Polly Hattemer Book 3 Diet

The Health ForumBook 3

The Health ForumBook 3

Diets for Immune Supportand Gut Health

Edited and Compiled by Polly Hattemer

©2003 by Polly Hattemer, also known as Pauline Hattemer

All rights reserved. Permission must be obtained from the individual contributors beforerepublishing their work. Purchase of this PDF file entitles you to use it for yourself andimmediate family, but not to distribute copies to others. Please contact us if you wish to makehard copies for a support group.

Published byHealth Reflections Book CorpPO Box 900Manhattan Beach, CA 90267-0900USA

email: [email protected]

August, 2003 versionMinor updates will be made occasionally.

More Health Forum books can be found atwww.dysbiosis.com

Book 1: Candida’s Impact on your Health

Book 2: Candidiasis and Dysbiosis Abatement Techniques

Book 3: Diets for Immune Support and Gut Health

Book 4: Hormones, Dysbiosis and Candidiasis

Book 5: Hope for Autism through Nutrition

Book 6: Cleansing the Body of Mercury

Book 7: Fibromyalgia Treatment Options

www.dysbiosis.com

DisclaimerThis book contains the opinions, anecdotes, and speculations of lay people. Anecdotes are forpondering. They are not necessarily representative of the majority of people. However, anecdotesdo serve to illustrate possibilities as well as how different we are. The contents of this book shouldin no way be considered professional advice nor should it be interpreted as prescribing treatment.Use your own judgement. If you do not understand the risks involved with a particular treatmentor supplement discussed in the book, please consult a knowledgeable professional. We have triedto present the well-known dangers of treatments and supplements in this book. However, nevertreat this or any other information as the whole truth. There is always more to be learned. Nothingis absolutely safe. Accordingly, the publisher and the contributors to this book do not assume anyliability in connection with any of the supplements or treatments mentioned in this book. Althoughall contributors have tried their best to provide reliable information, this book is not guaranteed tobe accurate or complete. Readers are encouraged to consult other sources.

Please note that the principal editor, who gathered these posts, does not have any financialinterest in any of the supplements or laboratories mentioned. If only one brand or one distributoris mentioned, it is not necessarily an endorsement. It has just been included to give the reader atleast one place to readily obtain a remedy. There is no guarantee that the website addresses in thisbook will be valid or correct. Website addresses go stale and sometimes they are taken over byother businesses. There are also many phone numbers in the last index of this book. There is noguarantee that they will remain valid. Prices of supplements are as of the writing of this book.Again, there is absolutely no way that we can guarantee that these will remain the same. Listedprices may just give you an approximate idea of the cost of products.

Table of Contents

What’s Dysbiosis? ................................................................................................. 8

About The Health Forum Books .......................................................................... 9

The Internet Forum............................................................................................ 10

Diet Considerations ............................................................................................. 11

Meal Preparation............................................................................................... 11

Food Allergies.................................................................................................... 12

Soy Foods and the Impact on Your Thyroid ...................................................... 15

Infant Soy Formulas £Particular Dangers ...................................................... 16

Detoxify, But Don’t Fast .................................................................................... 16

Undenatured Whey............................................................................................. 18

Raw Milk ............................................................................................................ 19

Yogurt................................................................................................................. 20

Fruit Kefir .......................................................................................................... 22

Why Can’t We Drink Milk?................................................................................ 24

Salt and Iodine£Will eat Seaweed for Thyroid ................................................ 25

Smoking, Coffee? ............................................................................................... 28

MSG ................................................................................................................... 29

Raw Broccoli Can Make You Fat! ..................................................................... 31

But Carrots Can Keep You Trim! ...................................................................... 32

Raw Foods ......................................................................................................... 32

Carbohydrates ..................................................................................................... 35

Breaking the Vicious Cycle —The SCD Diet ..................................................... 36

Raw Honey ......................................................................................................... 41

Caveman or Paleolithic Diet ............................................................................. 42

Celiac Disease ................................................................................................... 44

Protein .................................................................................................................. 46

Protein Intolerance ............................................................................................ 46

Vegetarian or Omnivore? .................................................................................. 48

Irradiation Of Meat............................................................................................ 53

Fats And Oils ....................................................................................................... 55

Excessive Omega-6 Oils In The Diet ................................................................. 55

The Warm Body Argument................................................................................. 56

Animal Fats........................................................................................................ 57

Heating Unsaturated Oils Create Transfatty Acids........................................... 57

Pizza Poem......................................................................................................... 57

Canola Oil or Olive Oil? ................................................................................... 58

The Virtues of Coconut Oil ................................................................................ 59

Doesn’ t Coconut Oil Cause Heart Disease? ..................................................... 60

Emu Oil .............................................................................................................. 61

Mead And Intrinsic Oils..................................................................................... 63

Fish Oil .............................................................................................................. 65

Flax, Primrose, Or Borage Oil Anyone? ........................................................... 66

Correcting the Fatty Acid Profile ...................................................................... 70

Acid & Alkaline ................................................................................................... 74

The Benefits Of Controlling pH ......................................................................... 74

Bicarbonates And Food Reactions..................................................................... 77

Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, And Breathing .......................................................... 78

Dr. Cheney’ s Oxygen With Carbon Dioxide Treatment .................................... 79

Yeast And Acidity ............................................................................................... 80

Is This Food Acid Or Alkaline? ......................................................................... 81

Many Factors Influence pH ............................................................................... 82

Should We Alkalinize The Body? ....................................................................... 83

Let The Body Cycle ............................................................................................ 85

Biological Terrain.............................................................................................. 85

Index ..................................................................................................................... 87

7

PrefaceThe true power of the Internet is the people who are on it. Rather than being a huge impersonallibrary, the Internet is filled with live people from all over the world who contribute theirthoughts, perspectives and experiences. At one particular site in this vast sea of exchanges,people have gathered to discuss health concerns related to the yeast syndrome and dysbiosis.The people at this Internet site/forum have learned and gained so much from their cyberspacemeetings that they decided to create this book to let others share in the ideas and informationexchanged. This book is a gift from our hearts to you. No one was paid for his or hercontributions, and all net royalties will be donated to charity. May our efforts bear fruit, andmay you, the reader, enjoy this book, and learn as much from the people at the healthyawareness forum as they have from each other.

AcknowledgementThis work would not have been possible without the support of my husband, Dale Goudey,PhD. Thank you for your patience and for your generosity. A special acknowledgement is dueRaymond Peat, PhD. Without his 1985 lecture on “The Endocrine System and Candidiasis,”I would have surely lost my health. More than anyone else, his books and newsletters haveinfluenced the way I think about nutrition. Thank you Andy Cutler, PhD, for teaching me aboutmercury poisoning, and thank you Willis Langford for teaching me about autism. I owe muchto the Candida and Dysbiosis Information Foundation, as they were my only link with reliableinformation for many years. Thank you to all my friends on the Internet who participated in thisendeavor. Special thanks to Susan Rodriquez, Shelley Thorstensen, Kippy Noble, Thone Ritch,Billie Jo Secrist, Marilyn in Seattle, Jeanne Jackson, and Taylor Vance for their suggestedimprovements to the book. Also, Huy Hoang, MD was kind enough to review the book for me.Thank you Brent James for the formatting suggestions. Rosalind James, Shari Ostapiuk andSondra Lewis have my sincere gratitude for proofreading the manuscript. And of course, lastbut not least, thank you to Kelly Nowicki for bringing so many of us together at the healthyawareness Internet site. This book would not exist if it weren’t for the help of so many.

What’s Dysbiosis?Dysbiosis means there is too much yeast, harmfulbacteria, viruses or parasites in the intestines.Dysbiosis does more than interfere withdigestion. Dysbiosis makes you tired. It altersyour immune system. It upsets your hormonalbalance. It can even make it difficult for you tothink clearly. Dysbiosis can cause anxiety,depression or mood swings. Dysbiosis can affectalmost every aspect of health. A person withdysbiosis is more likely to suffer from

Frequent Colds or FluBrain FogAttention DeficitAutismCrohn’s, ColitisAnxietyProstatitisInterstitial CystitisFood AllergiesMitral Valve ProlapseLeaky GutSinus and Ear InfectionsConstipation or DiarrheaFatigueArthritisHypoglycemiaEczema and HivesHypothyroidismCarpal Tunnel

AsthmaMigrainesPoor sleepFibromyalgiaDepression

Notice that many of these same ailments areattributed to Candida or “The Yeast Syndrome.”That is because the yeast syndrome is reallydysbiosis. Dysbiosis is just a more general term.It encompasses the observation that yeast aren’tthe only intestinal residents that can cause thesesymptoms. In fact, intestinal bacteria or virusesmay have center stage in some of these illnesses,not yeast. Even though yeast isn’t the culpritevery time, the presence of intestinal yeast can bea huge factor in the health of some patients.Unfortunately, yeast overgrowth is particularlyhard to eradicate because yeast can live insidebody cells where antifungals cannot kill them.The sickest dysbiosis patients will have bothyeast and harmful bacteria in their intestines.

Depending on the situation, a person maywant to employ antibiotics, antifungals, antiviralsor antiparasitic medication to kill the pathogensinside the intestine. However, there is a lot moreto the art of getting well than just killingpathogens. If you kill off one resident of theintestines, another is going to take its place. Willit be good? Seeding the intestines with good

What’ s Dysbiosis? 9

bacteria can help ensure that the new growth ishealthy. Sometimes the lining of the intestinemust be washed in order to make space for theimplantation of the good bacteria. Although thismay be very helpful, this doesn’ t assure asuccessful outcome.

The situation is very analogous to farming.You can remove rocks, kill weeds and plant goodseeds, but you aren’ t going to get a good crop ifthe soil is poor. Your body is the soil. Bacterialive off of the mucous lining of the intestine. Yougrow this lining. Therefore, the bacteria areliving off of you. If your body chemistry iswrong, your intestinal bacteria aren’ t going to behealthy. That is one reason why some people getyeast/Candida after taking an antibiotic, andother people don’ t. Their body chemistry isdifferent.

How do you change the body’ s chemistry?Good food is part of the answer. How you canaid the body digest this food is covered in book2 of The Health Forum. Book 3 will give yousome idea of how to choose and prepare thatfood. Aren’ t there enough diet books out therealready? Unfortunately, there isn’ t one thatexplains why our dietary needs are so differentand how the food we eat affects our intestinalflora and body chemistry. This book attempts tofill that gap. Please be aware that sinceeveryone’ s needs are so different, this book willnot give you simplistic rules to follow. Instead,you may be shocked, because many of today’ sdietary golden rules will be shown to bedangerous. This book will teach you why ourmodern diet promotes dysbiosis and teach youhow to find a personal diet that will help youheal.

About The Health Forum BooksIn these books, you are listening to real peopletalk about their experiences with the yeast

syndrome, autism and mercury poisoning. Theconversations first took place on the Internet.Then they were compiled with permission intothese books. However, you will not be readingexact replicas of the Internet conversations.Editing was necessary to avoid repetition ofinformation and to help with the clarity ofpresentation. Often a person will post a messagethat covers many different topics. Including thewhole message/post would make organization ofthe book impossible. So most posts wereshortened to only include comments on one topicat a time. To improve the organization further,several real discussions on the same topic wereoften combined to create what appears to be onelong discussion in this book. Backgroundmaterial and introductory remarks were addedthrough the voice of Polly, the person whogathered the posts for this book. Occasionally,you will find a post from a Mr. or Mrs. Genericin this book. This was a necessary artifact to keepthe discussion moving.

Because there was so much informationgathered, it was necessary to split The HealthForum into several books.

Book 1 — Candida’s Impact on Your Health.Is the problem really Candida, or is it just aweakened and toxic body that allows thecandida/yeast to take over? What about bacteria,parasites and viruses? This book also covers thetotal body load, liver support, and the usualconcurrent health problems associated with yeastovergrowth.

Book 2 — Candidiasis and DysbiosisAbatement Techniques. This book delves intosome basic methods for eliminating the problem,like employing the right antibiotics, antifungals,and probiotics. Also, this book discusses theparticular vitamins and minerals that are morelikely to be depleted in this syndrome.

Diets for Immune Support and Gut HealthThe Health Forum—Book3

10

Book 3 — Diets for Immune Support and GutHealth. There isn’ t a perfect diet for everyone.However, some very common mistakes must beavoided. There is much that we can learn fromeach other.

Book 4 — Hormones, Dysbiosis andCandidiasis. When there is dysbiosis, often thereis low thyroid, high estrogen and/or weakadrenals. This book explores the proper use ofhormonal support when dysbiosis is present.Migraines are also covered.

Book 5 — Hope for Autism through Nutrition.This book covers autism, attention deficit, andvaccinations. Most people with autism havesevere dysbiosis. What helps the autistic providesinsight into everyone else’ s dysbiosis problem.The treatment of attention deficit is also touchedupon in this book. The treatment strategy is verysimilar to that for autism. The role ofvaccinations and mercury in triggering autism isalso explored.

Book 6 — Cleansing the Body of Mercury.Those who are mercury poisoned are very likelyto have dysbiosis. This book covers mercurydetoxification methods and the role of aminoacids in dysbiosis and mercury toxicity.

Book 7 — Fibromyalgia Treatment Options.Fibromyalgia is a special case of dysbiosis, withusually a bacterial overgrowth in the intestines.This bacterial overgrowth can contribute to thepoor sleep, lack of energy and hormonaldisturbances found in this condition. This bookdeparts from the usual format, and is but asummary of the information gleaned from thepatients and medical literature.

Even if you are only interested in the conditionsspecifically covered in the latter books, at somepoint you should consider reading the first few

books. The earlier books will add depth to yourunderstanding and give you many practical hintson how to recover. All the chapters are fairlyself-contained, so you can read the chapters orthe books in about any order you wish. However,if you are new to this subject, you will find thatthe chapters in the first books are easier to grasp.

The vast majority of messages found inbooks 1 to 4 came from the Healthy AwarenessInternet forum. These messages can still be foundin the archives at www.healthyawareness.com.However, the latter books are a little different asthey focus on autism, mercury poisoning andfibromyalgia. Although these illnesses arediscussed at the healthy awareness site, they arenot the main thrust of the conversations.Therefore, to a much greater extent, otherInternet resources were tapped to complete thesebooks.

The Internet ForumThe quotes in this book are but a snapshot in timeof the interactions found at the healthy awarenessforum. As people heal and move on with theirlives, they visit the healthy awareness forum lessoften. If you come visit the forum, most of thepeople found in this book will no longer be there.Yet, you will find other very interesting andcaring people at the forum who would love tohave you join them. Please be aware that at anyInternet site, including this forum, unfortunatemisunderstandings arise. When you visit, pleasetry to keep your posts polite and unambiguous.For many of us, fatigue and brain-fog make itdifficult to create perfect posts. Please don’ texpect perfection. The forum is a place to learn,express your thoughts and enjoy the camaraderie.Have fun!

www.healthyawareness.com

Diet ConsiderationsPolly: In this book, we will explore how tosupport the immune system with diet, and how toheal the intestines. Unfortunately, this bookcannot give you one ultimate diet that is right foreveryone. This book will, however, give youmany things to think about, and a place to start.

To heal, most people focus on eliminatingyeast and Candida from the intestines. However,we need to take a broader perspective and realizethat the immune system allows the Candida /yeast to grow. We also need to respect the rolethat intestinal bacteria, parasites and viruses playin altering digestion and immunity.

Since most people have had success withrestricting dietary sugars and carbohydrates, trythis first. Give it at least three weeks to determineif sugar is a factor or not. You might not be ableto tell immediately because during the firstcouple of weeks, you may be experiencing die-off symptoms. Look for foods that are not farfrom what nature provides. Then try differentthings mentioned here, and observe your bodyclosely. Your body will decide what is right inyour diet at any given time.

Keep a diary, and observe what helps youand what doesn’ t help. Also, learn what you canfrom other people’ s experiences and thoughts.Try to keep an open mind and choose whatmakes sense. Be willing to give up your presentdiet, even if logically you consider it an “ideal

diet.” Your body is the ultimate master. Payattention to how it reacts. Also be aware that thediet which is best for your body will change asyou heal.

There are five chapters on diet in this book.Several miscellaneous topics are presented in thefirst chapter, followed by chapters oncarbohydrates, fats, protein, and acid/alkalinebalancing.

Meal PreparationMrs. Generic: I quit making myself lowcarbohydrate meals because so much cookingwas involved. I have a high stress job, and littletime for this. Is there some way to minimize theamount of time spent cooking?

Dhyan: I am afraid I will be of no help in givingyou quick food ideas, but I would like, if I may,to express myself on food in general. In thisculture, we have funny ideas about food. Wecannot take the time to prepare it, which impliesit is of low worth to us, but then we will paylarge sums in fancy restaurants and such forothers to do the work for us and serve us the richand poorly combined food that promotes ourillnesses. We tend to put our jobs, our leisure, ourrelationships ahead of food, something withoutwhich, none of those things would be concerning


12

us. I see at least a part of the struggle withcandidiasis as a healing of our relationship tofood£the thing we do not live and breathewithout. There is nothing anymore importantthan this, nothing, yet we want it fast, furious,and deadly.

I too have a very busy job at university andhave stresses as well with which to deal, but untilI began putting nutrition first and healing myrelationship to food, I made very little headwaywith this affliction. Now, in spite of how busy Iam or all else that needs being done, twice a day,I find a way to tie on my apron, cease all else,bow low, and enter my kitchen to prepare my“medicine,” my food. There is no more beautifulthing in my life. These meal-makings havebecome sustenance for me in more ways thanone£both physically and spiritually. This maysound very silly, but my kitchen has become mytemple, for in it, I find nutrients for both the bodyand soul. The more I give over to each mealexperience, the more I receive. Healthy foodmade with attentiveness and appreciative wondertastes entirely different from food made indistraction or haste.

I hope this does not sound too silly to you,but this is very much the case for me. As Imentioned, until I gave myself permission toforsake all else, suspend all other worries andtake whatever time is needed to eat healthyeveryday, my progress was fitful and slow. Icannot tell each and every one of you how tomake time for this. Each has to first understandits importance before you can understand thatyou CAN unseat your career, your stresses, yourleisure and your relationships from top spot ofenergy draw, and in their place, place food,without which you do none of these thingsanyway. I meant not to discomfort you with thissoapbox (nor did I mean to soapbox!), buteveryone here shares their successful ideas, andthis one is mine. Make as important as your life

the living things you eat, and wonderful healingcan come about on more levels than just one.

Food AllergiesSue P: Early this year, I decided to go off sugar.Lo and behold, once I got off sugar, I realizedother foods were making me feel rotten. Theyinclude all yeasts, molds, and fermented foods,but also others: milk, soy, citrus fruit. Anyway, Iwent to an allergist who did the traditional tests,and said I am allergic to molds. He refused to dothe ALCAT testing for other allergies because hesaid it “isn’ t science,” even though my PPO willpay for it. And he said usually those tests tellpeople they can’ t eat anything. However, I wantto take the tests for find out what I can eat. I needhelp with my food allergies and don’ t knowwhere to turn.

Polly: I took a blood test and was allergic toevery food. The foods that I was most allergic toon the test were the foods that I had eaten thatweek. Things like barley and tangerine that Irarely eat showed up as highly allergenic justbecause I had rotated them into my food plan thatweek. Big deal! It didn’ t tell me anything. Therewas nothing done about it either. I was just toldto avoid those foods.

However, if you decide to do these tests, thebest results are usually obtained after you haveremoved the main allergens or problem foods. Beaware that there will be foods that you shouldavoid that you are not allergic to. They will notshow on the test. You need to be the detective.For those interested, there are many labs that willdo an IgG food allergy blood test£Great PlainsLab, KS, 913 341 8949, Great Smokies Lab, NC,800 522 4762, Immuno Laboratories, FL, 800231 9197, Meridian Valley Lab, WA, 253 8598700, and MetaMetrix, GA, 800 221 4640.

General Diet Considerations 13

There are many things that I feel could helpyou deal with the food allergies and reactions.

1) Keep a diary. Notice if a pattern developswith any one food. Look for emotional aswell as physical reactions. Be aware thatsome reactions may not appear for 24 to 72hours after ingestion of the offending food,or longer if you are constipated. Then thereare more subtle reactions. It took me a coupleof months to realize that avoiding potatoeswas helpful. I wasn’ t allergic to them, but theyeast in my body liked them. Similarly,anyone with Clostridia bacteria shouldprobably avoid wheat, oats and casein (aprotein found in milk.) [1] Once in a while,you will be sensitive to certain combinationsof food, so watch for that too.

2) Be particularly wary of any food that youcrave or eat large quantities of; that is anindication of a possible problem with thatfood. The usual allergens are wheat, corn,eggs, chocolate, and/or milk products.

3) Nightshade plants seem to be a problem forsome people with arthritis. Nightshade plantsare bell peppers, chili, pimento, paprika,cayenne, eggplant, tobacco, and potatoes butnot sweet potatoes and yams.

4) If you have yeast overgrowth, you are morelikely than most to be sensitive to yeasts,mushrooms, vinegar, and cheeses. But youcan eat these if you aren’ t sensitive to them.In particular, if vinegar doesn’ t bother you,you might consider using apple cider vinegaron you salads. Some people have found ithelpful because vinegar, being an acid, killsyeast and bacteria, and can support thestomach acid levels.

5) Be careful about MSG, modified food starch,and hydrolyzed vegetable protein. You aremore likely than most to react adversely tothese.

6) If you are mercury poisoned, you are morelikely than most to be sensitive to foods witha high sulfur content, like eggs, milk,cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brusselssprouts, onions, garlic and coffee.

7) Some people are sensitive to certain colors intheir vegetables. It isn’ t necessarily anallergy, but an inability of the liver to dealwith certain colors.

8) If aged cheese (not cottage cheese or creamcheese), wine, Brewer’ s yeast, and chocolategive you a headache, then you might bereacting to the tyramine in these foods.

