If you could look at a bit of white starch under a microscope, you would see a long chain of sugar molecules. We break the links between those sugar molecules so efficiently that eating white flour causes your blood sugar to rise as quickly — if not more so — as when you eat a spoonful of sugar. White flour and sugar both cause blood sugars to spike.

Manufacturers chose to call white flour and sugar refined carbohydrates. But to refine is to remove coarse impurities. The term refined was selected specifically to suggest that whole-grain flour was coarse, or unrefined. In nature, carbohydrates are almost always found in a fiber matrix. Consider dates and beets, both of which are used by industry as raw materials for the manufacture of sugar. In their original state, they are so rich in fiber and phytonutrients that they are classified as superfoods. With only rare exceptions (e.g., honey, maple syrup), refined carbohydrates are not found in nature. 

After you eat, your gut breaks down food into sugar, which then gets absorbed into your bloodstream. White flour and sugar are broken down easily; they are rapidly absorbed, and they spike your blood sugars. Foods like produce (fruits and vegetables), nuts, whole grains, beans, eggs, and meats are absorbed slowly enough that blood sugars remain more or less stable.

Once food enters your bloodstream, your pancreas releases insulin to catch the incoming sugar and escort it to the cells of your body. The more quickly you absorb sugar, the more insulin you need. The more slowly you absorb the sugar, the less insulin you need. It works like a valet service. Imagine you were invited to a huge party. At exactly 7 p.m., one thousand cars show up at the party center. They’re going to need a lot of valet staff to park those cars.

But consider an alternate scenario. Imagine you receive an invitation to an open house for 3-9 p.m. At the end of the day, the party center will still park 1000 cars. But they won’t need nearly as many valet staff.

The sugar is the cars, and the insulin is the valet staff. If your sugar shows up all at once, you will need a lot of insulin. But if the sugar gets absorbed bit by bit, you won’t need nearly as much insulin. Insulin is a fat-storage hormone. The more you use, the more you need. This is called insulin resistance. The higher your insulin levels, the more fat you store in your belly. Insulin has many other deleterious effects on the body, and they begin decades earlier than we once thought.

Which nutrients are absorbed slowly? Fiber, protein, and fat. Foods like bulgur wheat, brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa, millet — all whole grains. Dates, beets, avocados, peanuts and tree nuts, seeds, eggs, beans, fruits, vegetables. All of these are absorbed slowly. Which items are absorbed quickly? Stripped carbs, like cake, sugar, breakfast cereals, doughnuts, bagels, cookies. 

Please feel free to post questions.