9) Be aware that you might react differently tovegetables and fruits that have beengenetically altered. Organic fruits andvegetables are not supposed to be geneticallymodified. In Europe, genetically engineeredfood is labeled. However, if you live in theUSA, it is hard to tell when you are eatinggenetically engineered food. There is norequirement to label it as such. See www.truefoodnow.org/index.html

10) Elimination diet. I’ ve not tried this, but otherssay that this is a good way to uncover foodallergies. You go on a diet with foods that aregenerally considered non-allergenic and then,after a few weeks, you start adding in onefood at a time and observe your reaction.

11) Rotation diet. This means eating a particularfood no more than once every three or fourdays. You might try the rotation idea, butpersonally, I found it big hassle to keep trackof the foods. With most meals, I was left withonly one or two things to eat. Instead, Iseemed better off when I ate as large avariety of foods as possible at each meal. Ifyou mix vegetables and meat at each meal,then it will be more acid/alkaline balanced.When this happens, I believe you are lesslikely to have an allergic reaction.

www.truefoodnow.org/index.html


14

12) Cutting down on the gut inflammation willhelp get rid of the food reactions. This can bedone by eating some roughage but not toomuch. A little fish oil and some emu oilmight bring the inflammation down. Butter issoothing to the intestines.

13) Taking probiotics can lessen the foodallergies. People recommend that you startthe probiotics after you have gotten thebacteria or yeast down with diet. Then yougradually add higher doses of probiotics.

14) MSM and Seacure will improve the health ofthe gut. This may help with the allergies. Forthe money, MSM is the best to start with.Seacure costs about $40 retail for a month’ ssupply. For $20 you can buy enough MSMfor several months. Both are very good forimproving the collagen of the intestines.Some people cannot tolerate the Seacure,possibly because it has a little rosemary in it.Some people cannot tolerate the MSM,especially those with heavy metal poisoning.

15) Vitamin A and the correct amount of zinc arevery important for the health of theintestines.

16) The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) mayhelp cut down the intestinal inflammation. Itis worth trying. You will have to avoid allgrains. However, there are some people whocan go on a modified SCD diet, and eatbrown rice or corn once in a while.

17) NAET (Nambudripad Allergy EliminationTechniques) is a rather strange way of gettingrid of allergies. However, I spoke with awoman who finds it a godsend and uses it allthe time to control her reactions to newlyoffending substances. After taking treatmentsfrom Dr. Nambudripad, eventually shelearned to do it on her own. You wash yourhands, then hold the offending substance ora glass vial containing the offending

substance. Then you tap various acupressurepoints and also use an electronic device tostimulate some acupuncture points. Then youwash your hands again. You must avoid theoffending substance for the next 24 hours.When you first start this treatment sequence,there is a specific order of substances thatyou treat, usually starting with B vitamins.Dr. Devi Nambudripad has a book called SayGoodbye to Illness, and a website at www.NAET.com .

18) A drug called sodium cromoglycate (Intaland Nalcrom) helps prevent food allergies,inflammation and leaky gut. The drug keepsmast cells from emptying their serotonin andhistamine when presented with antigens. 200mg is taken 4 times daily, 15 to 20 minutesbefore meals. (Without consistency, you canget yourself into trouble.) The drug alsohelps prevent migraines caused by foodallergies. I wouldn’ t rely solely on this. Youhave to implement other strategies too. (Inthe form of an over-the-counter nasal spray,Nasalcrom, this drug can be helpful inpreventing airborne allergies and snoring.However, I tried it, and it didn’ t help me.)

If all of the above fails to help, then you have tolook at what might be causing your immunesystem to react adversely. Mercury or otherheavy metals, toxins, Lyme or other infectionscan be the root cause of your problem. Even aninjury to your spine could cause a paralyzedbowel syndrome, which could make it easier foryeast and bacteria to overgrow.

Mary W: The sodium cromoglycate is alsocalled cromolyn sodium (a.k.a. Gastro Chrom),which has been around for a long time. I knowsomeone who is basically allergic to all food whoswears by it. You have to take it faithfully for 3-4weeks before it kicks in. Apparently the most

www.NAET.com


effective form is compounded which most MDsdon’ t know (surprise, surprise).

Mr. Generic: Get your doctor to order cromolynsodium 400 mg by mouth, four times a day for 30days, with two refills. It comes in a powder form.You mix 1/2 teaspoon (which contains 1600 mg)with a little hot water then dilute it with enoughcold water to equal a quart. Then you drink a cupfour times a day, 20 minutes before each meal.All the instruction will come with your order. It’ stotally easy to use, just like drinking plain water.It’ s tasteless and odorless. It’ s lumpy when youput it in cold water, but melts readily in hotwater. Not all compounding pharmacies make it.Your doctor can order it from:

Clark’ s Pharmacy15615 Bel-Red RoadBellevue, WA. 98008

phone (425)881-0222

It will cost about $100 for a month if youpurchase it from this pharmacy. Most insurancecompanies should pay for it if you submit aclaim. However, check with them to get theprocedures down correct, because someinsurance companies are pretty picky aboutcompounded substances. My naturopath saysmost people turn around in about 6 weeks. He isrecommending a three-month course.

Sue P: I guess I’ m wondering if you know of agood support group on the net for this kind ofthing.

Polly: Besides the forum, you might want to jointhe SCD diet list or the Paleolithic diet list, orboth. Both of these diets are probably close towhat you need. Here are two SCD lists: [email protected], and

[email protected]. This is a Paleolithicwebsite www.paleodiet.com. This site has moreinformation on food allergies, www.food-allergy.org.

Soy Foods and the Impact on YourThyroidMary Shomon: In researching my book, LivingWell With Hypothyroidism: What Your DoctorsDon’ t Tell You...That You Need to Know, fromHarperCollins, I talked to Dr. Mike Fitzpatrick,an environmental scientist and phytoestrogenresearcher who has conducted in-depth studies onsoy, particularly the use of soy formulas. Dr.Fitzpatrick makes it clear that soy products canhave a detrimental affect on both adults andinfants. In particular, he firmly believe that soyformula manufacturers should remove theisoflavones£that part of the soy products that actas anti-thyroid agents£from their products.

Researchers have identified that theisoflavones act as potent anti-thyroid agents, andare capable of suppressing thyroid function, andcausing or worsening hypothyroidism. Soy is aphytoestrogen, and therefore acts in the bodymuch like a hormone, so it’ s no surprise that itinteracts with the delicate balance of thethyroid’ s hormonal systems. High consumptionof soy products is also proven to cause goiter. [2]

Isoflavones belong to the flavonoid orbioflavonoid family of chemicals, and areconsidered endocrine disrupters£plants or otherproducts that act as hormones, disrupting theendocrine system, and in some cases, thisdisruption involves acting as an anti-thyroidagent. (The grain millet, for example, containshigh levels of flavonoids, and is commonlyknown as problematic for thyroid function).Flavonoids inhibit thyroid peroxidase (TPO),which disturbs proper thyroid function.

www.paleodiet.com

www.food


16

A feature on soy in the March 1999 issue ofNatural Health magazine quoted Daniel R.Doerge, PhD, a researcher at the Food and DrugAdministration’ s National Center forToxicological Research. Dr. Doerge hasresearched soy’ s anti-thyroid properties, and hassaid “ . . . I see substantial risks from taking soysupplements or eating huge amounts of soyfoodsfor their putative disease preventive value. Thereis definitely potential for interaction with thethyroid.”

One UK study of premenopausal womengave 60 grams of soy protein per day for onemonth. This was found to disrupt the menstrualcycle, with the effects of the isoflavonescontinuing for a full three months after stoppingthe soy in the diet. Isoflavones are also known tomodify fertility and change sex hormone status.Isoflavones have been shown to have serioushealth effects£including infertility, thyroiddisease or liver disease£on a number ofmammals.

Infant Soy Formulas £ParticularDangersMary Shomon: Since the late 1950’ s, it has beenknown that soy formulas contain anti-thyroidagents. Infants on soy formula are particularlyvulnerable to developing autoimmune thyroiddisease when exposed to high exposure ofisoflavones over time. [3] This study found thatthe frequency of feedings with soy-based milkformulas in early life was noticeably higher inchildren with autoimmune thyroid disease, andthyroid problems were almost triple in those soyformula-fed children compared to their siblingsand healthy unrelated children. Dr. Fitzpatrickeven believes that long-term feeding with soyformulas inhibits TPO to such an extent thatlong-term elevated TSH levels can also raise therisk of thyroid cancer.

Not much is being done in the U.S. to makeparents aware of the thyroid-related dangers ofsoy formulas, or to alert the public that heavy soyconsumption may be a danger to thyroidfunction. Other countries, however, are far aheadof the U.S. In July of 1996, the BritishDepartment of Health issued a warning thatthe phytoestrogens found in soy-based infantformulas could adversely affect infant health.The warning was clear, indicating that soyformula should only be given to babies on theadvice of a health professional. They advised thatbabies who cannot be breastfed or who haveallergies to other formulas be given alternativesto soy-based formulas.

Polly: Those warnings apply to toddlers too. Soybased milk substitutes meant for adults aren’ t agood idea for children. Besides the isoflavonesproblem, they don’ t supply enough vitamin D toprevent rickets. Rice milk is a problem fortoddlers too. It doesn’ t have enough protein in itto keep a child healthy. [4]

Detoxify, But Don’t FastPolly: This following article can be found at Dr.Lynda Wells’ website on natural healing. It isrepeated with permission. Dr. Well’ s practice isin Rode Island, where she offers clinicalnutrition, botanical medicine, homeopathy, HathaYoga, Reiki, craniosacral therapy, Japanesemagnetic healing, and colon cleansing.http://oak.cc.conncoll.edu/~rjcha/wells/wells.htm

Mr. Generic: What do think of fasting fordetoxification? Do you recommend a water orjuice fast and for how long?

Lynda Wells, PhD: Toxins are excreted throughour skin, in the urine, from the lungs, and via theliver and gallbladder into the feces. The excesses

http://oak.cc.conncoll.edu/~rjcha/wells/wells.htm


are stored in the body especially in fatty tissue.As we age, unless we take care of ourselves, weare storing toxins produced by our ownmetabolism, and those produced in our unhealthyintestines by bacteria and yeast. In addition weare accumulating food additives like artificialcoloring, preservatives, flavorings, conditionersas well as herbicides and pesticides, exhaustfumes, industrial wastes and so on. There are1000 newly synthesized compounds introducedeach year, according to the 1989 Kellogg Report;that is 3 new chemicals per day.

When the body experiences an overload oftoxic substances, the consequences can beheadache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue,irritability, depression, mental confusion,gastrointestinal tract irregularities, cardiovascularirregularities, flu-like symptoms, or allergicreactions including hives, stuffy or runny nose,sneezing, and coughing. Toxic overload may alsocontribute to more serious conditions such asautoimmune disease including inflammatory andrheumatoid arthritis, and neurological diseasesuch as Alzheimer and Parkinsons diseases.

Unfortunately when we try to rid ourselves ofthese toxins by fasting (or even when we diet forweight loss), these toxins get released from fatand cause free radical damage to our DNA andproteins, ie cause accelerated aging. Besidestoxin release, there is evidence of muscle wastingwhen fasting for an extended period.

If someone is relatively young and healthyand has been on a good diet, I will recommend aone day “ fast” every week, indefinitely. On thatday, I recommend that they eat as much as theywant of the same kind of fruit all day long, suchas apples or grapes or oranges (if not allergic tocitrus). I prefer whole fruits rather than juicesboth for their natural fiber content and becausethe sugars from whole fruits trickle into thebloodstream more slowly than sugars from juice.That means no steep rise in blood sugar and little

hypoglycemic rebound. Drinking 8 glasses ofwater, and having a sauna on the fast day willpromote excretion of toxins directly through theskin, which will help to make fasting less taxingon the body. (Here in Wakefield, we have a $1sauna that a great group of woman go to. Webare our souls to each other as well as our bodies,therapists for each other—social life as well ashealth benefits!) On the following day, a twoquart cleansing enema is helpful. But if peopleare unhealthy and/or overweight, the currentnutritional thinking (such as by Dr. Jeffrey Blandin his 1995 seminar “ New Essentials inNutritional Medicine” ) is, rather than fasting, goon a two to four week diet that:

1) Removes foods and beverages that are likelyto contain toxins and/or food allergens. Somesubstances that everyone should avoid butespecially sick people are tobacco, alcohol,excessive salt, caffeine, irritating spices,refined carbohydrates, processed, canned,refined, man-made or otherwise adulterated“ phoods” , rancid foods, and hydrogenatedfats and oils.

2) meets the basic daily nutritional needs of anindividual, including adequate, high-biological-value protein content. What theperson does eat depends on their uniquegenetic makeup, predisposition, illnesses, anddiet intake history and on their total toxinload. Usually an adequate diet would includesome fruit, vegetables, millet, rice, cleanflesh foods or legumes, and yogurt if notallergic to any of the above. There is a highrice protein concentrate that I’ ve been findingextremely helpful for highly allergic orotherwise compromised people.

3) provides adequate flushing with “ clean”water to promote the elimination ofbiotransformed toxins.


18

4) provides increased amounts of the nutrientsthat are required in the enzymatic steps thatoccur in the transformation of toxins in theliver. Let me explain what the liver does. Ithas a complex system of biochemicalpathways, called Phase I and Phase IIdetoxification reactions. These pathwaysserve to restructure undesirable chemicals sothat they can be eliminated from the body. Inmost cases this involves modifying thesechemicals in such a way that they go frombeing fat-soluble substances to water-solubleones which can then be excreted, either to thegallbladder and thence to the stools, or toblood and thence to the urine.

Those who are deficient in nutrients that supportthe liver’ s Phase I reactions (as determined byliver function tests), need more B vitamins,glutathione, branched-chain amino acids,flavonoids, phospholipids. Those that aredeficient in the nutrients that support Phase IIenzymes need added antioxidants and the aminoacids, glycine, taurine and sulfur donors such asglutathione, N-acetyl cysteine, methionine,cystine and cysteine.

To summarize, a water fast, being totallydevoid of energy sources or supportive nutrients,may in fact cause much damage due to toxinrelease from fat tissue to blood and consequentfree radical damage. A juice fast is better since itprovides nutrients, but is still deficient in some ofthe rate-limiting vitamins, minerals, and aminoacids that the liver needs to convert the toxins toexcretory products. The latest nutritional thinkingis to provide top notch clean nutrition fordetoxification, so there is no muscle wasting andso the liver detoxifying enzymes work optimally,thereby preventing free radical damage.

Polly: I would like to add that anyone withMultiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) needs to becareful in how quickly they detoxify. Detoxifying

too quickly could make their sensitivities worse.Dr. Cheney emphasizes that CFIDS and MCSpatients bring up their glutathione levels beforebeginning any detoxification program.

Undenatured WheyPolly: Undenatured whey is whey that has notbeen heated enough to ruin its healing properties.Heating destroys the immunoglobulins andbreaks the peptides. Undenatured whey containsglutyl-cysteine (a peptide) rather than justcysteine. [5] Glutyl-cysteine and cystine are whatthe cells need to make glutathione. Undenaturedwhey will raise glutathione levels. This whey willalso help resolve anemia. Those with AIDS andCFIDS have found it invaluable.

However, there are some drawbacks to whey.Because of the high cysteine and cystine content,there is considerable debate over whether it isadvisable for those who are mercury poisoned.Cysteine will move the mercury around. Toomuch cysteine will also suppress thyroid.Another problem with whey is that it contains arelatively high amount of tryptophan compared tomilk or cheese. Too much tryptophan could beharmful.

Undenatured whey is essentially raw whey,but legally they have to call it pasteurized inorder to sell it. They use microfiltering to makesure there is no bacteria in it. The method bywhich they do the microfiltering is different foreach company. Therefore you will get somedifferences in effectiveness between the products.

The brand called Immunocal is excellent, butit is about twice the price of the otherundenatured whey products. It is from a networkmarketing company, Immunotec, making itsomewhat difficult to buy. You can’ t just call upand order some. You need to have a sponsor orbecome part of their sales force, at least in nameonly. Phone: (888) 917-7779 or (450) 424-9992


and website: www.immunotec.com or www.immunocal.com. The Immunocal productis approved for Medicare—meaning that undersome circumstances (like AIDS or severe chronicfatigue), your insurance might pay for it,assuming you send them the correct forms. Thepeople at Immunocal, Inc, can help you get theforms you need.

IMUPlus is another undenatured wheyproduct. It can be purchased through AllergyResearch / Nutricology, phone (800) 782-4274 oror website www.nutricology.com. There is alsoImmunePro undenatured whey. ImmunePro isavailable from N.E.E.D.S., phone (800) 634-1380, website www.needs.com.

For those few who have access to raw milk,and who are not so immunocompromised thatthey worry about the bacteria and viruses in rawmilk, they can make their own undenaturedwhey. Whey is the liquid left over after makingcottage cheese. The bacteria have eaten thelactose (milk sugar), so there shouldn’ t be muchleft in the whey. The whey will have very littlecasein in it too. The casein is left with the curds.(Casein is a milk protein that some people cannottolerate.)

Raw MilkPolly: Only in California and Florida are USAcitizens allowed to buy certified raw milk.Citizens of other states can get raw cheese, andsometimes they can get raw goat milk, but that isall. Why should anyone with dysbiosis beconcerned about this? Because fresh raw milkseems to be better for the intestinal track thanpasteurized milk. This quote is from The Milk ofHuman Kindness is not Pasteurized orHomogenized, by William Campbell Douglass,MD.

“Dr. Paul Cassidy reported before a dairyconvention the phenomenal results he had had at

St. Vincent’ s Hospital in Philadelphia byswitching from pasteurized to raw certified milk.The commercial pasteurized milk often had abacteria count of 200,000. The sister in charge ofthe hospital was very concerned about the highdeath among infants from gastroenteritis. Sheasked Dr. Cassidy for his advice, and herecommended a switch from pasteurized to rawcertified milk. The pasteurized Chicken Littlespredicted that there would be a catastrophicincrease in infant deaths from using raw milk.The death rate from gastroenteritis quickly fellfrom a high of 89 in 1922 to less than five peryear. [Annual Convention, Certified MilkProducers Association, Hotel Roosevelt, NewYork City, February 8, 1938.]”

Sally Fallon’ s book, Nourishing Traditions,contains an infant formula recipe that uses rawmilk. However, just to be on the safe side, beforegiving raw milk to an infant or child, alwaysdrink enough of the milk yourself first, so you aresure it is fresh and clean. Some brands areconsistently fresher tasting than others are.

Douglass’ s book makes many wonderfularguments for using raw certified milk. Peoplecan’ t argue with the fact that the minerals andother nutrients in raw milk are more available tothe body; but it is hard to change people’ sattitude towards all that live bacteria that ispresent in the milk. Yet, did you know that thegovernment allows much more bacteria inpasteurized milk than it does in raw certifiedmilk? I’ m not claiming that any milk is 100%safe, and I believe you must be careful with anytype of milk. Never drink any milk if it smells ortastes bad. Yet, I believe that when you balancethe benefits versus risks, most of us are muchbetter off with fresh raw milk from grass-fedanimals where the milk has been carefullycollected and properly inspected.

www.immunotec.com

www.immunocal.com

www.nutricology.com

www.needs.com


20

Even though raw milk is generally notavailable, I’ ve occasionally seen some milk thatis pasteurized but not homogenized. At least thisis one step in the right direction. Why should ourmilk be homogenized? Homogenization doesnothing good for you except keep the cream fromseparating from the milk. It doesn’ t kill bacteriaand it isn’ t harmless. Homogenization increasesthe absorption of XO, Xanthene Oxidase, fromthe milk, which contributes to hardening of thearteries.

With raw milk, it is best to drink whole milk.With homogenized milk, because of the XO, Idon’ t know if we should be using this product ornot. Yet I do know that often the 1% and 2%milk have added “ milk solids” . This is justanother name for powdered milk. Unfortunatelyyou don’ t know how long this powdered milk hasbeen in storage, and whether or not it has hadtime to go rancid. Fortunately, they usually don’ tput the powdered milk in the whole milk or theskim milk. Therefore, if you want 1% or 2%milk, buy some whole milk and skim milk andmix them half-and-half. Or if you can find someunhomogenized cream, add that to the skim milk.At least this way you avoid the powdered milkand the homogenization. For more information,see

www.rawmilk.org

ww.karlloren.com/aajonus/p15.htm

William Campbell Douglass, MD, hasretitled his book on milk and has made itavailable as an affordable paperback. His book isnow called The Milk Book/How Science isDestroying Nature’ s Nearly Perfect Food. ThePrice-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation carriesWilliam Campbell’ s book, phone (800) 366-3748, or website www.price-pottenger.org. It isalso available from from Radiant Life (888) 593-8333

Dr. William Campbell Douglass also has avery entertaining monthly newsletter called “ RealHealth,” where he exposes many of the healthmyths of our time. phone call 800-851-7100.http://www.realhealthnews.com/index.html

YogurtMomatpop: Hi Polly, thank you for yourresponse to my message about loosening up thediet. You suggested 2-4 weeks of yogurt withadded acidophilus. About the yogurt, is goat milkpreferable to cow? Have you tried the 48-houryogurt? Or do you just buy good quality yogurt?Thanks so much for your help.

Polly: Goat milk might be less allergenic.Making your own yogurt is ideal. In ElaineGottschall’ s book Breaking the Vicious Cycle(SCD diet), she goes into detail on how to makeyour own yogurt, and states:

“While this yoghurt may not be as thick ascommercial yoghurt, it will be a true yoghurtsince virtually all of the lactose has been digestedby the bacterial culture and further lactosedigestion will not be required by intestinal cells.”

Personally, I don’ t want to spend the timemaking yogurt, and I don’ t really need to now. Ican easily tolerate milk sugar. I like Brown Cowand Mountain High brands because they aren’ tfull of weird additives. However, yogurt productsusually contain the bacteria S. thermophilus. Inlarge quantities, this bacteria will push your bodymore towards the Th2 side. [6] Read the labels.Some manufacturers have the audacity to kill thegood bacteria after the yogurt has formed. Thesedead yogurts have labels stating they containpasteurized cultured milk instead of culturedpasteurized milk.

There is a milk-culture product called Bio-K,which is carried in some vitamin shops. It tastes

www.rawmilk.org

www.price

http://www.realhealthnews.com/index.html


a bit like sour cream and yogurt. If your vitaminshop doesn’ t carry it, you can probably call thecompany and ask where to purchase it. (800)593-2465 It contains fresh live cultures of L.acidophilus and L. casei, with a minimumguarantee of 50 billion live active cells perserving. (It doesn’ t contain S. thermophilus, andyet it tastes good.) Getting your probiotics insuch a medium helps keep the probiotics alive. Itsounds better than taking a capsule of probiotics.The Bio-K company suggests that you start withsmaller quantities and gradually increase the doseto avoid any adverse GI symptoms. Results mayappear after 15 to 30 days. The catch? It isn’ tcheap. $4.00 per serving. One minor caution. Ifyou are rich (sure you are), and could afford toeat a ton of this product, it wouldn’ t be a goodidea to go overboard, at least not at first, becauseof the high potency. You could make yourselfsick. I don’ t know how it would turn out trying touse this as a starter culture. However, I wouldn’ treuse any homemade product as a culture forextended periods. There is the potential foreventually growing a strain that is not good foryou. I’ d purchase the starter culture from areputable company every so often. Here isanother option. Custom probiotics is nowoffering yogurt starter cultures with the bacteriaof your choice. Website: www.customprobiotics.com, phone (818) 248-3529.

Lynn of Virginia: Go to the health food storeand buy yogurt. You can make your own fromthat...no need to buy a starter. Four tablespoonsto a gallon is what you use. There is a lot of infoon the net about making yogurt. Do a search!Once you make your own, you will never wantstore bought again. I just bought a cookbookfrom Amazon.com, Recipes for Yogurt Cheese. Ihad originally checked it out from the library andliked it so much that I bought it.

MM: I make my own yogurt and kefir. Store-bought stuff is not cultured for long enough, andso, has TOO much remaining lactose.

Cultured veggies may work also, but store-bought cabbage has spent too much time intransit and in stores, and so does NOT havesufficient LIVE lactobacillus remaining toproduce a good culture process. In other words,I’ ve made sauerkraut with home-raised cabbageand it WORKS, but it doesn’ t work well withstore-bought cabbage. I tried several batches withcabbage bought at different stores, and the resultwas always the same£MOLDY, spoiledcabbage. One batch, I finally “ spiked” by addingsome of my probiotics. This batch, and this batchonly fermented correctly.

Dhyan: May I add another perspective on dairy?In Chinese medicine, diary is “ moistening” ormucus-promoting. In mucus, many yeasts canfind safe sanctuary, since by its nature (mucus),things can “ stick” to it (as it sticks in you).Consider dairy from its “ damp” and mucus-forming properties, and whether you arecompatible with that day-by-day, season-by-season or not. As one young woman indicated,yogurt is not working for her right now, and thiswould be true of the late summer humidity inwhich I presently find myself. Yogurt is anobviously beneficial way to reintroduce friendlybacteria, but consider your particularsituation£whether you are eating enough“ drying” foods to compensate, whether theweather is too “ damp” for more interior moisture.There are other ways to ingest probiotics if it isnot a good day for dampness.

Polly: Dhyan, What are some of the dryingfoods? Or where is there a good list of dampversus dry foods?

www.customprobiotics.com


22

Dhyan: Dampness is caused by acid-formingfoods such as meats, oil-bearing nuts, rancidity infood, poor food-combining and eating late atnight, or eating too much£anything which slowsdown digestion. (Many people here are meat-eaters, so I do not wish to offend the use of meatas protein source.) Drying foods are: rye,amaranth, corn (drying, but one must rememberits sweetness), aduki beans (and other smalllegumes—split peas, lentils, mung), asparagus,apple cider vinegar, celery, lettuce, pumpkin,scallion, alfalfa, turnip, kohlrabi, white pepper,and all bitter herbs such as chamomile, chaparral,micro-algae. The reference is Paul Pitchford’ sbook, Healing with Whole Foods: OrientalTraditions and Modern Nutrition.

Pitchford claims that contrary to mostmodern candida-control diets, a larger variety ofgrains are possible, such as millet, kasha, rye,oats, barley, amaranth, quinoa. These arevaluable for their lignins and other factors thatinhibit anaerobic growth. In order to tune into thenature of food in this way, one must realize thata stalk of celery, though watery and sweet,actually produces a drying effect on the body.Once one’ s intuition is able to take over from allthe facts and figures, you will be able to tellyourself which food is making endemicconditions for you (fluid, mucus), and whichfoods are not. It is also important to understandthe dampness of things around you so that youcan adjust with nature in its constant flux. Bathsare actually drying! Many of us remember whathappened when we drank a cold milkshake. Thethroat becomes coated with mucus! “ Cold”produces a defending mucus. The yin/yang,damp/dry, excess/deficiency, heat/coldconditions are configured individually ineveryone. This is why building intuition isimportant to this approach and why everyoneresponds differently to things. There is far more

to this method of understanding than I canpossible do justice to here.

In terms of the probiotics discussion,Pitchford recommends spore-based products suchas L. sporogenes and B. laterosporus as more“ effective” than L. acidophilus for their“ transient” as opposed to resident effect on thedigestive tract. These spores are supposed to notonly kill candida albicans, but also to help eatsome of the waste left behind. I only felt “ ready”to begin doing this in the past two days and cansay only that die-off reactions again occur.

Pitchford’ s book was the only thing to put“ me” all back together£give me back to myselffor healing. I understand this condition from amore intuitive level, now. I can flex with itsmanifestations daily without thinking so hard orconsulting resources. I can look at food and knowwhether it’ s the right thing at the right time. I canlive more “ naturally,” as it were, believing in myown ability to claim this yeast that’ s in my bodyas mine and “ negotiate” its taming. Finally, Ihave begun healing “ from the ground up,” withmore die-off and more headway, returned energy,and the tears and happiness of full-cleansing thanI have with any other approach. When there aresetbacks, I know exactly why. I wish foreveryone also an intuitive approach to each oftheir individual conditions, whether it’ s throughthis book or not. It’ s like Plato and the hugebeast: if you can only see one foot or leg of itbecause of its sheer magnitude and size, then youknow not the nature of the whole beast. Incandida and fear of it, it becomes too large andtoo frightful to “ see” and thus needs brought back“ inside” where it can be witnessed “ whole.”

Fruit KefirMM: SR, you mentioned that kefir wasbeneficial for you. Do you have kefir grains? Ifso, I KNOW that you can make “ fruit


kefir“£made from fruit juice and kefir grains. Iwould suspect that you also could make “ carrotkefir” using kefir grains and carrot juice. Haveyou ever tried these?? It may provide the kefirbenefits to you without the dairy allergyproblems that you face.

SR: I NEVER thought of fruit kefir. What afantastic idea! I have no Kefir spores left. I triedto freeze them but they died anyway. I got minefrom a Dr. friend, years ago, and he is out ofpractice. Do you have a recommendation as towhere I might be able to order them?

MM: You can order actual kefir grains from:Betty Stechmeyer & Gordon Mcbride GemCultures 30301 Sherwood Road, Fort Bragg, CA95437 Phone (707) 964 2922. Gem Cultures wasVERY prompt, when I ordered from them. Kefirgrains for starting 2 cups of milk were $20including shipping. They sell other products inaddition to kefir grains. www.gemcultures.com

SR: Thank you so much for the Kefir sporesinformation. My kefir spores use to be just likeyours, gelatinous and big. Is that the way theones are from Gem Cultures? My doctor got theones he gave to me from a foreign country as agift to him for helping out some nomadic peoplein 1961. At my peak of kefiring I had about 3 to4 pounds of them in the freezer. I wouldexperiment with them as to how long to allowthem to do their thing and sometimes it would getso thick it was like soft cheese. I actually got abig kick out it. It doesn’ t take much to make mehappy. My family thought I was nuts when Ibrought my spores on vacation. They would callthem my pets! haha Anyway thanks again.

Mrs. Generic: How do you use the Kefir grains?

MM: Kefir grains are gelatinous-like things thatcontain the kefir culture organisms. My kefirgrains range in size from specks to some that arethe size of a quarter. Some think that they looklike bits of cauliflower.

If you buy REAL kefir grains, you put theminto a specified amount of milk (2 cups for theoriginal source that I had mentioned), and letthem do their culturing thing. I let mine culturefor about 2 days. Then, I strain out the kefirgrains (rinse in NON-chlorinated water and thenreuse these). The liquid is kefir. I let my kefirliquid sit for a few more days to ensure that thelactose has been digested. As you continue toreuse the kefir grains, they will multiply. I gotmy grains in the end of May and, at this time, Ihave enough grains to make 1 gallon of kefir at atime.

Kefir tastes like mild blue cheese, to me.Some like to add stevia and/or fruit to it, butthat’ s up to you and your candida!

You can buy packets of freeze-dried kefirstarter from some companies. You don’ t reusethese, because they don’ t contain the actualgrains. Before learning about the difference, Ihad bought some of the powdered starter fromLifeways, but I never used it. Instead, I got realkefir grains.

Polly: Cultured kefir fruit should contain muchless fructose (a type of sugar) than fresh fruit.The kefir bacteria and yeast would use up thefructose. With less fructose, fruit should betolerated much better. About 40% of people withIBS experience gas and bloating after eatingfructose. An even higher percentage (80%)shows evidence of hydrogen or methane in theirbreath after ingesting fructose. [7]

www.gemcultures.com


24

Why Can’t We Drink Milk?C: Why can’ t we drink milk? If we are notlactose intolerant, how does it affect the yeast?

Barbara: According to John Parks Trowbridge,MD in The Yeast Syndrome, milk from cowsencourages the growth of yeast because it isunfavorable to L. acidophilus, man’ s friendlybacteria that keeps yeast in check.

RB: The other problem with most milk is that thecows are fed grain with pesticides and fungicidesand given antibiotics, cortisone and hormones toprevent illness. This causes an increase in yeastand problems for the immune system. The onlykind even half way safe is organic but the sugarin the milk will still promote yeast growth.

Polly: Trowbridge must have been referring tosomething other than the direct effect of the milkon the Lactobacillus. According to NatashaNatren’ s book on probiotics,

“ The prefix lacto£from the Latin for‘milk’£indicates that these bacteria prefer amilk-based growing medium.”

The intolerance could stem from the allergiescaused by a failure to break food proteins intopeptides, or the intolerance could stem from theinability to digest lactose or milk sugar. (About30% of people with IBS are lactose intolerant.[8]) If people can’ t digest the lactose, that justleaves more food for the yeast or unwantedbacteria to eat. But once the lactobacilluspopulation is reestablished, the lactobacilli willproduce lactase to help you digest the lactose,and a person might be able to tolerate milk again.

Harold: According to Dr. Peter J. D’ Adamo inhis books, Eat Right for(4) Your Type and LiveRight for (4) Your Type, dairy foods are not good

for type “ O”s, “ A” s and “ B” s and most people ofAfrican descent. Type AB can tolerate dairyproducts very well.

Taylor: Harold, I scanned this book at Wal-Martrecently, having heard the theories mentioned inpassing on this forum and a list service. I didn’ tbuy the book, so I haven’ t felt I could add muchto this discussion when folks have brought thistheory up. However, this part you mention aboutdairy being good for AB types has gotten myfingers wiggling nearly out of control to get tothe keys.

Some of the things people have related aboutthis theory have made me squirm. Here: I amAB, and dairy is my fiercest gut enemy! Also, Iworry when I read about someone avoidinggoldenseal because it isn’ t in line with their bloodtype, when goldenseal could help that personavoid antibiotics and kill candida at the sametime.

I don’ t know what to make of the totalpicture; this is as far as I can go in defining whatmakes me uneasy about this theory. But myfingers think it is worth galloping across theboard to add this small bit. I wonder what otherfolks think about whether the theory holds up?

Harold: Taylor, ALL the info in this book, EatRight 4 Your Type, is there for people who arebasically OK and not enjoying the benefits of thisscourge, candida. This info has to be cross-referenced with the candida diet, which means allthe baddies have to be eliminated. This is what Ihave done, using some ideas from The Zone bookand some from Breaking the Vicious Cycle booktoo. I still firmly believe in this theory. For thefirst time in years I am almost on the verge ofthinking I am cured of this candida monster. Idon’ t believe you can be 100% cured, only about90%.


Franca: OK, while we’ re disputing poor Harold,here’ s my 2 cents worth: I’ m both O blood type,*and* of “ African decent,” and I am perfectlyfine with milk. Many, many, many of my Asiancohorts (and I live in Asia, so I think I cancomment with a great deal of experience behindme) are extremely lactose intolerant. It may comedown to whether people were weaned off itentirely as children.

Polly: I would think that anyone with dysbiosiscould have a problem with lactose digestion. Asobserved here, you can be type AB and still havethis problem. Personally, I would take thesuggestions in Dr. D’ Adamo’ s book as justgeneral suggestions, and not as hard and fastrules£something to think about as you observeyour own reactions to foods. His work is basedon how the lectins in food will cause the blood toclump together, depending on the blood type.However, lectins can also affect a person’ sintestines and other organs differently than theblood. Dr. D’ Adamo even talks about peoplehaving some characteristics of more than oneblood type group.

I have blood type A, and when I came downwith yeast overgrowth, I could not tolerate milk,but I could tolerate butter. Now that the yeastproblem is gone, I drink a lot of milk, and alsoorange juice. No problem. What your body cantolerate and what it requires will change as youget better.

Many people cannot tolerate the casein inmilk. However, butter and whey contain verylittle casein, so they might be tolerated even ifother milk products are not. Casien seems to bea particular problem for those who have beenpoisoned by lead, mercury or pesticides. Thesepoisons interfere with enzymes that digest thecasein in milk and the gluten in grains. One ofthese enzymes, DPP IV, is important to theimmune system and appears to have a lot to do

with depression. So you don’ t want to overtaxthis enzyme by eating a lot of milk and wheat.Some of the autistic have made considerablestrides by eliminating casein and gluten fromtheir diet and taking supplements of the DPP IVenzyme. (See the section on milk and wheat inbook 5.)

Salt and Iodine£Will eat Seaweedfor ThyroidKippy: I was reading in Prescription forNutritional Healing (a book I highly recommend)that kelp (a form of seaweed) is essential foranyone with an under-active thyroid. If I’ malready taking 1/2 grain Armour thyroid, shouldI add kelp to the mix?

Marilyn in Seattle: I am on Armour and I stilltake kelp. This was recommended because I wasso low on iodine. Each kelp tab contains225mcgs of iodine and I am taking 2 a day. I alsouse sea salt instead of iodized salt. In fact, I justgot some Celtic Sea Salt and plan on using it forthe trace minerals. I avoid mined salt because itis unbalanced in sodium to potassium ratios. Andalso because the processing methods use a lot ofchemicals.

Sea salt tastes great. The sea salt that I buy isby the pound at the health food store. I have usedsea salt for years£but actually you know, I amnot sure what the iodine content of sea salt is. Iam sure there must be some but I don’ t knowwhat amounts. I could quote. Edgar Cayce saidiodine is used throughout the body, not just bythe thyroid. He encouraged the consumption ofsalt-water fish and kelp, but not to overdo it.

Polly: “ Not to overdo it” is right. Yes, you neediodine to make thyroid. In fact, T3 thyroid meansthree iodine atoms and T4 thyroid means 4 iodineatoms. But if you get too much iodine, this


26

suppresses the thyroid. More iodine might alsopose a problem if you have autoimmunethyroiditis. Raymond Peat, PhD, warns thatiodine will combine with unsaturated oils to formsubstances that inhibit the thyroid. So you mustbe careful not to get too much iodine. Yet youwant to get enough iodine. Not only is iodineimportant for the thyroid hormone, but iodinekills yeast in the body. See this example: www.mrbean.net.au/~wlast/candida.htm

How do you know if you have too littleiodine? There is a simple test that might help.(No tests are perfect, but this will at least giveyou something to go on.) Rub a drop of Lugol’ siodine tincture (5% iodine) on your skin in a oneor two inch square patch, and observe how longit takes to get absorbed. If it takes 24 hours ormore to absorb, then you have plenty of iodine inyour body already. If it quickly disappears, thenyou need more iodine. This isn’ t an exact test, itis just an indicator; so watch your reactions toiodine carefully, and/or get a urine iodine test.(Use a solution of at least 2% sodium iodide, notpotassium iodide, for this patch test, or else thecoloration may not be adequate.)

One way to increase your iodine stores is toingest 4 or 5 drops of Lugol’ s iodine solution ina glass of water once or twice each day. Just becareful, because some people have life-threatening allergic reactions to iodine. If youdon’ t know if you are allergic to iodine or not, tryonly one drop when someone else is with you.However, the iodine drops don’ t taste that great.Another approach is to just keep painting patchesuntil the iodine isn’ t absorbed quickly. This way,you don’ t have to taste it.

Lugol’ s iodine solution can be obtained froma chemist or on the Internet. It is also calledAqueous Iodine Oral Solution B.P. Don’ tsubstitute another product if it contains isopropylalcohol or some other noxious ingredient. TheEdgar Cayce store (Heritage Store) carries a

product called Atomidine. This product has been“ electrofied” and will not be suitable for thepatch test. www.caycecures.com. phone 757-428-0100 or 800-862-2923. Cayce said to slowlybuild up the number of drops taken to allow thebody time to adjust. One drop per day would bea cautious start.

Here is an article by Ryan Drum, PhD, www.planetherbs.com/articles/thyroid.html. Dr.Drum suggests that iodine deficiency is morewidespread than many assume. We are notgetting iodized salt in our processed food becauseit is too hard for the mass produces of this food toproperly mix the iodine with the salt in largebatches. So they just leave it out. We are alsolosing iodine when we are exposed to fluorine,chlorine, and bromine. These chemicals displaceiodine and cause its excretion. Bromine is inpesticides, dough conditioners, and indisinfectants for water in hot tubs and spas.

On the other hand, large amounts of iodateare often added to dough conditioners. Therefore,it is hard to say whether any given person hasbeen exposed to too much or too little iodine.

Shelley: Marilyn, this intrigues me. I have beenpronounced “ allergic“ to iodine since I reactedbadly to an iodine-based “ see what’ s inside you”kind of test in the hospital years ago. So I avoidiodized salt. But kelp seems fine with me. I lovekelp. I also now am hypothyroid and takeArmour so I’ ve had my eyes on this post becauseI’ ve had the same question as Kippy about kelpand Armour. My question to you is why do youavoid iodized salt but then take it in as kelp?Why avoid the iodized salt? Processing? Not asynergistic mix with other minerals as in kelp?Have I answered my own question?

Polly: I’ ve seen iodized sea salt in the market,but I haven’ t tried it. I love the way certainbrands of sea salt tastes. The good sea salt is

www.mrbean.net.au/~wlast/candida.htm

www.caycecures.com

www.planetherbs.com/articles/thyroid.html


much less bitter than regular salt. Perhaps thetaste difference is due to the mineral mix, orperhaps it is due to the lack of processing.Regular salt is processed with aluminum to keepit from caking.

Irma Rombauer, in her classic book Joy ofCooking, warns you not to put too much salt inyour bread, because the bread will not rise verywell. Perhaps it dehydrates the yeast?

“ As salt also inhibits yeast growth, never usesalted water for dissolving yeast. … And it (salt)must be used cautiously in bread-making, as toomuch inhibits the growth of yeast and adverselyaffects gluten formation.”

Harold: You must have salt as you lose it everyday, your skin is one of the big means of itleaving the body. I use a half-salt product. It is1/2 salt and 1/2 potassium chloride. These twoare in a very delicate balance in the body and ifyou cut down on salt your potassium goes up andthe reverse is true if you eat too much salt. Theconsumption of vegetables, particularly raw, iebroccoli, cauliflower, carrots, cucumber, tomato,… depletes the body of salt, this is why wildanimals will go for miles to a salt lick. I havefound that if I am in doubt about putting salt onmy food, I sprinkle a bit on my hand and taste it,if it tastes good, then OK. If it doesn’ t taste good,then I don’ t use it. Another thing that kind ofgripes me is that most salt on the market hassugar in it, but if you look you can find itwithout. I haven’ t been able to get the half saltwithout sugar yet, but it is still worth it. I knowthe adrenal glands, like every gland in the body,is very dependent on the proper salt balance.

Polly: Joe Wallach suggests a heaping teaspoonof salt each day is good for us. [9] However,everyone isn’ t the same. For instance, the amountof salt needed depends on the amount of insulin

in our body. Insulin causes the retention of salt.Those of us who have recently started a lowcarbohyrate diet may have lowered our averageinsulin levels and thus we may need a little moresalt in our diet.

I do know that under certain circumstances,a higher salt intake can be quite helpful. Case inpoint: My husband was tested by the BrodaBarne’ s Foundation. They said his adrenalfunction was low, and that he had extremely lowsalt levels, perhaps the lowest they had seen. Hetried taking small doses of a mixed cortisol andhe didn’ t notice anything. Then he startedincreasing his salt intake and this made him feelmuch better. He ended up adding about atablespoon of Pacific Sea Salt per day to his dietfor a year. After that he cut the amount in half.(He likes the effects of this brand of salt betterthan other brands.) That is a lot of salt, but healso eats a lot of “ acidic“ meat, and very littlecarbohydrates. Here is an excellent article on thebenefits of salt by Ted Spence, DDS, ND, PhD.

www.mercola.com/1999/dec/26/truth_about_salt.htm.

Avandish: All sea salt contains toxic mineralsand studies show that it usually has negativeeffects on blood chemistry, causing imbalancesin potassium, magnesium, sodium, and otherelectrolytes, and many hormones. I use regular“ Morton salt” with iodine and this is what wasrecommended to help normalize the chemistry. Ifeel better on regular salt over sea salt from asymptom standpoint.

Mary G. Are you familiar with Pure Inland SeaWater? It’ s a naturally concentrated sea waterproduct from Utah’ s Inland Sea and containssodium and numerous trace minerals. Do youknow if this product is contaminated also?

www.mercola.com/1999/dec/26/truth_about_salt.ht


28

Avandish: Unless it is specifically purified, itwill contain whatever was in the seabed—goodor bad. Usually these salt beds have both goodand not so good minerals. It doesn’ t make senseto me that so many people try so hard to removetoxic metals and use products which are likely tocontain the same items they take chelating agentsto remove. I too made this mistake for too long,not thinking that it could be a problem. When theminers of sea salt process this stuff, they justgrind it up into a fine powder and package it. It’ scheaper to make than regular salt, which ispurified, but they sell it for more.

Lynn of Virginia: I have used Biosalt from theHeritage Store for years. It has plain salt and ablend of minerals in it. www.heritagestore.comor www.caycecures.com 757-428-0100 or 800-862-2923) This site has a lot of other usefulproducts in it, also. The Heritage Store here inVirginia Beach caters to the Edgar Caycebelievers and many of their products areexcellent. The site is interesting too.

Smoking, Coffee?Ed: Hi all. I’ ve been taking Diflucan, 100mg perday, for about 10 days now. About 3 days ago Istarted feeling a lot better, with much reduceddie-off symptoms of joint “ stiffness” or swellingand head-fog. So then I switched from taking the100mg all at once to taking 50mg in the morningand 50mg at night. Bang! My knuckles and toesbecame EXTREMELY arthritic. I think this wasdue to splitting the dose, but I’ m not sure. Otherpossible factors that I am wondering about arethe effects on the yeast of:

1) Smoking

2) Coffee (black of course)

3) Multivitamins

4) Diet Cola drinks (ie no sugar)

At the same time as I started splitting the dose intwo, I began taking multivitamins and drinkingDiet Coke/Pepsi. So these are other variables thatmay account for the extreme arthritis reactionthat I am going through. By the way, I skippedthis morning’ s half-dose and plan to go back totaking all 100mg at once, since this seemed lesspainful. Anybody have any thoughts? Thanks inadvance.

Sally: On the coffee issue£rough on the kidneysand you need them working good to detoxify.Also creates an acid body£not good. Also isloaded with molds, which candida people seem totend to be allergic to. I have no experience withDiflucan, but maybe someone else can help youwith that. I didn’ t realize how much the coffeewas affecting me until I eliminated it for twoweeks and added it back. Helpful hint: make onlyone change at a time so you can observe theeffect of each change as everyone is different.

Ed: Cool! I just found a web site saying thataspartame, which is in the NutraSweet which ispresumably in the diet drinks, is a toxin. That’ swhat I suspected! And I do remember seeingsome posts here about aspartame, but they didn’ tregister since I didn’ t know what aspartame was.Ahh!

Sally: You are right, aspartame is a toxin. Thereis a lot of info available on this subject if youlook for it. The best thing you can drink is bottledor filtered water to flush out the toxins releasedby the candida£lots of it. I hate to admit it, butsmoking is the one thing I’ m still struggling with.I’ ve beat the yeast and have made many radicalchanges in my life style that I plan to continue,but I’ m still smoking£its one of the mostpowerful addictions there is. Tobacco is anightshade along with potatoes, tomatoes, andpeppers; all of which are notorious for causing

www.heritagestore.com

www.caycecures.com


arthritis-like symptoms in sensitive individuals.Also tobacco is sprayed with toxic insecticidesthat are not permitted on food products by theFDA, and we smoke them. I’ m still quitting andtrying to “ bite the bullet” but feel really stupidevery time I light up.

Harold: My mother is Swedish and boy, do theyever love coffee and we grew up with it. I can patmyself on the back because I have cut down fromabout six mugs a day to TWO CUPS, and that isgoing some. This so-called coffee today is anabomination when you know what it used to belike many years ago. About ten years ago I quitall coffee, tea, wine and whiskey for five yearsand I can’ t say it made that much difference inmy yeast and H-pylori problems. At my age,there are few little luxuries left in which we canindulge, so, I can only say, “ Take my wife butleave my coffee alone!” (tongue in cheek).

Polly: Coffee is a godsend for my husband. It isthe only thing that he can tolerate that will keephim regular. In his case, the coffee is definitelyworth any risk that might come with it.

Whether or not coffee is a blessing or a banewill depend on the person. Coffee does havesome good health properties that shouldn’ t beignored. As Sally mentioned, coffee will makeyou more acidic, which according to mostpopular books today is bad. But sometimespeople need to push their body more acidic.Some people point to coffee’ s ability to raiseblood sugar as being bad for anyone withcandidiasis. Yet sometimes you want to raise theblood sugar. This reduces your reaction toallergens. Coffee helps you remove iron. Lots ofpeople would be healthier with less iron. Coffeestimulates the production of hydrochloricstomach acid. Many of us need more. Accordingto the article that Marilyn mentioned from theSeattle Times (June 09, 1999),

“caffeine and some as-yet-to-be identifiedcompound in the brew confers a protective effecton the gallbladder”.

Coffee also inhibits the formation of gallstones.At Dr. Lowe’ s site, he has a long list of benefitsattributable to caffeine, like mood andintellectual performance enhancement. He states

“ for caffeine to be of benefit, you must find whatfor you is an effective and non-overstimulatingdosage.”

http://members.aol.com/jlowe55555/prev2.htm,However, on the bad side, some people aresensitive to the mold, food dyes or the sulfur inthe coffee. Lynn, at our forum, found that organiccoffee was not a problem, but ordinary coffeemade her asthma act up. She suspects the fooddyes in the ordinary coffee. However, Iunderstand that a lot of the coffee on the markethas a high level of pesticides, which mightcontribute to her problem. Like so many things,with coffee, there is no pat answer.

If you decide to quit smoking, you mightwant to use the nicotine patches or the nicotinegum for a while. However, nicotine gum isn’ t agreat idea if you have amalgams. All that extragum chewing could release more mercury. Also,be careful with hot coffee if you have amalgamfillings. Hot liquids will release more mercuryfrom fillings.

MSGPolly: People with yeast overgrowth are morelikely than most to have an adverse reaction toMSG or monosodium glutamate. [10] I think thereason may be a lack of coenzyme B6 due to theacetylaldehyde that people with yeast overgrowthare exposed to. People with low B6 are muchmore likely to be sensitive to MSG due toinactivation of a B6 dependent enzyme, glutamicoxaloacetic transaminase. A B6 supplement will

http://members.aol.com/jlowe55555/prev2.htm


30

often eliminate this sensitivity to MSG. [11] Themore common reactions to MSG include: rapidheartbeat (tachycardia), depression, migraineheadaches, nausea and vomiting, hives, rashes,asthma, and seizures. Yet, there are numerouspossible reactions like panic attacks, visionproblems, rapid changes in blood pressure, partialparalysis, extreme dryness of the mouth, loss ofbalance, joint pain, swelling of prostate, frequenturination, bedwetting, hyperactivity, behavioralproblems in children, Attention DeficitDisorders, lethargy, sleepiness, insomnia, andmany more.

MSG is commonly added as a flavorenhancer to processed food. It is also often addedto mixed spices because it is a great filler, beingmuch cheaper than spice. It used to be in a lot ofthe baby food. Not that babies need it—(It causesbrain abnormalities in baby lab rats)—butbecause it tastes better to the parent buying theproduct. Thankfully, due to the efforts of privatecitizens suing the FDA for better labeling ofMSG in food, many of the food manufactureshave become aware of the public outrage andhave stopped its blatant use in many foods.

Unfortunately, food processors aren’ t to betrusted. Some food manufacturers merelysubstituted modified food starch for the MSG intheir baby food. Unfortunately, modified foodstarch has similar properties to MSG, eventhough it usually doesn’ t make people as sick.They also substitute hydrolyzed protein, whichcontains some MSG.

MSG can be hidden in processed food withnames like natural flavors, broth, bouillon,hydrolyzed protein, sodium and calciumcaseinate, yeast extract and autolyzed yeast.Sometimes manufacturers will renamehydrolyzed protein to something less obvious,such as whey protein, corn protein, or peaprotein, etc. MSG can also be in naturallyfermented foods such as soy sauce. They are

even starting to spray MSG on some fruits andvegetables as a “ fungicide/plant growthregulator.”

Avoiding the former list of substances willbe enough for most. Yet, if you are very sensitiveyou will need a list of the 40 or more foods thatcontain small amounts. You can get thisinformation from the Truth in LabelingCampaign, phone 858/481-9333, website www.truthinlabeling.org, and address

Truth in Labeling CampaignPO Box w532Darien, IL 60561

If requesting information, enclose a self-addressed envelope with two stamps. Donationsappreciated. They have a big battle to fight, anddeserve our help. Here is a book on the subject:In Bad Taste—The MSG Symptom Complex, byGeorge R. Schwartz, MD. Here is an article:“ The Ubiquitous, Toxic Flavor-Enhancer,Monosodium glutamate (MSG)” in the August,2000 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctorsand Patients.

Personally, when I had yeast overgrowth, Icould not tolerate MSG, modified food starch, orhydrolyzed protein. I would get very ill exactlyone hour after ingestion. (Some people take up to48 hours to become ill.) It likely had somethingto do with the yeast, because now I easily toleratemodified food starch and hydrolyzed protein. Ihaven’ t since dared try the MSG, at least notknowingly. Twenty years ago, I did try taking B6to try and stop my reactions to MSG, but I wasnot able to tolerate the B6. Unfortunately,coenzyme B6 was not available at that time, or Iwould have tried that.

Franca: How weird that you would bring this uptoday... I was going to mention MSG myself! Myfiancé has just finished a book on excitotoxins,which talks about the effects of substances like

www.truthinlabeling.org


MSG on the body. The book is Excitotoxins,subtitled, The Taste that Kills. It is byneurosurgeon Russell L. Blaylock, MD (seewww.dorway.com ). I haven’ t read a word of ityet, but my fiancé thinks there’ s a lot of goodinfo in it.

By coincidence, I also recently discoveredthat MSG is “ the sodium salt of glutamic acid...found in mushrooms, seaweed and (get ready forthis one!) wheat gluten“ ! Yes, wheat glutenstrikes again! Also, the same article says that thelargest concentration of glutamic acid is innervous tissue. No wonder we all develop somany nervous system problems...

Polly: There is a difference between naturallyoccurring “ MSG“ and MSG made byfermentation or food processing. One is L-glutamic and the other contains both L-glutamicand D-glutamic acid. The fermented or processedproduct with the D-glutamic acid is the one thatcauses the bad reactions. The naturally occurringglutamic acid in raw food is usually not aproblem. So for some people, raw mushroomsmay not be the same problem as cooked. See www.truthinlabeling.org/manufac.htm

Franca: I have a MSG question for you: In mycase, I didn’ t think about MSG while doing thediet, because I’ ve had horrible reactions from itfor a long time and was already avoiding it. Iwonder, though, whether avoiding MSG shouldbe part of the candida diet. What do you think?

Polly: Yes. I think anyone who has a yeastovergrowth should become aware that it is apotential problem. I don’ t think it acts as a foodfor yeast. In fact, one way to manufacture it is touse yeast. Yet I wouldn’ t wish MSG onanyone— especially some baby that can’ t tellyou. Boy, did MSG ever make me sick!

PS: Please be very careful about what youfeed your baby. Just because the bottle says babyfood doesn’ t mean it is good. Check labels!Don’ t trust additives like sea algae orcarrageenan (found in some types of seaweed).Sea algae contains a fatty acid called DHA.Many consider DHA important for braindevelopment, but DHA should not be used inexcess and it should be balanced with EPA, andother fatty acids. Carrageenan is used to induceirritable bowel syndrome in lab rats and is aknown carcinogen. Besides in baby foods, youwill also find carrageenan used as a thickener insoups, whipping cream, condensed milk, non-dairy creamers, and some icecreams.

Raw Broccoli Can Make You Fat!Kippy: This comes from my new book ($3.99 fora 607 page hardbound volume— you can’ t makeit for that price!) New Foods for Healing bySelene Yeager and the Editors of PreventionHealth Books. (Some of the followinginformation I have interpreted on my own.)

If you’ re hypothyroid, you should avoid rawfoods in the brassica family such as broccoli,cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, kale,mustard greens, turnips, soybeans, peanuts, milletand spinach. These foods contain goitrogens.Goitrogens are chemicals that block the thyroid’ sability to use iodine. With less iodine, the glandproduces less thyroid hormone. Who would’ vethought that raw broccoli could make you a fatslug?

Cooking these vegetables, however, maydeactivate the goitrogens. So if you’ rehypothyroid cook your brassicas (no, that’ s notsimilar to burning your brassieres) and if you’ rehyperthyroid eat ‘em raw or juice them.

The book also recommends that those whohave hyperthyroid conditions should eat plenty ofprotein and fat to prevent their overactive thyroid

www.dorway.com

www.truthinlabeling.org/manufac.htm


32

from burning away needed fat and muscle. (Ofcourse, if you’ re a supermodel, you should juststop eating, right now and forever).

Polly: I love broccoli sprouts in my sandwiches.At least they don’ t have as many phytoestrogensin them as alfalfa sprouts. They last longer in therefrigerator too. A few raw vegetables from thebrassica family shouldn’ t be a problem. Like somany things, it is just when it is overdone that itis a problem. Besides the foods you mentioned,Raymond Peat suggests that an excess of beans,lentils, nuts, carotene, polyunsaturated fats, andcysteine can also suppress thyroid.

But Carrots Can Keep You Trim!Polly: If you eat one carrot per day, as suggestedby my favorite author, Raymond Peat, this willprovide bulk and keep you regular. If the foodmoves through you at the proper speed, thenthere is less time for your body to reabsorb theestrogen that has been dumped in the intestinesfor disposal. (The liver places conjugatedestrogens in the bile to be dumped in theintestines for disposal with the intestinal waste.)Stopping excessive recirculation of estrogentakes a load off the liver and your thyroid.

However, I don’ t suggest that you eat lots ofraw carrots or other roughage. Too much couldaggravate your leaky gut. According to LeoGalland, MD, some soluble fiber will reducesymptoms of leaky gut, but too much will makeit worse. (Soluble fiber bulks up by absorbingwater. eg. psyllium husks.) Yet, he claims thatyou can ingest a high or low level of insolublefiber, like cellulose, and it will only improve theleaky gut problem. (See www.mdheal.org/parasites.htm.) Another wordto the wise: when changing your diet by addingfiber, make the change slowly and drink plenty offluid. Give your body a chance to adjust. Too

much fiber too fast can make you constipated,just the opposite of what you want.

Assuming you are well enough to tolerate araw carrot, then you might want to grate it andadd it to your salad. If you use a little warmedcoconut oil in the dressing, then the carrot willcarry the coconut oil to the lower intestine. Thecarrot salad with a coconut oil, vinegar, and saltdressing idea comes from Raymond Peat, PhD.He states that this salad

“can often help to normalize progesterone,apparently by protecting against intestinalabsorption of bacterial endotoxin, and by helpingto reduce the reabsorption of estrogen which hasbeen excreted in the bile.”

PS: If you try coconut oil, start very slowly withperhaps a teaspoon per day until your body getsused to it. Therapeutic doses are three and a halftablespoons per day according to Mary Enig,PhD. www.karlloren.com/Diabetes/diet/p89.htm

Raw FoodsPaul: Hi Folks, one little recognized possiblereason, among many, for some people not gettingresults they want over the long term, or hitting astandstill on candida diets, may be a lack of raw-food nutrients and enzymes. Studies have shownthat cooking of foods above 118° F can cause anelevated white blood cell counts within minutesof ingestion of the food. This is akin to thebody’ s reaction to a poison.

It sounds crazy, but based on theimprovements I’ ve had when eliminating cookedvegetables, and discovering that I react to cookedvegetables as well as all breads (but not rawsprouted wheatberries), it makes sense. So a bigreason I was able to overcome candidiasis was byeating more and more raw food; also thanks topeople on this list suggesting large doses of

www.mdheal.org/parasites.htm

www.karlloren.com/Diabetes/diet/p89.htm


probiotics. Raw foods with adequate protein alsonormalized my low thyroid and I no longer needpills for it.

Meat is usually essential on a candida diet,but if the meat is lightly cooked and nearly rawinside it may not pose as much problem. But it isa dilemma since meat does tend to containparasites. However on the list below we have hadmany people eating lots of raw meat for yearsand do very well with it; the biggest drawbackactually, I believe, is the social acceptabilityissue.

A side benefit to not destroying and alteringnutrients through cooking of food is less need forsupplements. In fact, I now take ‘no’ vitamin ormineral supplements at all anymore (just someherbs and supplement-type foods like spirulinaand dulse). In any case you certainly can followa mostly raw-food diet with little or no fruit, oreven all-raw if you get used to the idea of rawmeat.

So basically, I’ m in opposition to Truss‘opinion that most or all food should be cooked(even light steaming causes problems for me). Itis worth noting too that most of the great naturalhealers of this century (Bragg, Jensen,Christopher, Gerson) recognized the specialvalue of raw foods, for good reason.

Raw Food List FAQ: www.math.jussieu.fr/~tu/raw-food/faq.html

Health and Disease Page:

http://people.ne.mediaone.net/preynolds/had_1.htm

Polly: Cooking destroys protein and enzymes,but light cooking will sometimes enhance theavailability of vitamins and minerals. Ofparticular note, the cellulase enzyme in raw foodswill help digest yeast. That would be one benefitof raw food. Raw foods do have their place in the

diet. Yet, there are times when a person is so far-gone that they have to start with all cooked food.I am an example. I would react with migraines toraw vegetables. I had to cook them. Cookingmight be important for some people because thesugars in cooked vegetables are easier to digest,as explained in the book Breaking the ViciousCycle.

Aajonus Vondeplanitz, in his book We WantTo Live, suggests that people with yeastovergrowth include in their diet some cookedstarches, plenty of raw fat, lots of raw vegetables(especially green ones), and some rawunpasteurized apple cider vinegar. This willalkalinize the body and flush out toxins. Heimplies that toxins are the cause of the yeastovergrowth.

Rare meat and raw eggs don’ t bother me, butI can’ t eat raw meat without usually getting verysick from it. Maybe my stomach acid is too low?Perhaps if I would try just the raw organic meat,or freeze the meat for 14 days to kill theparasites, then it might be okay for me? I don’ tknow. However, for now, I’ m not willing toexperiment again. I grant you that many peopleeat raw meat, and that raw organic meat probablyhas a lot of health benefits. I’ ve also heard that ahigh percentage of people on the caveman dietare eating raw meat and fish, and they are findingit very helpful for many ailments. In fact, I havean Internet friend who couldn’ t get her autisticchild off antifungals until she finally startedfeeding her child raw organic game meat.

I know a lot of you are fans of Dr. Mercola.He is an advocate of using raw egg yolks in thediet. However, he is not a big fan of raw eggwhites. Raw egg whites interfere with theabsorption of biotin. With our intestinaldifficulties, we are probably very low on biotinalready. Yet, for whatever reason, my doctor hadme use the whole raw egg. He had me mix theraw egg in orange juice. (I wonder if the acid in

www.math.jussieu.fr/~tu/raw

http://people.ne.mediaone.net/preynolds/had_1.ht


34

the organe juice helps kill off some of thebacteria?) He also wanted me to find very freshorganic eggs and not refrigerate them. I was notto use them if I had any question about theirfreshness. (They must smell and look right. Also,no cracked shells. The yolks should be firm.)

Aajonus Vonderplanitz is probably theleading advocate of raw meat, fish, eggs and fat.In his book, he gives examples of somemiraculous cures using these foods. One of mydoctors suggests that you start with raw salmonfrom the deeper parts of ocean where there is lessmercury. He also told me that you should firsthave your stomach acid levels correct and youshould not have a leaky gut when you try this.You can get food poisoning if you aren’ t readyfor it. Sally Falon and Dr. Mary Enig suggest thatyou marinate raw fish in an acidic medium.(More information on raw protein and raw fatdiets can be found at www.odomnet.com/live-food/faq.htm.)

Paul: I agree that for many people, it is best tostart with some cooked food rather than goingfrom the ‘typical’ diet directly to mostly rawfood. Too much raw food too fast usually willoften cause or increase problems like excess gasand abdominal pain, but over time the bodyadjusts.

Using waterless cookware or thermos-cookware can lessen nutrient loss and oxidativedamage (a catalog available atwww.juicing.com offers these products).Another option is liquefied raw vegetables,especially for those with dental problems, but thistype of preparation is not too appetizing.

references1. Baker, Sidney, MD, “ A Clinician’ s Perspective on the

Interventions that Work Best plus Listening toParents” , Lecture at the Dan 2000 conference.

2. Divi RL; Chang HC; Doerge DR, “ Anti-thyroidisoflavones from soybean: isolation, characterization,and mechanisms of action,” National Center forToxicological Research, Jefferson, AR 72079, USA,Biochem Pharmacol, 1997 Nov, 54:10, 1087-96

3. Fort P; Moses N; Fasano M; Goldberg T; Lifshitz FDepartment of Pediatrics, “ Breast and soy-formulafeedings in early infancy and the prevalence ofautoimmune thyroid disease in children.” J Am CollNutr, 1990 Apr, 9:2, 164-7

4. Carvalho NF, Kenney RD, Carrington PH, Hall DE.,“ Severe nutritional deficiencies in toddlers resultingfrom health food milk alternatives.” Pediatrics. 2001Apr;107(4):E46.

5. Somersall, AC, PhD, MD, Breakthrough in Cell-Defense, GOLDENeight Publishers, Smyrna, GA,phone (800) 501-8516

6. Marin ML, Tejada-Simon MV, Lee JH, Murtha J,Ustunol Z, Pestka JJ., “ Stimulation of cytokineproduction in clonal macrophage and T-cell models byStreptococcus thermophilus: comparison withBifidobacterium sp. and Lactobacillus bulgaricus,” JFood Prot. 1998 Jul;61(7):859-64 mentioned in a keephope alive article at

www.execpc.com/~keephope/report18.html

7. Paul, S, PhD, “ Take a Hint From Those With LactoseIntolerances” Limite Problem Foods From Your Diet”Townsend Letter, August/September 2002

8. Paul, S, PhD, “ Take a Hint From Those With LactoseIntolerances” Limit Problem Foods From Your Diet”Townsend Letter, August/September 2002

9. Wallach, J, “ Live Doctors Do Lie!” tapewww.drjwallach.com

10. Truss O. “ Metabolic abnormalities in patients withchronic candidiasis: the acetaldehyde hypothesis.” JOrthomolecular Psychiatry 13:66-93, vol. 13, no. 2,1984

11. Folkers K, Shizukuishi S, Willis R, Scudder SL,Takemura K, Longenecker JB, “ The biochemistry ofvitamin B6 is basic to the cause of the Chineserestaurant syndrome,” Hoppe Seylers Z Physiol Chem1984 Mar;365(3):405-14 and Ebadi M, Gessert CF,Al-Sayegh A, “ Drug-pyridoxal phosphateinteractions,” Q Rev Drug Metab Drug Interact1982;4(4):289-331

www.odomnet.com/live

www.juicing.com

www.execpc.com/~keephope/report18.html

www.drjwallach.com

CarbohydratesDana: I have been sick for a very long time andI can tell you that living on just vegetables andmeat is no solution. Carbohydrates do boostserotonin and I’ m not talking about just thecarbohydrates in vegetables. Starches and grains,even if they feed the yeast, have boosted mymood. Yes, I get tired after I eat them, but I gettired after anything I eat. Yes, I’ m probablyallergic to them, as I am to gluten now.

People need to be careful with the diet. I wasso weak and so thin my blood pressure bottomedout, and that is not healthy either. I have justfound that I’ m worse without the carbohydrates.So carbohydrates in moderation, not elimination,unless you’ re not that sick. Food for thought.Been there, done that. Although wish there wasa solution to this beast!

Mark S: I feel better eating about 200-300 gmcarbohydrates per day for some reason. I triedkeeping it below 50 gm and felt horrible. Now Ieat lots of brown rice, apples, carrots, andpopcorn. It’ s all good.

Polly: Dana, as you imply, carbohydrates willincrease the amount of tryptophan that crossesthe blood-brain-barrier, and this should increaseserotonin in the brain. However, in your case, I

suspect that this isn’ t the reason for the change inmood. Serotonin may modify your response tosomething that is causing depression, but in andof itself, serotonin does not improve mood. Infact, sometimes giving anti-serotonin drugs willimprove mood. [1] Researchers don’ t know whySSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor)antidepressant drugs work. The anti-depressanteffect may be due to increased serotonineffectiveness in the brain, or it could just aseasily be due to down-regulation of serotonineffectiveness. [2] It may also be due to thechanges in the immune system effected by thesedrugs. The fact that it takes weeks before thesedrugs releive depression suggests that much moreis going on than the increased presence ofserotonin.

Several people here at the forum havementioned symptoms of depression when they gooverboard and eliminate too many carbohydrates.I’ m not sure why this should be so, but onereason may have to do with thyroid. Reducingcarbohydrates down to 50 gm, like Mark tried,will interfere with the liver’ s conversion of T4thyroid into its active T3 form. (The T3 form isvery important to mood.) Only a small amount ofadditional carbohydrates are required to restoreliver function. In fact, to help support the liver’ s


36

conversion of T4 to T3, Raymond Peat, PhD,suggests sipping a little orange juice throughoutthe day. Some sugar throughout the day is verygood for you. It reduces stress on the body.Generally, fruit sugar is able to reduce stressmore than other sources of carbohydrates. It is abalancing act. Your body needs some sugar. Youjust don’ t want to the yeast to get to it.

There is another problem to watch out forwhen you go on a very low carbohydrate diet. Ifyou lower your carbohydrates, make sure youincrease your fat intake. You will make yourselfill if all you eat is protein.

Mary Lou: I read in my yeast packet thatGerman doctors are saying the restricted dietisn’ t too good in the fact that the yeast becomeclever and as they starve for food go deeper intothe tissues. They don’ t recommend just a yeastfree diet for that reason as they believe you needto eat somewhat normal to avoid that happening,and you should take antifungals too. They highlyrecommend sourdough bread, the old fashionedstuff with no sugar (and the original yeast culturewith no added yeast). My daughter found somefor me at the bakery near her. She went in andasked. The diet also said only to avoid yeastproducts because it stressed your immunesystem, not because it makes you get more yeast.Anyway I have happily added in sourdoughbread. I was drinking milk since that is only badif you are allergic to it, which I found out throughtesting that I am. I do drink decaffeinated coffeebut still miss the old days of eating. Take care, Ihope this helps cheer you up.

Hallie: I had severe reactions of fatigue, gas andbloating at the beginning of the diet. I was doingall of the sweet potatoes, rice cakes, quinoacereal, and blah blah. Big mistake! It was onlyafter I cut out all carbohydrates (on the advice ofmy nutritionist), that I began (after four days of

more fatigue) to feel so incredibly better— as if agreat cloud of fog had been lifted. This is just myexperience, and I don’ t know what is ahead, butat this time I cannot process those carbohydrates.I wanted to pass this on to you. Everyone will tellyou that the diet is such a key, and unique to eachindividual.

Breaking the Vicious Cycle —TheSCD DietPolly: Magaly, you stated that your doctor thinksyou have an inflamed small intestine. I think theSpecific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) might helpyou. It allows you to eat carbohydrates fromthings like squash and specially prepared beans.However, you have to eliminate carbohydratesfrom grains and potatoes. Also, you cannot havemilk sugar.

Magaly: Can you tell me specifically what foodsare carbohydrates? I tried cream of wheat thismorning, and I feel extremely fatigued.

Jennifer: Carbohydrates are starches and sugars.Carbohydrates are in any food that is not pure fator pure protein. All grain products (wheat, oats,rice, barley, buckwheat, rye, spelt, etc.) are highin carbohydrates. Any product that is made withsuch grains contains carbohydrates. Also, anytype of sugar product is a simple carbohydrate.This means that as soon as you eat them, they areimmediately passed into the blood, elevatingyour blood sugar and feeding the yeast. It isobvious that you cannot tolerate any of theseitems, ie they make you weak. Vegetables areconsidered by some to be carbohydrates. Yet, thetypes of carbohydrates found in most vegetablesare not a problem.

What you might do is try to eat on a trial anderror basis: keep a diary and start off with somelightly steamed veggies, broccoli for instance.

Carbohydrates 37

Eat the broccoli and note how it makes you feel.If it is good...eat it. Then slowly, one by one, addother vegetables noting how each one makes youfeel. After that, slowly introduce the beans, thenthe meats. This will be hard, but you’ ve got toknow what you can tolerate and what you can’ t atthis point, or you’ ll never get off square one.

Then once you have established a base groupof foods you know you can eat safely, introducea carbohydrate that is gluten-free. Not wheat, butamaranth, quinoa, and brown rice are goodchoices at this point. Note how it makes you feel.If it’ s bad...don’ t eat it. Continue with theantifungals, probiotics, etc and just take it oneday at a time. Look at this process like a bigscience experiment.

Magaly: Thanks Jennifer *smile* I will try tointroduce foods through trial and error. It is hard,but through experiments, I can find the way outof the dark hole. What kinds of things can we eatfor breakfast? I used to love oatmeal, and cereal,but since I have to cut them out, are there anyideas you would know? Thanks for yourcomments.

Jennifer: Well, you’ ll have to get a little creativefor breakfast. There for a while, I was eatingsteamed veggies for breakfast. I guess you justhave to get past the way we were all brought upto think you can only eat “ breakfast food” forbreakfast. If you think about it, most all of thosefoods are full of sugar— a no-no for us. Just takebreakfast as an opportunity to nourish yourbody...nothing more, nothing less. Don’ t dwellon the fact that you can’ t have your Wheaties,instead focus on your goal of wellness. What I dothese days is first thing in the morning, I brew acup of milk thistle and dandelion tea (celestialseasonings makes a great tasting one) sip on it,take my antifungals, and then decide what to eat.I have read in several places that after a long

night of rest, what your body actually craves inthe morning is not food, but water. So maybedrink a tall glass, affirm that you intend to getwell, and then eat. Just a suggestion.

Polly: You can eat eggs, fish, and meat. You canalso probably eat farmer’ s cheese (a very drycottage cheese) if you aren’ t allergic to milk. Ifthe diet is too hard, try using a little rice. There isa good chance you can tolerate it. Use butter or alittle coconut oil on the rice to help fill you up.Start experimenting with all the different types ofsquashes.

The book Breaking the Vicious Cycle byElaine Gottschall, BA, MSc, explains theSpecific Carbohydrate Diet. It is a very importantbook for anyone with an inflamed bowel. TheSpecific Carbohydrate Diet will allow yourintestines to heal and at the same time will inhibitthe growth of unwanted yeast AND bacteria. Heradvice is based on the different types of sugars inyour diet, and how these are digested.

The book explains why you may be able totolerate certain foods but not others. You may beable to tolerate raw honey better than pasteurizedhoney. Cooked fruits are tolerated better than rawfruits. The book tells you how you must prepareyour legumes to make it easier on your body.Half the book is recipes. The retail price of thebook is $16.95. If you order it from Willner’ sChemists , the price is $13.50 plus $4.50shipping. (800)633-1106 (Thanks MM for tellingme about this book!) There is also a website: www.inform.dk/djembe/scd/

and a few lists

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ElainesChildren/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SCDietkids/

[email protected], or

[email protected]

www.inform.dk/djembe/scd/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ElainesChildren

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SCDietkids/


38

Kippy: Okay, so I read the book. I may need tore-read to pick up on pertinent points; however,I felt that this program should not be used untilcandida is out of one’ s system. Even then, Ithought the author missed some important points.She does not claim the diet is for candidasufferers, nor does she address leaky gut. So it’ snot as though the book is misleading…I justdon’ t know how appropriate it is for addressingcandida-related issues.

1. The program allows things that should beavoided by candida sufferers such asmushrooms, vinegar, alcohol honey, cheese,peanuts. (The alcohol makes no sense to me.Why is it that you can’ t eat potatoes or sugarand yet you can drink vodka, which is madeof both substances? This is never explained),

2. The program is silent regarding organicmeats. Candida sufferers should only eatorganic meats because of theantibiotics/steroids in regular meat.

3. The program makes very interestingobservations regarding carbohydratedigestion; however, it never addressesfermentation or mold issues. Both of theseissues are important for candida sufferers,and I would imagine they are important forothers with dysbiosis.

4. The program does not discuss rotating foodsor the possibility of building allergies throughfood repetition, although the author makesvery interesting observations about mucusbuildup and food intolerances.

5. The information about supplements was verybasic and not terribly thorough.

Overall, I thought the book was well written andvery scientific without being boring, but I thinkthis is a book for people, such as Mona or MM,who have gotten rid of the candida and are nowon the road to recovery. I don’ t think it’ s

appropriate for those of us in the beginningphases of candida.

Nevertheless, the author makes some verygood points about grains, corn, and potatoes,which are very valuable for those of us withcandida. Bottom line— it can’ t hurt to buy thebook, but I wouldn’ t follow the diet (except forthe avoidance of grains, rice, potatoes, corn,lactose) until you have no more candida.

Polly: Hi Kippy. Good point. There are a lot ofthings that are not addressed in her book. It is byno means a complete treatise on diet. As youstate, the book is not specifically directed atanyone with candidiasis. It only addresses thosethings on which she is an expert, which aresugars and carbohydrates. You have to do yourown combining of this information with otherthings that you know. So no one should buy thebook thinking they won’ t have to buy otherbooks too.

But I do disagree with your conclusion thatthe book is only for people such as Mona or MMwho have gotten rid of their yeast overgrowth. Ithink a modified form of her diet can be veryhelpful. If I interpret her book correctly, most ofthe yeast or bacterial overgrowth is usually in thelower track. The stomach and upper intestinaltrack is less susceptible because of the acidic pH.(However, some people are so bad off that eventhe upper track is affected.) The idea is to ingestonly those sugars/carbohydrates that are easilydigested and assimilated by our body. That way,when the food residue reaches the lowerintestines, where most of the yeast/bacterialresides, there will be nothing left to feed the littlebeasts. I think this should be of particular help foranyone with fibromyalgia, because usually theyhave a bacterial overgrowth in the last part oftheir small intestine.

Yes, a person with intestinal problems needsto eliminate grains, potatoes, corn, and lactose.

Carbohydrates 39

But there are several subtleties that can also makea big difference. For example, your legumes mustbe prepared properly or else they will contain toomuch of the hard-to-digest sugars. Cooked ripefruit will contain less of the hard-to-digest sugarsthan raw fruit. Raw honey can be tolerated betterthan cooked honey. (Her book fits in well withHarold’ s postings on Active Manuka honey.)Products like vodka are okay because thesugar/carbohydrates of the original food has beenchanged into a different form by the fermentationprocess. These points are addressed only in asentence or two scattered throughout thetechnical talk. Sometimes it is only inferred. Inthat sense, although well written, the book can bedifficult reading. So if anyone has brain fog, Isuggest you read the book with marker in hand,and see what else I’ ve missed.

Carole R: As for the SCD (specific carbohydratediet), the book recommends you start with onlycertain cooked low-starch vegetables and meat(lots of chicken soup), then after the diarrhea/gashas stopped, gradually add other foods to seehow you react. Raw nuts should not be eaten atthe beginning either, only nut butters and nutflours used for baking, no other flours or grainsallowed at all. I will try eating more avocados assuggested, also olive oil. (See www.inform.dk/djembe/scd/)

I have been on this diet (SCD) for fourmonths now. The initial reason I started it wasthat I was diagnosed with Celiac disease, and Iwas advised to get a bread maker and makebreads with alternative grains. Yet whenever I atethis bread, I would still have diarrhea. Then Icame across this book. My bowel movements aremore normal now, although I’ m still waiting togain some weight. However, since I also havecandida, it may be necessary to get rid of it first.I do feel better overall, although I have beenexperiencing die-off since starting on Lamisil.

Also I’ m taking MSM and C. This is my firstpost here, I live near Toronto, Canada. Hi all!

Linda in Virginia: I just got the book myself andI am going to try the diet. I feel it would helpheal my gut. Most of the no-no foods mentionedare ones that I have never been able toeat/tolerate.

Sophie: I’ m confused! I have read that oneshould follow the body ecology diet; then I readthat the eat right for your blood type is the way togo; now I hear the Specific Carbohydrate Diet isthe latest fad! Which one should I follow?

Mary J: My dietary philosophy is to try tocombine all the good points of every diet bookyou read. I don’ t have any dietary “ gurus” ,because each one could leave something out. Isay read them all and combine the good pointsinto your own personal philosophy of what worksbest for you.

Polly: The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)described in Breaking the Vicious Cycle, is a wayof preparing and selecting carbohydrates that willgive your gut a chance to heal. Her “ diet” can bemodified by other considerations. You can turn itinto a high or low carbohydrate diet if you want.It can be vegetarian or not. She gives a lot ofrecipes, but notes that if you have yeastovergrowth, cut back on the amount of honey inthe recipe. You might have to start with no fruitand limited vegetables too.

MM: Watch out for the NUTS in the SCD. If youhave “ leaky gut,“ you may eventually becomeQUITE “ unhappy” on the SCD. Nut proteins arehighly allergenic. Frankly, I am thoroughlydisgusted that SO many healing diets, includingtypical candida diets emphasize nuts so much. I’ llsay again, nuts are HIGHLY allergenic, and this

www.inform.dk/djembe/scd/


40

has NOTHING to do with supposed “ molds“ onnuts.

Polly: There is also a lot of polyunsaturated oil innuts. For this reason, I think the quantity of nutsshould be limited. Purchasing nuts in the shellshould help with the freshness of the oil present.There is a lot of polyunsaturated oil in avocadotoo. So it should not be overdone. At least it isfresh oil. Also, there are a high number of lectinsin peanuts. If you are sensitive to this type oflectin, this could pose a problem.

Mr. Generic: I’ ve just ordered the bookBreaking the Vicious Cycle. What should I do inthe meantime with my diet?

Polly: Have you ever heard of the expression“ the horse is off its feed” ? If you change ahorse’ s diet too quickly, they get sick. Same withany animal. You are no different. Start to modifyyour diet slowly. First and foremost eliminatetable sugar and prepackaged junk food. If youhave a local farmer’ s market, pay them a visit.Their fruit and vegetables are usually fresher andriper. You might even be able to find someorganic produce at a reasonable price. Start byadding a few homemade soups or stews to yourdiet. (See if you can tolerate a broth made fromboiling the bones and cartilage for 7 hours.) Alsostart paying attention to how different foodsaffect you. You may be able to spot a few foodallergies.

Start reducing the amount of wheat andpotatoes in your diet, and start substitutingsquash and other cooked vegetables. Somepeople disagree with Elaine Gottshall on the cornand rice. They claim limited amounts of brownrice and corn can be eaten if you are not allergicto them. That is something you will have tocheck for yourself. The reasoning is that rice andcorn do not contain gluten and hence are easier

on your digestion than the other grains.Interesting aside note: Raymond Peat, PhDclaims that mixing lime in with corn, as done intraditional Mexican cooking, makes the starch inthe corn much easier on your body.

There is disagreement on the advisability ofusing beans in your diet. Although the SCD dietallows them, the Paleolithic diet does not. Oneproblem with beans is their high lectin content.When mice are fed a diet high in lectins, it stripsthe intestinal mucous coating in the smallintestine, and encourages the overgrowth ofabnormal bacteria and protozoa. [3] Thus lectinsmay be a contributing factor to ourdysbiosis/yeast syndrome. (Lectins are alsoimplicated in rheumatoid arthritis and insulindependent diabetes.)

Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteinspresent in most plants, but especially in seeds andtubers like cereals, potatoes, and beans. (Evensoybean oil contains high amounts of lectins.)Cooking will destroy many, but not all, of thelectins. Presoaking beans and throwing out thewater will help remove most of the lectins too.

If you are sensitive to a particular lectin, itcan cause intestinal inflammation, alterpermeability, and contribute to your dysbiosis.Viral infections can make you more sensitive tothe lectins too. IgA (found in egg yolks, raw milkand undenatured whey) will protect yourintestines from the lectins. Certainoligosaccharides (sugars) or glycoproteins can beused to block some of these lectins too. Forinstance, N-acetyl-glucosamine, a popularsupplement for those with leaky gut or arthritis,blocks the lectins in wheat. Here is a veryinteresting and well-written article, “ The LectinReport” by Krispin Sullivan, CN at thiswebaddress, www.krispin.com/lectin.html. Hesuggests that one of the reasons that the SCD diethelps those with dysbiosis is that it eliminatesmany of the lectins in food. (While at his

www.krispin.com/lectin.html

Carbohydrates 41

website, check out the information on his newbook about the importance of sunlight to yourhealth.)

In the SCD diet, you can use navy, whitebeans, kidney beans and occasionally black beansif they are prepared properly. To prepare them,soak the beans in a lot of water for at least 12hours. According to Elaine Gottschall, the waterthe beans are soaked in will contain a type ofcarbohydrate that is hard-to- digest. Thereforeyou should throw out that water and add freshbefore cooking them. Traditional preparationincludes replacing the water repeatedly. Isuggest that you use a lot of water to soak thebeans in. This will make it more likely that theunwanted carbohydrate will stay in the soakingwater rather than being reabsorbed. (Thisprocedure will help remove the lectins as well asthe offending carbohydrates.) My mom told meto add in a whole carrot with the beans when theyare cooking. Then throw out the carrot. Be surenot to eat the carrot. The carrot will absorb a lotof the gas producing substance in the beans. Butagain, beans are something I suggest youexperiment with and see how it affects you. Theauthor of the SCD diet suggests that beans aresomething that you leave until later in the SCDdiet, after you are on the road to recovery.

Raw HoneyHarold: Honey is a simple sugar that is digestedquickly and never gets down to feed the yeastand other bacteria, which reside mainly in thelower tract. Honey also has hydrogen peroxide,which is beneficial in controlling/ killing the badbugs. There are other unidentifiable qualities thatare beneficial. Honey has been found in some ofthe ancient Pharaohs’ tombs when they wereopened and it was still good after thousands ofyears. I use a lot of honey, but I get it from NewZealand. It is called Active Manuka honey

because it has a much higher rating of this anti-microbial factor. It is highly recommended forridding the body of H-Pylori, the stomachbacteria that cause 90% of stomach ulcers. Thisis their website: www.manukahoney.co.nz.

I have found there are differing qualities andstrengths of honey. The finest and strongestManuka honey (very dark in color and thick)comes directly from New Zealand. I order it fromSummer Glow Apiaries, phone +64-7-8297641,website www.manukahoney.co.nz

I have also used a couple other brands ofManuka honey from health food stores. One ofthe brands is ComVita. It is good, and it ischeaper than the Summer Glow Apiaries brand,but I don’ t find it as effective as the SummerGlow brand. The ComVita brand has a mediumbrown color, and it is thick too. If your storedoesn’ t carry it, the ComVita company addressis:

ComVita New Zealand, LtdOld Coach Road,Bay of Plenty, 3071New Zealand

The ComVita brand claims high medicinalproperties, although they do not have a UMFrating. UMF (Unknown Manuka Factor) is ameasure of the honey’ s non-peroxide anti-bacterial property. In order to get a UMF rating,the honey is analyzed and tested for its’ anti-bacterial and anti-microbial properties by theUniversity of Waikato of New Zealand. ThisUMF is the seal and trademark of the ACTIVEMANUKA HONEY INDUSTRY. If the honeyhas a rating of less than 10 UMF, the honey labelis not allowed to have UMF on it. All theManuka honey that I have been getting from theSummerGlow Apiaries has been rated at 16UMF. The ComVita, although good, does nothave UMF on the label.

www.manukahoney.co.nz

www.manukahoney.co.nz


42

Another brand of Manuka honey that I gotfrom the health food store was much weaker(very pale and half the price) and I didn’ t get thesame results. Prices: Active Manuka,approximately $20.00 + delivery in USA moneyshipped from New Zealand. ComVita isapproximately $8.00 USA in a health food store.The cheapie was approximately $6.00 USA at ahealth food store. These prices are for a 500 gramsize, approximately 1.1 lb.

Polly: This company also sells “ Active” Manukahoney www.abeeco.co.nz “ Active” means thatit has a rating of above 10 on the UMF scale thatdescribes its antibacterial properties. So if youare using the honey to treat H-Pylori, you mightwant to stick with a brand with a high activityrating. To treat H-Pylori, they suggest that youput the honey on bread so that it stays in thestomach for a while. Another use for raw honeyis in wound healing, and in fungal infections ofthe skin. You simply wrap an infected nail in araw honey dressing and leave it on overnight.

A lot of companies that sell raw honey aren’ ttelling the whole truth. The honey isn’ t reallyraw. The honey may not have been heated highenough to pasteurize it, but it has been heatedenough to make it flow better and heating over93 degrees F destroys the enzymes. Manuka rawhoney and other truly raw honeys are so thickthat you can turn the jar upside down and thehoney will not run out.

Besides Manuka raw honey, here are someother places to get real raw honey: VolcanoIsland Honey Co. phone 808-775-0806, and Y. S.Organic Bee Farms, phone 800-654-4593 or 815-496-9416 and the Really Raw Honey Co, phone800-REAL-RAW, and website www.reallyrawhoney.com.

Mrs. Generic: Why does Elaine Gottschall’ sbooks on the SCD diet say that some raw honey

is okay? (She suggests limiting the amount forthose with a yeast problem.)

Polly: Raw honey has enzymes that help yourbody digest it. The cooked honey does not.

Mary W: Actually the SCD people seem to havebacked off from that and say any honey is fine.They prefer it be pasteurized.

MM: Yes, and their reason is that unpasteurizedhoney can contain Clostridium spores and otherbacterial contaminants. This potentialcontamination is why you are not supposed tofeed honey to babies.

Caveman or Paleolithic DietMr. Generic: What is the caveman diet?

Polly: Foods that can be “ hunted or gathered”like lean meats, fish, eggs, fruits, nuts, andvegetables. No grains, dairy, or beans. See www.paleodiet.com. Also, the PaleoFood RecipeCollection is at www.PaleoFood.com. Here is abook: Neanderthin: Eat Like a Caveman toAchieve a Lean, Strong, Healthy Body by Ray V.Audette. The Paleolithic diet got rid of thatauthor’ s rheumatoid arthritis, and helped himloose weight. Here is another book that should beavailable at libraries, but is out of print: Dr.Walter L. Voegtlin’ s Stone Age Diet.

Franca: I couldn’ t resist commenting thatPaleolithic recipes sound kind of funny. Here’ swhat came to my mind:

1) Kill wooly mammoth

2) Drag home to wife

3) Slice up with a crude tool

4) Wait for lightening to start fire nearby

5) Heat over fire until brown...

www.abeeco.co.nz

www.reallyrawhoney.com

www.paleodiet.com

www.PaleoFood.com

Carbohydrates 43

Sorry! I’ m sure the recipes are great (and moremodern than this), but at 7:33am, I guess I’ mfeeling a bit silly! Cheers!

Polly: You left out:

6) Prehistoric children whine because dinnerisn’ t ready yet.

7) Kids snack on raw fat and blood, withoutwashing their hands first.

8) Cave children aren’ t hungry once dinner isfinally cooked.

Don: The diet I now believe in and follow is aPaleolithic diet. This is what our ancestors ate formore than two million years, leading up to themajor diet change of the Neolithic era (the era offarming). This was only some 5,000 or so yearsago, depending on where your ancestors arefrom, and even less if Scotland, NorthernIreland/or Scandinavia. I feel this diet will bepreventative against civilizatory, or WesternDiseases.

There is no carbohydrate counting or portioncontrol. Foods are either in or out. Our ancestorsate: vegetables (esp. green leafy ones), meat, fish,eggs, nuts, seeds, berries, fruit, and roots. Theyalso ate insects, which are high in vitamins andproteins. They did not eat food chemicals (egMSG, aspartame, colorings, and preservatives),grains, dairy, most beans, vegetable seed oils(olive is a fruit oil), refined sugar, vinegar,peanuts, added salt, and foods that requiretechnology to make them edible.

Polly: There may have been some low glutengrains in our ancestor’ s diets, but certainly notthe large quantity that we find with civilization.Everything I’ ve read indicates that grains arevery hard on the body, and that if you are goingto eat some, you should sprout and ferment them.Sally Fallon suggests that they be soaked before

cooking. Some people suggest soaking them fora long time, and then eating without cooking.

Ros in Australia: Soaking increases the contentand availability of vitamins in the grains as wellas activating the enzyme phytase, which breaksdown the phytic acid. Fermenting has a similareffect. The grains need to be soaked/fermentedfor at least 12 hours (per Sally Fallon) andpreferably 24 hours. If soaking only, the waterneeds to be changed repeatedly during this time(indigenous groups change the water about 6times). I know of no historic report of any hunter-gatherer group that ate grains raw in normalcircumstances.

Jason: I just wanted to let everyone know thesuccess that I’ ve been having with the “ caveman” type diet. I know we all here know thebenefits of low carbohydrate diets as far as yeastis concerned, but I never really appreciated howhelpful it can be when you REALLY follow itclosely. I’ ve switched to pretty much eating meatand vegetables and some fruit. NO grains. NOdairy. I haven’ t changed any other aspect of whatI’ ve been doing. (still taking Nystatin and all myregular supplements) But in two weeks I’ ve hadcomplete cessation of brain fog and went frombeing bed ridden with fatigue to being able to getaround and do things. I’ m certainly notsuggesting this is the answer for everyone but Ijust thought I’ d let everyone know how much ithas seemed to help me. Here is a webpage with alot of excellent links to other pages about lowcarbohydrate diets (Paleo Diets), www.panix.com/~paleodiet. As far as the healthaspect of diets of this type goes, the informationis very convincing. I hope everyone is gettingbetter.

www.panix.com/~paleodiet


44

Celiac DiseasePolly: People with celiac disease cannot toleratethe gluten in wheat, rye, barley, and oats.(Acceptable, non-gluten “ grains” are rice, corn,millet, buckwheat, amaranth and quinoa.Technically, these are not classified as grains.) Iget the distinct impression that the symptoms ofceliac can be very similar to yeast overgrowth. Isthis true?

Don: Yes. Have you seen this comparison I oncedid? www.panix.com/~candida/cccomp.shtml

JDB: I would strongly suggest that anyone whohas significant weight loss, especially ifaccompanied by malabsorption of fats (dry skinand hair are a main symptom), and mostespecially if accompanied by itching blisters,read the information on celiac disease and get theappropriate blood antibody tests (BEFORE evenconsidering a biopsy, which may well beunnecessary) if indicated.

Physicians in the USA are generally grosslyincompetent at diagnosing this disorder(screenings have consistently shown that over90% are UNdiagnosed). DON’ T just leave it upto your doctor, inform yourself!

If you discover that you DO have thiscondition, close blood relatives (parents, siblingsand children) with symptoms should be screenedfor it (it is genetic). More often than not, doctorsin the USA ignore the need for screeningrelatives.

Many cases of celiac disease areMISdiagnosed as “ anorexia nervosa” . (Anorexianervosa is also a real condition, but if you arediagnosed with it and you do NOT fit thepsychological profile, QUESTION the diagnosis.It could save your life. I was diagnosed withanorexia nervosa three times by three separatephysicians (or what passes for them in the USA)

in spite of the fact that NONE of thepsychological signs were present. EVERY doctorI saw in New Zealand said that I did not at all fitthe anorexia nervosa pattern and was a classicpresentation of celiac disease.

Search the celiac disease archives at:

http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/celiac.html

and look at: www.sfu.ca/~jfremont/celiac.html

www.fastlane.net/homepages/thodge/archive.htm

www.wwwebguides.com/nutrition/diets/glutenfree/index.html

Scott Adam’ s page is a good starting place, at www.celiac.com.

Polly: Don, can you tell me when a personshould be tested for celiac?

Don: When? Well, it has to be when the personis consuming gluten. The best file on testing is: www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/diag-tst.html

Polly: So, there are plenty of different tests, butthey won’ t be valid if you have already gone ona gluten free diet. I assume you think thePaleolithic diet is probably the best diet forceliac. Is this correct?

Don: Not really. If someone just has celiacdisease they should be okay just going gluten-free. There are some that do need to remove othergrains. And some do have a problem with dairy.

Polly: There is a huge amount of information ongluten intolerance on the Internet. There is a lotmore than one can sift through in one sitting.

www.panix.com/~candida/cccomp.shtml

http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/celiac.html

www.sfu.ca/~jfremont/celiac.html

www.fastlane.net/homepages/thodge/archive.htm

www.wwwebguides.com/nutrition/diets/glutenfre

www.celiac.com

www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/diag

Carbohydrates 45

Don, can you point me towards a few basicarticles on the subject of celiac?

Don: These are the best articles, and were writtenby gastroenterologists:

www.aafp.org/afp/980301ap/pruessn.html

http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/gi/celiac.html

Polly: Thanks for your help, Don. I just read yourarticle and all the ones you pointed out. One inthree hundred will have this disease. Theinsidious part of celiac is that it can occurwithout warning at any time in one’ s life, and isoften undiagnosed. Sometimes emotional stress,physical trauma, a virus, or pregnancy willtrigger it. You can be misdiagnosed so easily.Only half the people with celiac have thecharacteristic diarrhea, and only one-fourth havethe fatty stools. The other symptoms are verydiverse because they are caused by malabsorptionof nutrients. Symptoms include recurringabdominal bloating and pain, nausea, anemia,gas, tingling numbness in the legs, sores insidethe mouth, painful skin rash on elbows, knees,and buttocks, cramping, hives, joint/muscle painsand aches, diarrhea, and constipation. I reallydon’ t see how one can tell the yeast syndromeapart from celiac without testing.

There are a lot of other possible diagnosesthat people get before finding out that they really

have celiac. Here are some: anemia, fatigue,stress, nerves, imagination, IBS (Irritable BowelSyndrome), parasites, colitis, diarrhea, spasticcolon, ulcers, diabetes, allergies, gallbladderdisease, weight loss, thyroid disease or cancer.

One of the articles stated that celiac oftenmanifests at 2 years of age. Since symptoms ofautism often occur at this age, one wonders whatthe actual role of gluten intolerance might playwith the onset of this disease or with otherproblems, like Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)or hyperactivity. (More about the relationshipbetween gluten and autism and attention deficit isin book 5.)

references1. Gershon, Michael, MD, The Second Brain, Harper

Perennial, 1998, page 223

2. Peat, R, Phd, “ Postpartum, premenstrual, and seasonalserotonin soaks: Hints about aging, insomnia anddiabetes” , Ray Peat’ s Newsletter, November 2001

3. Banwell JG, Howard R, Kabir I, Costerton JW.“ Bacterial overgrowth by indigenous microflora in thePHA.fed rat. Can J Microbiol 1988;34:1009.13. asmentioned in this article: Freed, David L J(Allergist),” Do dietary lectins cause disease? Theevidence is suggestive— and raises interestingpossibilities for treatment.” BMJ volume 318 17 April1999 www.bmj.com

www.aafp.org/afp/980301ap/pruessn.html

http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/gi/celiac.html

www.bmj.com

ProteinPolly: If you have yeast overgrowth, does thatmean you have to eat meat? Are the hormones,antibiotics, fungal toxins and pesticides found inmeat fat so detrimental that you are better offbeing a vegetarian? Or does need for proteinoutweigh the risks? Why can’ t some peopletolerate high protein foods? Sorry, we don’ t haveall the answers, but we do have some thoughts toshare with you.

Protein IntoleranceKareem: After several antibiotic therapies, myintestinal flora got mixed up. I had dysbiosis (egno bifidus bacteria, no E. Coli bacteria, a fewpathogenic bacteria etc). One of the problemscaused by the dysbiosis is protein mal-digestion.The symptoms go like this: when I eat (any)meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, nuts, the comingnight I wake up around 2.30, sweating andfeeling bad. I cannot sleep anymore and atdaytime I feel like tortured. The second night Isleep until about 3:30, the third night about 5:00and then it works itself to the normal rhythm(7:00). My thesis is that for some reason theprotein molecules are not broken down to aminoacids and therefore several whole proteinmolecules reach intestinal areas which theyshould not reach. There they are absorbed intothe bloodstream and in the end overload several

organs (which may do their detoxification workmostly at night).

Several allergy tests didn’ t show allergicreactions against protein molecules from meat,egg, fish, dairy products and nuts. The only thingI can do now is to leave out all protein richproducts. Does anyone have a physiologicalexplanation for this problem? Thanks!

Polly: I think you are probably right in that theprotein isn’ t being digested properly. If bacteriaare feeding on protein, this could lead toammonia and other toxins being produced thatmay interfere with your sleep. Ammonia isproduced when your body digests protein orwhen bacteria like Proteus, Klebsiella andBacteroides act upon protein. Here are somepossibilities:

1) Sleep problems can be induced by increasedammonia levels. When ammonia is present,more tryptophan will enter the brain. [1]Tryptophan can be turned into serotonin. Themost often suggested explanation forammonia induced sleep disturbances isincreased serotonin turnover in the brain. [2]

2) In particular, look for an overgrowth ofbacteria in the small intestine. Bacteria thatare residing in the small intestine get to yourfood before you are able to fully digest and

Protein 47

absorb it. It may be the problem. However,the type of bacteria in the small intestinemight not be picked up by a stool test. Aurine test would be more likely to find theproblem. (Even yeast in the small intestinearen’ t always picked up in a stool test, eventhough they have pictures of the yeast insidethe cells of the small intestine.)

3) In particular, suspect an overgrowth of gram-negative anaerobes, clostridia, enterobacteria,and Bacillus species because these bacteriaproduce relatively large amounts ofammonia. Increased ammonia is probably notdue to yeast, because yeasts form very littleammonia. [3] (However, don’ t forget thatyeast will change which bacteria grow, sothey could be a secondary problem.)

4) The lack of Bifidus bacteria may beincreasing your absorption of ammonia.Bifidus keeps the lower intestine acidic.When the chyme in the large intestine isacidic, less ammonia is absorbed. FOS willincrease the Bifidus population, butsometimes there are problems using FOS.Inulin is another option for increasing theBifidus population. (See the probioticschapter in book 2 for more information onFOS and inulin.)

5) Lactulose is often recommended to reduceammonia in the body. It may help increaseBifidus, and it may also lower the amount ofammonia produced by bacteria. However, itmay increase the growth of other bacteria andtherefore, lactulose might not be tolerated byeveryone.

6) Calcium/magnesium butyrate may be usefulin reducing ammonia in the body, accordingto Dr. Patricia Kane’ s observations.Threonine (beta-hydroxy-butyric) is anotheroption for helping the body to removeammonia.

7) To process the ammonia, your body needscarbon dioxide, CO2. You can support yourCO2 levels by making sure you have enoughthyroid hormone. Also, you can learnbreathing techniques designed to increaseCO2 retention. These breathing techniquesacidify the blood, while helping the cells takein oxygen. (See the chapter on Acid AndAlkaline Balance.) Another method forincreasing CO2 is ingesting mineralcarbonates. Patricia Kane, PhD has seen a lotof protein intolerance in autistic children.Usually these children are too acidic andhave low bicarbonate levels in their blood.She suggests that they take mineralcarbonates one hour after their meal. Thiswill increase CO2 levels and at the same timereduce the blood’ s acidity. (For generalpurposes, you can get some carbonatedminerals from buffered vitamin C.) However,there are a few precautions to take whenusing these mineral carbonates.

A) Mineral carbonates may lower the acidityof your blood. This is often good. Yet,you can’ t go too far down this path. Youneed to get some “ acidic“ protein to themineral carbonates. Also a mixture ofdifferent minerals is probably best. Forinstance, a balance between sodium andpotassium is important.

B) Don’ t take the mineral carbonates withyour meal. This will lower your stomachacid level and interfere with digestion.Add the mineral carbonates inbetweenmeals, preferably at about the time thatthe pancreas naturally secretescarbonates. The stomach usually emptiesabout 90 minutes after a meal. However,it will take longer if there is inadequatestomach acid and/or if you have ingesteda lot of meat and fat.


48

8) According to Braverman, in his book TheHealing Nutrients Within, the proteinintolerance could be due to a lack ofcoenzyme B6 (also known as P5P). You maywant to read page 338 in his book, andpossibly get an amino acid profile. Histreatment suggestion would include a lowprotein diet, B6, magnesium, and sometimesalpha-ketoglutaric acid. (Magnesium, B2, andalpha-ketoglutaric acid are needed to convertB6 into its active coenzyme form..)Manganese and zinc are also needed tohandle protein foods. Certain amino acids,like alpha-ketoglutaric acid, help you removeammonia. You might want to have yourdoctor do an amino acid assay. (See thechapter on amino acids in book 6.)

Have your doctor check your stomach pH andyour pancreatic enzyme levels, your CO2, yourblood and urine pH, and check your urine indicanlevel. (Indican is a measure of proteinputrefaction in the gut.)

Vegetarian or Omnivore?Mary J: Hi Polly, what do you think meat doesfor the liver? I’ m a vegetarian and enjoy it, but Ilook at everything.

Polly: Protein improves liver health. The liverneeds protein to get rid of estrogen. [4]

Shelley: Polly, you have just answered a majorpiece of my puzzle and I thank you. Every doctorthat I have had that has “ believed in” the yeastsyndrome has told me not to eat meat. When I amnot on antifungals I cannot tell what I am allergicto, because I react to everything and only want toeat carbohydrates and sugar. When I am onantifungals then I only want to eat meat£it’ s thiscraving almost like the sugar craving. Do I trynot to eat meat and get sicker; or do I eat meat

and start to feel better but guilty for not doingwhat they tell me is medically sound? It’ s a verywaffly place because I didn’ t understand themechanism UNTIL NOW. It’ s that liver again!

Dear Liver,

I’ m sorry for all the estrogen! Please have asmuch protein as you need!

Love, Shelley

Suzanne: Shelley, too much protein could lead toother problems. I am a vegetarian, and I get morethan enough protein a day from my diet of soy-tofu, seitan etc, nuts & seeds, rice and beans anda balanced diet of many types of vegetables, and“ Bragg’ s liquid Aminos” . It is non-fermented soyand I use it as “ soy sauce” .

Not to start a debate, just present a differentview on the subject. The average adult onlyneeds .3 grams of protein per lb of body weightper DAY (ie 150 lb = 2 ounces of protein) Notvery much. Most Americans eat more thandouble the amount of protein they need in oneday. Excess amounts of protein in your dietdepletes calcium from your body— potentiallyleading to osteoporosis and puts an extra burdenon your kidney— potentially leading to renalfailure. There have even been studies showingthat high-protein diets have shorter average lifeexpectancies than people who follow low-proteindiets. And just think of all the other things thatyour body gets from lots of meat like arteryclogging fat and cholesterol, and pesticides,steroids and antibiotics; unless you only eatorganic meat, eggs, dairy and never eat out atmost restaurants.

I certainly don’ t want to tell anyone how toeat as I believe that you should eat whicheverprotein source that seems to work best for you(since some people are allergic to soy, rice etc),

Protein 49

however, eat everything in moderation— not toolittle, not too much.

As a side note, I started to get candidasymptoms when I wasn’ t a vegetarian. I still atelots seafood, eggs and didn’ t care if things hadchicken or beef stock. So I personally don’ tbelieve it CAUSES candida. I attribute the causeof my candida to birth control pills andantibiotics and eating too much of the typicalAmerican diet of processed and junk food, sugar,and stress. Most of the facts about protein/meatthat I quoted came from the book Renewal: TheAnti-aging Revolution written by Timothy SmithMD (who is vegan) and treats candida. I heardhim speak at an Earthsave meeting.

Shelley: Thanks for your response, Suzanne. Itoo have been a vegetarian for many years, butnot in the last few. I think my lifelong candidaproblem opened the door to this other pressinghealth problem I now have, CFS (ChronicFatigue Syndrome). I think it is a little like thechicken and the egg thing, although the metaphordoesn’ t actually apply.

I know I had Candida Related Complex(CRC) before the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome(CFS). I don’ t know if the CRC directly causedthe CFS. And I don’ t know if controlling thecandida will clear the CFS. My gut feeling is thatsince it has always been a root problem, andbecause so much of what is said on this forum issooo valuable to me for both conditions, that Imight be on the right track. And controlling thecandida (dare I say eliminating???) has to makea healthier body.

Because of the lifelong candida problem, Ihave also had a leaky gut and developed allergiesto almost everything. To my dismay, even soyand rice. But not meat and eggs and other “ flesh”(yuck) stuff because I never ate it. So I am goingwith the “ liver needs help” theory and eatingmostly meat (organic as I can) AND lowish

carbohydrate vegetables. Lately that has beenthings like asparagus. I can get organic asparaguseven in the supermarket (even on the East Coast!)

The whole thing is complicated and I wouldrather be vegetarian but I think I need to performthis experiment. As counter-intuitive as it is tomy mind, my body likes it. I welcome anythoughts on this, folks. Good we’ re talking aboutit.

Mary J: I too am sure I had candida long beforeI became a vegetarian. I think my dad had a goodcase of it having been on antibiotics since WWII.I think yeast can be a familial situation. Peoplewash clothes in cold water, etc, etc. Postnasaldrip is supposed to be a biggie with yeast. Peoplebreathe what others sneeze, etc. I think evenanimals can have yeast, since they have yeast intheir urine (I saw a picture on the Internet).

SR: As far as amino acids go, I do not believe itis possible for many people to digest and absorbenough amino acids (protein components) fromvegetarian diets. It is NOT that the aminos arenot in the vegetarian diet, they of course AREthere. BUT a person must be lucky in 2 ways....Lucky enough to combine the right foodsthroughout the day (they do not even need to becombined at the same meal but can be spacedseveral hours apart apparently). Second, a personmust have a healthy genetic metabolism to do it.It’ s just that many people have tried to govegetarian and it just does not work for mostpeople for whatever reason…including me. I wasvegetarian for 3 years and it nearly killed me.

Now, if someone is 100% healthy and theywant to become vegetarian, it may work for thembecause they have no candida or mercury orparasites or fungus or bacteria or viruses or leakygut or poor digestion etc. Well then it may workfor them. Or it may even work for some who aretrying to get well. There are always exceptions to


50

the rule. However the rule I have mostly seen isthat it just does not work for most people andthey look like crap and are generally weak andtired and frail NO MATTER what the magazinessay. Once again, I am so glad you are theexception to the rule. I TRULY WISH I COULDHAVE BEEN ALSO AND CONTINUED ONIT, but for right now NO WAY !!

I just do not want to see others sufferneedlessly, trying to go vegetarian with TOFUAND SOY, as most of it is allergy causing andgenetically altered or hybridized in some wayshape or form, as are most of our vegetabletoday!! Whether they are organic or not.

MM: I have to agree with you, SR. I too wentveggie for several years£even avoided eggs anddairy products£and instead, ate LOTS andLOTS of beans and homemade whole grainbread. It took me the “ usual” several years todeplete my nutrient stores on this diet£calcium,magnesium, others, and probably mostimportantly for my liver, vitamin B-12.

Since that time (I crashed in 1994), I’ ve beena wreck. Candida, food allergies, overloadedliver, etc. I’ ve made very notable progress sinceI again began to eat meat in December 1997. I’ mnot cured, but I feel better, and also feel that I’ mbeginning to get a handle on the food allergything.

Going veggie is definitely NOT something tobe done casually! It is VERY easy to slowlybecome deficient in key nutrients when on aveggie diet! And, once unbalanced, it has beenVERY difficult for me (anyway) to again regainbalance, and to give my body what it needs torepair and restock.

Mrs. Generic: Perhaps you ate too many breadsand beans instead of nuts and vegetables.

MM: Oh, don’ t get me wrong, I ate lots ofveggies too. Also nuts. In fact, I ALWAYS ateLOTS of veggies. I love stir-fry. Problem is thatwhen the candida came, and it did (not becauseof bread over-consumption), I then got foodallergies to things including NUTS. Of course,this made it ever so much more difficult to be aGOOD vegetarian. Despite all of this, I never hadadequate dietary sources of vitamin B-12. Ofcourse, I only now realize this. What I was tryingto point out is that it is NOT EASY to be aGOOD vegetarian.

Polly: I use to eat almost all protein. I had to. Icouldn’ t tolerate much else. But last year when Ihad my amino acids tested, I was low on almostall of them. This means there was somethingwrong with my absorption or utilization ofprotein. There are probably many possibilities,however, I’ ve only run across a few possibleexplanations in my case. My deficiency of anamino acid called valine made it harder to absorband use the other proteins. (That was mentionedin the result packet of my amino acid assay.) Iwas low on coenzyme B6, and a lack ofcoenzyme B6 limits absorption and use ofprotein. Thyroid is necessary to assimilateprotein too. My thyroid was low. I think whenyou have an illness like candida, there may beextenuating circumstances that make itimperative that you get more protein in your dietthan normal. For instance, a high protein diet, iftolerated, can protect one from some of theeffects of mercury poisoning.

Mary J: One thing I might bring up from theBroda Barnes thyroid book I just read is that highprotein diets require more thyroid hormone. Idon’ t see anything wrong with including meat inyour diet if you want it and think you need it.Everything in moderation and all that. A person

Protein 51

who does eat meat opens themselves up to moreparasite possibilities I think.

Polly: The cysteine in muscle meat suppressesthe thyroid. (The heart does not contain a lot ofcysteine though.) According to Raymond Peat,this is one reason that people starting a vegetariandiet might feel better at first. However, if theycontinue the vegetarian diet for a few years anddon’ t get enough protein, then they feel worse. [5]

I think part of the problem is the type of meatavailable to the USA public. I feel healthier sinceswitching to beef from New Zealand. The cattleare truly grass-fed. The meat is very lean. It ismuch leaner than any other meat I’ ve tried. Ithink animals raised this way should have lessestrogen, antibiotics, and pesticides in their fatthan the grain-fed animals. Pesticides act likeestrogens, and as we all know, estrogen increasesyeast growth. So, I feel that meat from trulygrass-fed animals is best. However, please becareful about which “ grass-fed” products youbuy. I use to see high-priced meat in the healthfood store that was labeled “ grass-fed” , but it wasa misnomer. The cattle were only partially grass-fed. The animals were sent to feed lots to fattenthem on grains before slaughter.

My husband doesn’ t like the taste of thegrass-fed beef, so we tried a different meat.Switching from beef to emu meat made a bigdifference in his health. His migrainesdiminished significantly. Emu meat is very lean.We also experimented with grass-fed buffalomeat, but it seemed to be bad for both of us. Thebuffalo burger we tried was very fatty.

Shelley: Please anyone reading this regard it asthe musings of a seeker and not the gospel. I amlost often and found once in a while. Polly, tellme if I am lost? There is something here that isnot quite making sense to me. I will try to lay itout.

1) Candida deposits bad stuff in ones bowelslike estrogen, which the liver has to process,and this exhausts the liver.

2) Protein is needed to help the liver detoxestrogen.

3) Thyroid also helps the liver detox estrogen.Yet thyroid activity is suppressed by thecysteine in meat.

4) Thyroid clears cortisol from the blood.Would not higher levels of thyroid put astrain on the adrenals?

5) Eating meat also creates nitric oxide, whichmakes a person feel terrible which wouldbring on all kinds of things...like allergies.(an aside: aspirin is a nitric oxide inhibitorand one of the only things that makes me feellike a human being)...

So what’ s my point? Is it “ don’ t take thyroid andeat vegetarian” or “ eat meat, take thyroid and addsupplements to try to eliminate excess estrogen“ ?OK, I am lost. Going to look into Raymond Peatand not speak until then!

Polly: If our meat were pesticide free, antibioticfree, and grass-fed, I don’ t think people wouldhave much of a nutritional argument againsteating some meat. However, even here you haveto be careful. Raymond Peat suggests that it isbetter to get your protein from milk, cheese, eggsand gelatin. Milk and cheese have less cysteine inthem. This makes it more thyroid friendly. Theheart muscle contains very little cysteine andwould also fit into this thyroid friendly categoryof protein.

Raymond Peat also talks about the problemwith excess tryptophan in muscle meat. Hesuggests that if you eat a steak or hamburger, thatyou balance its amino acids by eating gelatin atapproximately the same time. (Perhaps a packetof unflavored Knox gelatine.) Gelatin is low incysteine and tryptophan, whereas the meat,


52

especially the more expensive tender cuts, is highin cysteine and tryptophan.

The gelatin is also good because it containscollagen, chondroitan sulfate and the protectiveamino acid glycine. (All of these are great forjoints.) One-third of the protein in gelatinconsists of the protective amino acid glycine. Itdoes not contain tryptophan. The glycine helpsyou control sugar cravings. When I first startedadding a gelatin to my diet, there was a bigchange in how hungry I felt. I was no longerhungry all day long and I felt full much soonerwhen eating. Of course, it may be somethingmore than just the glycine in the gelatin that isdoing that.

You can make your own gelatin by boilingskin, cartilage and bones and making soup stock.Or if you are lazy like me, sometimes you mayjust want to add some unflavored gelatin to yoursoup or casserole. (The one pound can of gelatinefor food service use is half the price of thepackets.)

If we are going to eat animal protein, we needprotein from the whole animal, not just themuscles. Otherwise we are creating an imbalancein the types of protein we are eating. Imbalancesin protein intake translate into more protein beingdestroyed by the liver and more ammonia beingproduced. The ammonia is hard on the body.

If all you eat is muscle meat, then amongother things, you will be getting adisproportionate amount of tryptophan. Excesstryptophan is not good for you. Tryptophan willsuppress thyroid and increase serotoninproduction. Too much serotonin is dangerous,especially if it is combined with polyunsaturatedoils and a stressful lifestyle. The combination ofpolyunsaturated oils and stress releases theserotonin from the cells and sets a person up formany illnesses. It will interfere with energyproduction and will activate the HPA axis(hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) and will

suppress the thyroid hormone levels in the blood.[6] It will make you more susceptible tofibromyalgia, depression and the yeast syndrome.That is why it is important to try and balanceyour protein intake. As an adult, you can affordto eliminate a lot of tryptophan from your diet.You need very little. However, growing childrenneed more tryptophan than adults.

As for your other questions, if your adrenalsaren’ t too weak, a little added thyroid willactually spur the adrenals on to work better.Assuming your stomach acid is adequate enoughto break down the meat and release the B12, thenthe nitric oxide shouldn’ t be too much of aproblem. The vitamin B12 in the meat is a nitricoxide scavenger, and thus will help protect youfrom the extra nitric oxide. [7]

Shelley: Thanks Polly. I will look into bettermeat, hormone-free and grass-fed. I have theAmish community that comes to the area in amarket to research what they say about their meatand also I am thinking to look into the koshermeat markets in Philadelphia.

Polly: The Eatwild Grassfarmers’ Directory hasa list of farmers in each USA state and eachCanadian province that raise grass-fed animals.See website www.eatwild.com/suppliers.html.Their prices are often better than at the localhealth-food store. For those without computeraccess, Lasater Grasslands Beef in Colorado isone of the largest pasture-intensive farms in theUnited States, phone (719) 541-2855 or (719)541-2888 (fax).

The New Zealand Company’ s meat websiteis www.outlands.co.nz. Presently, their productsare carried in most Southern California WholeFoods Markets. These New Zealand grass-fedcattle are NOT raised with the use of hormones,steroids, or antibiotics.

www.eatwild.com/suppliers.html

www.outlands.co.nz

Protein 53

Here is a source of game animals, website www.brokenarrowranch.com or phone 1-800-962-4263. This is a list of animal products wherethe animals were at least partially grass-fed. www.mercola.com/article/resources/sources_organic_food.htm

Kippy: For a long time I thought my candidaproblem resulted from my vegetarian diet. Istopped eating meat 12 years ago. The more I’ vethought about it though, the more I think Ideveloped candida from stress, bad air quality,and liver damage from drinking£especially incollege.

Although, there is also the theory of eatingright for your blood type (Eat Right 4 Your Typeby Dr. Peter J. D’ Adamo) which states thatlectins (toxins) are produced when you eat foodsthat interact poorly with your blood type. I’ m ablood type O, which is a type that’ s supposed toeat meat. Interestingly enough, I’ m also sensitiveto a lot of the foods discouraged by the ER4YTbook, such as soy, rice, pork, wheat, gluten,yeast, barley, etc. I found the coincidencesomewhat intriguing. Anyway, I agree with youMary£everything in moderation.

Also, I’ ve read on Dr. Richard Schulze’ swebsite and Dr. Rona’ s website that meatscontain tons of bacteria and parasites. I don’ tremember the actual figure, but it wasastounding. What’ s fascinating is that peoplewith low stomach acid (blood type A’ s) are moresusceptible to parasites. Coincidentally, the EatRight 4 Your Type book specifies that blood typeA’ s should not eat meat. Huh!

Shelley: I too am blood type O, and that wasanother positive for me to try this meat thing. Iwill check the websites you mention, Kippy butI’ m afraid it’ s going to be quite a shock.

Polly: You need to get enough protein on aregular basis to keep your cell mediatedimmunity working. [8] When that falters, you aresusceptible to yeast overgrowth.

Irradiation Of MeatPolly: Is there a downside to the new irradiationof meat? This is an excerpt from one of RaymondPeat’ s Newsletters [9]

“The amount of irradiation needed to extend theshelf life of food is around 100,000 rads to300,000 rads or even more, and even thatintensity can’ t overcome the problem of dirtyproduction facilities. This amount of radiationproduces a large amount of ammonia in food.Dogs fed meat that had been irradiated werefound to have severely depressed essential aminoacids, and a low level of magnesium, protein, andcreatinine in the blood. Vitamin A and othernutrients were depleted.”

There are abstracts in medline that paint an evenbleaker picture. [10] Dr. Gary Gibbs has writtena book, The Food That Would Last Forever:Understanding The Dangers Of FoodIrradiation. In an interview with Dr. JonathanWright, he stated

“At the University of Illinois, the Department ofMedicine fed radiated food to mice. Seventeenpercent had to be killed or died because ofrespiratory problems so severe they couldn't evenmove around their cages. They did autopsies. Thehearts of the mice had enlarged to twice to threetimes normal, and in some cases had burst. Thisis so often seen in animal feeding studies withradiated food that it's commonly referred to asthe hemorrhagic syndrome. …Researchers at theMedical College of Virginia fed rats irradiatedbeef. All the male rats died of hemorrhagicsyndrome within 34 days.”

www.brokenarrowranch.com

www.mercola.com/article/resources/sources_org


54

The problem with irradiation isn’ t limited tomeat. There are many warning signs with otherirradiated foods too.

Fortunately, the new irradiated meat in themarket will be labeled with a green radiationflower. Unfortunately, any of the meat or foodyou are served in a restaurant will not be marked.Convenience foods will not be marked. Any foodthat has been processed in any other way or hasbeen mixed with other ingredients will not bemarked. Eg. A radiated tomato will be marked,but catsup made from radiated tomatoes will notbe marked. Look for a green flower symbol onyour food. It is called the "radura." The radura isa green circle (broken into four segments at thetop of the circle), enclosing a flower imagerepresented by a large green dot with two petalsbelow the dot. Also watch out for “ consumerfriendly” names, like “ cold pasteurized” or“ electronic pasteurized” which might hide thefact that the food has been irradiated.

references1. Braverman, Eric R., MD, The Healing Nutrients

Within; Facts, Findings and New Research on AminoAcids, Keats Publishing, Inc. 27 Pine Street (Box 876),New Canaan, Connecticut 06840-0876, date 1999 Hestates that Ammonia will increase the ratio of aromaticto branch chain amino acids that enter the brain.

2. Bergeron M, Swain MS, Reader TA, Grondin L,Butterworth RF, “ Effect of ammonia on brainserotonin metabolism in relation to function in theportacaval shunted rat.” J Neurochem. 1990Jul;55(1):222-9 and Szerb JC, Butterworth RF, “ Effectof ammonium ions on synaptic transmission in themammalian central nervous system.” Prog Neurobiol1992 Aug;39(2):135-53

3. Vince AJ, Burridge SM, “ Ammonia production byintestinal bacteria: the effects of lactose, lactulose andglucose.” J Med Microbiol. 1980 May;13(2):177-91

4. Lipschutz, Alexander, Steroid Hormones and Tumors,Williams and Wilkins Company, Baltimore, 1950. Asreferenced in Raymond Peat‘s book on page 6,

Progesterone in Orthomolecular Medicine Also thework of Biskinds in the 1940s.

5. Peat, Raymond, PhD, “ Endocrine System and theCandida Patient” , 1985 lecture tape from the Candidaand Dysbiosis Information Foundation

6. Jorgensen H, Knigge U, Kjaer A, Moller M, WarbergJ, “ Serotonergic Stimulation of Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone and Pro-Opiomelanocortin GeneExpression.” J Neuroendocrinol. 2002Oct;14(10):788-795 and Wang J, Dunn AJ Brizzi G,Carella C, Foglia MC, Frigino M “ Thyroid hormoneplasmatic levels in rats treated with serotonin in acuteand chronic way.” J Physiol Paris 1997

7. Pall ML. “ Cobalamin used in chronic fatiguesyndrome therapy is a nitric oxide scavenger.” Journalof Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, in press, and also inRaymond Peat’ s April 1999 newsletter.

8. Lotfy OA, Saleh WA, el-Barbari M. “ A study of somechanges of cell-mediated immunity in protein energymalnutrition.” J Egypt Soc Parasitol. 1998Aug;28(2):413-28

9. Peat, Raymond, PhD, “ Estrogen, Aging, Radiation,Migraine and Energy,” Ray Peat’ s Newsletter, October2000

10. Smid K, Dvorak J, Hrusovsky J, [The effect of feedstreated with ionizing irradiation on biochemicalindicators of the nutritional value of energy nutrients].[Article in Czech] Vet Med (Praha) 1985Sep;30(9):531-41 and Dvorak J, Smid K, HrusovskyJ [The effect of ionizing radiation on structuralchanges in the energy nutrients in animal feed].[Article in Czech] Vet Med (Praha) 1985Oct;30(10):629-36 and Smid K, Dvorak J, HrusovskyJ [The effect of ionizing irradiation on sensorychanges in feed in relation to their utilization by dogs].[Article in Czech] Vet Med (Praha) 1985Dec;30(12):739-48

11. Romano C, Biondi R, Quarto N, Galdiero F, (Articlein Italian. Changes of the intestinal mucosa-bacterialflora ecosystem in rats fed various diets) Boll IstSieroter Milan 1978 Mar 31;57(1):12-9

Fats And OilsPolly: At the urging of our medicalestablishment, the USA public has greatly cutback on saturated fats. We substituted oils fromcorn, cottonseed, soy, safflower, and canola. Inmy opinion, the shift from saturated fat to seedoils in our diet has greatly contributed to the“ yeast syndrome” epidemic. The high omega-6essential fatty acid content of the seed oilssuppresses the Th1 immune system. [1] The Th1immune system needs to be functioning properlyto keep yeast, viruses, and protozoa undercontrol. The high omega-6 fatty acid content ofthe seed oils also suppresses IgA. [2] IgA is themost predominant type of antibody that isfound covering the gut mucosa. IgA keepstoxins and bacteria from binding to the cellsthat line the intestines. Without enough IgA, theintestines become inflamed, and the lymphoidtissue in the gut swells. If you want to get welland stay well, avoid the polyunsaturated seedoils, and substitute butter, olive oil, and coconutoil. Also consider a little fish liver oil or emu oilto help sooth a damaged intestine.

Some of you are thinking, “ This flies in theface of everything I’ ve been taught. I’ ll just avoidall the fats, and not have to worry about who isright.” Sorry, that won’ t work. It is the balancebetween the different fats and oils in your dietthat controls how your body responds. According

to Raymond Peat, PhD, the polyunsaturated seedoils in the diet are much more harmful if youaren’ t eating enough saturated fats tocounterbalance them.

For those of you who still think that only theunsaturated essential fatty acids are important inyour diet, listen to what Mary Enig, PhD, andSally Fallon point out,

“ Saturated fats in the diet improve the body’ sutilization of essential fatty acids, and protectthem from becoming rancid.” [3]

Excessive Omega-6 Oils In TheDietPolly: Usually, people from the United States eatway too much polyunsaturated omega-6 oils fromthe seed oils. Pizza, French fries, donuts, andfried chicken from fast food restaurants are allsoaked with this type oil. This is quite harmful.Just “ balancing” the polyunsaturated omega-6oils (eg corn, safflower, soy, and cottonseed)with added polyunsaturated omega-3 oils (flaxand fish) does not fix the problem. This balancesthe polyunsaturated dietary oils, but it still leavesa person with too much polyunsaturated oils inthe diet. The best tactic is to eliminate the vastmajority of the seed oils from the diet. Asmotivation for restricting these oils in the diet,


56

read this list of harmful consequences caused byeating too much polyunsaturated oils. [4]

1. cancer

2. respiratory inefficiency (loss of energyproducing capacity) It suppresses respiratoryproduction of carbon dioxide and it blocksthe entry of glucose (a sugar) into cells

3. inhibition of desaturase enzymes (fatmodifying enzymes)

4. increased tendency to produce peroxide freeradicals

5. intolerance of stress

6. edema through the interaction of thepolyunsaturates with nitric oxide

7. increased inflammatory response to animmunological challenge

8. inactivation of the proteolytic enzymes thatdissolve blood clots

9. accumulation of age pigment

10. lethargic healing of wounds

Leo Galland, MD adds another very importantreason to avoid excess polyunsaturated oils. Hewarns that polyunsaturated oils increase the freeradical content of the bile, and these free radicalsdamage both the gut and pancreas. See www.healthy.net/library/articles/galland/Leakygut.htm

We are doing a mass experiement onourselves by switching over from traditional fatsto modern polyunsaturated fats. The traditionaldiets of our ancestors derived only about 4%of their calories from polyunsaturated oils,whereas our modern diet derives from 10% to30% of its calories from polyunsaturated oils.[5] From 1930 to 1985, there was a 127%increase in polyunsaturated fat in the diet ofpeople from the United States. [6] Are we headedin the right direction? Heart disease and cancerhave risen in our USA society, just about as fastas we have added the polyunsaturated seed oils

and eliminated the animal fats. [7] Maybe wehave made a mistake.

The Warm Body ArgumentPolly: In one of Dr. Raymond Peat’ s lectures, heexplained the “ warm body argument.” This is acommon-sense argument that explains whyhumans need to eat more saturated fat and lesspolyunsaturated fat. I modified this argument alittle and have related it here. When reading thiswarm body argument, keep in mind these twofacts.

A. The more saturated a fat is, the less likely it isto oxidize or go rancid at warm temperatures.

B. The more unsaturated an oil is, the lower thetemperature at which it will remain liquid.Eg, some highly unsaturated oils will remainliquid in your freezer. (The length of the fattyacids will cause some variation in this rule.Shorter chain fatty acids like found incoconut oil will liquefy more readily than thelonger chain fatty acids like found in animalfat.)

The Warm Body Argument: Why do fish havelots of polyunsaturated oil in their body? Alsowhy is it that the colder the water, the moreunsaturated the fish oil is? Could it be that fishare cold blooded and need oil that stays liquid intheir cold environment? The colder their bodiesare, the less protection they require againstoxidation, too. Why would coconut oil containmainly saturated oil, olive oil contain mainlymonounsaturated oil, and most grains containmainly polyunsaturated oil? Could it be thatcoconuts and olives are native to a warm climate,and that grains are adapted to colder climates?Why do mammals have a high proportion ofsaturated fat in their body? Perhaps we need fatthat doesn’ t oxidize, produce free radicals, andgo rancid in our warm bodies? Why are cows and

www.healthy.net/library/articles/galland/Leakygut.htm

Fats And Oils 57

other ruminants adapted to eating just grass withits high polyunsaturated oil content and yet theystay healthy? Could it be due to their ability toconvert the unsaturates to saturates? (They havea type of bacteria in their stomachs that saturatethe oils.) Hence, it is logical that warm-bloodedanimals need a higher percentage of saturated fat.

Animal FatsPolly: Advertisers describe their meat as comingfrom “ corn-fed” animals, and they make it soundlike this is something wonderful. It is not! Theextra fat on these animals makes the meat tender,but it is an unbalanced unnatural fat, with a highproportion of omega-6 polyunsaturated oils in itfrom the corn and little omega-3. Grain-fedanimals are also exposed to the pesticides on thegrains, which they incorporate into their fat. Theyare also exposed to fungal mycotoxins and moldon their grains, which end up in the fat. Becauseof the way the animals are raised and fed, theyare also more likely to be exposed to antibiotics.Just the fact that they are fat, makes their bodyproduce more estrogen. The antibiotics, estrogen,pesticides, micotoxins and excess omega-6polyunsaturated oils in the fat are making us sick.It is not the saturated fat content. The only way toget around this problem is to find a source oftruly grass-fed animals£ones that have beenraised on grass and not sent to a feedlot beforeslaughter. The meat will be a lot leaner, and tastedifferent, but it will be the type of meat and fatthat nature intended us to have.

One caveat: Pigs are not ruminants. Theyneed a variety of food, not just grass and grain.Their fat content will be affected greatly by thetype of food that they eat. For this reason, the fatcontent of grass or grain fed pigs tends to bemuch more unsaturated than that of cows andsheep. (Usually pigs are fattened on soy andcorn.) If you are trying to eliminate the

polyunsaturated oils, stick to the meat fromgrass-fed cows and sheep.

Heating Unsaturated Oils CreateTransfatty AcidsPolly: Everyone agrees that transfatty acids areharmful. Most people know they are present inmargarine and hydrogenated oils. Yet few areaware that transfatty acids are formed anytimeyou cook with polyunsaturated oils, especiallythe highly unsaturated oils. The weak chains ofthe polyunsaturated oils form transfatty acidsvery easily when heated. Highly saturated fats area different story. Much fewer transfatty acids willform when you heat them. Hence, use coconut oilor other highly saturated oils for cooking. Don’ tuse corn oil, soy, canola, flax, safflower, orcottonseed oils in your cooking.

Pizza PoemMona: For a pizza company’ s 40 yearanniversary they are having a contest where theywill be giving away 40,000 free pizza’ s, 40 freepizza’ s per person for the best poems, I am goingto enter and I just wanted to share my poem withyou. Everyone knows how I have been cravingpizza.

I have been fighting a disease called Candida,The whole time I could have NO yeast, No bread,No cheeza,

my cravings were more than I could bear,I would dream of this special pizza and wish Icould be there.

now that I am well, 40 pizzas I will sharewith my loved ones who waited, until I could bethere.


58

The thick crust, the paste, the garlic taste,not even the crust will go to waste.

It felt like a lifetime I had to wait,to have this date with my mate,

we will share a pepperoni or two,maybe a salad a breadstix will do,

well that’ s the endYahoo.....

Polly:Do not tempt fate, for lying in wait,within that scrumptious crust,hides a villain intent on piercing heart,and calling forth the beast yeast.

If you love yourself and family,make your pizza Italian,for only olive oil will fend for you,and protect you from that beast.

I don’ t want to put a damper on your celebration,but I’ d feel bad if I didn’ t warn you about the oilin commercial pizzas, especially 40 of them. Ithink one of the reasons I got into trouble in thefirst place was pizza£the wrong type of pizza.Have you noticed how oily some of the crustsare? That way they don’ t have to put muchcheese on top or artificial cheese as the case maybe. In almost all cases, they use oils likecottonseed, safflower and other seed oils, whichcontain a lot of polyunsaturated oils. Thesepolyunsaturated oils form transfatty acids whenheated. Eating a pizza made with polyunsaturatedoil is just like eating a cube of margarine. I knowwhen I have eaten too much of one of thosecheaply made pizzas, I feel sick.

You aren’ t going to find a good pizza crustfrom a major chain. I am fortunate to have asmall Italian pizza parlor a few blocks from myhouse where they only use a little olive oil in

their crust. Costco just started carrying a pizza byKirkman, which has only olive oil in the crust.There is also a fairly dry ready-made crust at thegrocery store that contains some olive oil alongwith the harmful oils. It is called Boboli. If youpurchase this, it is real easy to make your ownpizza. Sometimes it comes with a package ofpizza sauce. All you need to do is add somegrated cheese and pop it in the oven for 10minutes.

Mona: Thanks...we have that brand here. Thetofu mozzarella cheese I put on my chickenlasagna was GOOD. They also had a cheddarflavor one. I will check more into this. We couldadd olives too. Yummy!

Canola Oil or Olive Oil?Polly: We refer to olive oil as a monounsaturatedoil, flax oil as an omega-3 polyunsaturated oil,corn oil as omega-6 polyunsaturated oil, andcoconut oil as a saturated oil. Yet each of theseoils is actually a mixture of saturated,monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated oils.Usually we just refer to the dominant type of oilin the product. This can be misleading. Forinstance, many of us have been sold canola oil onthe basis that it is high in the monounsaturatedoleic fatty acids, just like the more expensiveolive oil. However, a significant portion (10%) ofcanola oil is omega-3 polyunsaturated oil, whichis very easily ruined by processing or by heat.Because of processing, omega-3 content ofcanola oil is likely ruined before it even hits thegrocery shelf. Since olive oil only contains about1% of the omega-3 polyunsaturated oil, it ismuch more stable. This is one reason that oliveoil is a much better choice than canola oil.Canola oil also has an abundance of very longchain fatty acids, which are a problem for some

Fats And Oils 59

people. Here are some articles on the problemswith canola oil.

www.garynull.com/Documents/spectrum/be_careful_of_canola.htm

www.karinya.com/canola.htm

www.mercola.com/2002/aug/17/con_ola2.htm

In the latter article, Mary Enig and Sally Fallonstate:

“ These studies all point in the same direction --that canola oil is definitely not healthy for thecardiovascular system. Like rapeseed oil, itspredecessor, canola oil is associated with fibroticlesions of the heart. It also causes vitamin Edeficiency, undesirable changes in the bloodplatelets and shortened life-span in stroke-pronerats when it was the only oil in the animals’ diet.Furthermore, it seems to retard growth, which iswhy the FDA does not allow the use of canola oilin infant formula.”

The dark extra virgin olive oil is probably betterfor you because it is higher in anti-oxidants thanthe olive oil from the latter pressings. Yet thelatter pressings will have a milder taste, and youmay want this for certain dishes.

If you want to know the percent of saturated,monosaturated and polyunsaturated fat in aparticular dietary fat, a good resource is Dr. MaryEnig’ s book, Know Your Fats: The CompletePrimer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats,Oils and Cholesterol. If you still aren’ t sure ifpolyunsaturated oils are bad or not, then read“ Saturated Fat May Save Your Life” by BruceFife, ND. It is extremely well-written. Althoughparts of it are technical, the book isn’ t going toput you to sleep.

The Virtues of Coconut OilPolly: There are many benefits to includingcoconut oil in the diet.

1. Coconut oil is an excellent source of cleansaturated fats. It is easy to purchase organiccoconut oil, and you don’ t have to worryabout the estrogens, antibiotics and pesticidesthat are in most of the animal fats.

2. Coconut oil contains caprylic acid, which isan antifungal.

3. According to Mary Enig, coconut oilimproves the immune system’ s anti-inflammatory response, and protects againstalcoholic damage to the liver. [8]

4. Coconut oil is a source of lauric acid, whichconverts in the intestines to an anti-viralsubstance called monolaurin. Monolaurindisrupts the lipid (fat) membranes ofenvelope viruses like measles, Rubeola, HIV,Herpes and Cytomegalovirus (CMV). Theparents of the autistic are particularlyinterested in this anti-viral property. Thesame goes for the people who are trying todefeat AIDS. Those involved with the waragainst AIDS have some anecdotal evidenceof its effectiveness. In particular, read“ Positive Health News,” report 14, atwww.keephope.net/report14.html Also, seethe results of a small trial of coconut oil andAIDS patients at www.lauric.org

5. Coconut oil contains an abundance of shortand medium chain triglycerides.(Triglycerides are groupings of fatty acids.You may have already heard about themedium chain triglycerides or MCTs that aresold to athletes and dieters.) With some of theautistic, there appears to be a danger of longchain fatty acids build-up. Therefore, theshort and medium chain fatty acids of

www.garynull.com/Documents/spectrum/be_care

www.karinya.com/canola.htm

www.mercola.com/2002/aug/17/con_ola2.htm

www.keephope.net/report14.html

www.lauric.org


60

coconut oil seem particularly appropriate.Indeed, many of the parents of the autistic arestarting to employ coconut oil.

Willis: As you say, many mothers of autisticchildren are beginning to use coconut oil, largelyfor the monolaurin that kills viruses, I believe.One mother’ s son tested “ zero” on lauric acid.When she gave monolaurin, he began to speak incomplex sentences for the first time in his 18-year life!

Polly: If you try coconut oil, start very slowly togive your body a chance to adjust, perhaps oneteaspoon per day. Also, you want to be carefulbecause you might be allergic to it. Mary Enig,PhD says that three tablespoons is a therapeuticamount for adults. Also be aware that yourmetabolic rate might increase and you may needmore B6 and other nutrients. See RaymondPeat’ s article on coconut oil at his website, www.efn.org/~raypeat/index.html.

Organic coconut oil can be purchased mailorder from Omega Nutrition at 1-800-511-2660.You can also ask in most health food stores ifthey will order either the Spectrum or the Jarrow-Omega Nutrition organic coconut oil. Presently,the Spectrum brand of expeller-pressed organiccoconut oil costs less. Spectrum also carries acoconut oil product labeled as a skin conditioner.It is not organic or expeller-pressed, but it isedible.

This site sells a virgin coconut oil that hasbeen processed using a minimum of heat. www.coconut-info.com, phone 218-220-0762.The site also has links to many articles on thebenefits of coconut oil. The virgin coconut oilthat they sell is extracted using a traditionalfermentation process instead of boiling. (Beaware that some companies also call theirproduct virgin coconut oil, but they cold-pressthe oil and then purify it by boiling.)

The fermented virgin coconut oil smells andtastes more like coconut than the other coconutoil products. However, it is not sweet like thejuice/oil you can extract by shredding thecoconut yourself (eg using the Green Life Juicer).Yet, my body seems to react just as favorably tothe fermented virgin coconut oil as to the oil thatI make myself using the Green Life Juicer. (Thecoconut oil products purified by boiling make mevery sleepy. The homemade coconut juice/oil orthe fermented product just makes me feel good.)If you would like a book on the subject ofcoconut oil, try The Healing Miracles of CoconutOil by Bruce Fife.

Doesn’t Coconut Oil Cause HeartDisease?Polly: People first started blaming saturated fatfor heart disease because studies showed that itraised cholesterol. This isn’ t whole picture. Forinstance, coconut oil is mainly saturated fat. Yet,raw coconut oil raises low cholesterol and lowershigh cholesterol. However, if you do yourstudies only with hydrogenated coconut oil, thecholesterol lowering property is not seen. Dr.Enig feels that the problem is the elimination ofthe essential fatty acids (EFA) and the presenceof transfatty acids when the coconut oil ishydrogenated. Transfatty acids are known toraise cholesterol.

This cholesterol normalizing property of rawcoconut oil was mentioned in one of the KeepHope Alive quarterly newsletters (number 14).[9] These newsletters are devoted to finding acure for AIDS and other related diseases like ouryeast syndrome. The newsletter includes reportsfrom various AIDS victims who are usingcoconut and olive oils. They think very highly ofboth of these oils. Their website iswww.keephope.net

www.efn.org/~raypeat/index.html

www.coconut

www.keephope.net

Fats And Oils 61

Shelley: By the way, the Keep Hope Alive Site isawesome awesome awesome. Mark Konlee isawesome IMHO. (IMHO is an abbreviation for“ in my humble opinion.” )

Polly: I agree. They are light years ahead of therest of us.

Shelley: Because the people with AIDS have tobe. Puts it all in perspective. They have my vote.They may even have my check....sure do deserveit.

Polly: Instead of blaming saturated fats for heartdisease, we should be worried aboutpolyunsaturated fats. An excess of the seed oils,like corn, safflower, soy, and canola, is probablya major contributor to arteriosclerosis, notsaturated fats. Stephen Byrnes, ND, writes:

“ Most people think that saturated fat clogsarteries, but studies have shown that the fattyacids in artery clogs are about 75% unsaturatedof which about 40% are polyunsaturated!”[10]

Polyunsaturated oils and the free radicals thatthey promote contribute to oxidization ofcholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol is the type ofcholesterol suspected of causing arteriosclerosis.Saturated fats don’ t promote oxidative stress. Ifanything, the saturated fats should be protectiveby reducing the free radical activity in the body.In my opinion, a more saturated balance of fats isthe best way to protect the heart.

Opinions are beginning to change. TheNational Cholesterol Education Program used torecommend that Americans consumepolyunsaturated vegetable oils instead ofsaturated fat. Now they recommend thatpolyunsaturated oils should be no more than 10%of the calories from the diet. [11] Here is anarticle by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, PhD: www.westonaprice.org/know_your_fats/oiling.ht

ml It gives a history of how some scientistslooked at only a narrow set of facts andwrongfully concluded that saturated fats werebad for the heart. [12] Or read The CholesterolMyths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fatand Cholesterol cause Heart Disease by UffeRavnskov, MD, PhD. Or here is an excellentbook: Saturated Fats May Save Your Life byBruce Fife, ND. Here is an article by Mary Enig,PhD, and Sally Falon on this same subject. http://mercola.com/2002/aug/17/saturated_fat1.htm

High cholesterol may be a marker forchanges in the body conducive to heart disease,but it does not cause heart disease. We must notbe so narrowly focused on cholesterol that weforget what is happening in the body. Why asubstance reduces cholesterol readings isimportant. For instance, polyunsaturated fats aretoxic to the liver and will initially reducecholesterol. Yet the proper amount of thyroid willlower cholesterol by promoting the conversion ofcholesterol into hormones that the body needs.Which substance would you rather take?

Emu OilPolly: It may turn out that emu oil will helpmany of us with our intestinal problems. Taylorpointed out a website hosted by Carmen Spence.Carmen had Crohns disease for over 30 years.Drinking emu oil put her in remission. The brandshe used was Inner Relief.

Aboriginal people traditionally rubbed on theliquid emu fat to facilitate wound healing and toalleviate pain and disability from variousmusculo-skeletal disorders. However, there areno modern scientific human studies at thispoint£only animal studies that indicate rubbingthe emu oil into the skin is effective againstarthritis and that ingesting the oil guards againstintestinal damage. It works better than evening

www.westonaprice.org/know_your_fats/oiling.ht

http://mercola.com/2002/aug/17/saturated_fat1.htm


62

primrose oil (EPO), flax and fish oils in reducingarthritis symptoms. [13]

They don’ t know why emu oil is so effective.Surprisingly, the anti-inflammatory propertieshave nothing to do with the omega-3 essentialfatty acid content of the oil. The fat can be heatedin the rendering process to 90 degrees Celsius,but not higher, and still retain this anti-inflammatory property. The efficacy does dependon where the fat comes from on the animal£theyellow fat taken from near the intestines has themost anti-inflammatory properties. It will loosesome efficacy if it sits on the shelf too long. Ascan be expected, the breed of bird, a natural diet,and how the oil is processed and cared for is veryimportant. There is a huge difference in efficacybetween different brands. So be careful aboutyour purchases. Perhaps look for free-rangebirds.The Inner Relief brand of emu oil, which Carmenused, presently costs $127 USA for a liter, or $51USA for 200 gelatin capsules of 1000mg oileach. The price includes shipping. In general, youwill need to ingest the whole liter to see results.This is their website and address:

http://www.crohns-colitis.com/pages/p-aust-nat-health-prod.html

Australian Natural Health ProductsM/S 1092Goombungee Qld 4534AustraliaTelephone: +61 7 4696 5121Email: [email protected]

Personally, I don’ t like the taste of the oil. Ittastes like chicken fat to me. Yet, I can tolerate itif I let it sit in lemon juice for a while.

Ros in Australia: The claims of medicinal useby Aboriginal people are certainly true. They

swear by it. As far as I could ascertain, there arethe only 4 suppliers in Australia on the Internet.All 4 farms are in areas that are consideredenvironmentally superior (ie not degraded).

www.australis.com.au/hazelwood (Phone (+61)03 5122 3300 or Fax (+61) 03 5122 3051),

www.fastrac.net.au/~emushop/index.htm(phone 02-44478505 or fax 02-44478887),

www.cbl.com.au/aei (phone +61-3-5332-7085,Fax +61-3-5334-4150),

http://corp.universal.net.au/~bridgi01/index.htm(phone 61-7-5443 5991 fax 61-7-5443 3918)

At the last site, go to testimonials and then toEmu Resource Centre (bottom of page), whichtakes you to research. A quick flick throughsuggests reputable doctors. There is aconsiderable range in prices. Emus naturally eatgrains, but I would guess that the grains they arefed when farmed are not their natural diet. Thefirst site listed seems fairly reputable and givesmore details about feeding and processing thanthe others. They stipulate that their emus are free-range.

Polly: Very interesting. The Hazelwood site (thefirst one you listed) not only claims the animalsare free-range, but that their emu oil product ispesticide free, antibiotic-free, and processed at 40degrees Celcius (96 degrees Fahrenheit). Thisrelatively low temperature processing seems veryunusual and highly desirable. They even haveencapsulated the oil. 100 capsules of 750mg ofemu oil cost $25 plus shipping. I inquired ifduring the encapsulation process the oil washeated above this temperature. The company saidno. The oil is never heated above 40 degreesCelsius. This is their address:

http://www.crohns

www.australis.com.au/hazelwood

www.fastrac.net.au/~emushop/index.htm

www.cbl.com.au/aei

http://corp.universal.net.au/~bridgi01/index.htm

Fats And Oils 63

Hazelwood SalesPO Box 16ChurchillVictoriaAustralia 3842

The testimonials at the last site were only onexternal use of Emu oil for burns, scars, carpaltunnel syndrome and insect bites. I didn’ t see anytestimonials on intestinal problems at that site.

Later£Polly: I tried some of the Emu oilfrom Hazelwood farms. I rubbed a little on twoscars that I’ d acquired a few months ago. I usedit once a day. The first day there was a noticeablechange. Within a week, about half of the scartissue was gone. I’ d already tried MSM cream,progesterone, micellized vitamin E with nonoticeable difference. Emu oil is rather amazingstuff. It will even work better on scars if mixedwith vitamin E. [14]

Mead And Intrinsic OilsPolly: Mead oil (eicosatrienoic acid or EtrA) isan omega-9 polyunsaturated oil. It is part of thebody’ s intrinsic sequence of fatty acids or oils.The body can create intrinsic oils fromcarbohydrates and protein— an initial dietary oilis not needed. Raymond Peat, PhD, suggests thatthis group of intrinsic oils is much more suited tothe body’ s needs than are oils not found in thissequence. The intrinsic oils provide health andstress resistance. The non-intrinsic oils areessentially toxic because they block the body’ senzymes. By blocking enzymes, the non-intrinsicoils (omega-3 and omega-6 oils) interfere withmany bodily functions including the creation ofthe intrinsic oils. When Mead oil is found in theblood, it should be taken as a sign that theenzymes of the body are working. [15]

Are the omega-3 and omega-6 oils necessaryin our diet if we can produce enough intrinsicoils? Perhaps the omega-3 and omega-6 oils

aren’ t as essential as we currently think. Forexample, the omega-9 Mead oil can act as asubstitute for the essential fatty acid derivativeoils called EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid, anomega-3 oil) and AA (arachidonic acid, anomega-6 oil). Or if you want to look at it fromanother perspective, AA and EPA are usuallypresent in the body because of our diet, and thesefatty acids take over the job of the intrinsic Meadoil. What is the proper balance of oils in thebody? Compared to adults, babies have relativelyhigh levels of Mead oil in their body. Would it bebeneficial to supplement Mead oil to bring uscloser to this youthful state?

Mead oil has some remarkable protectiveproperties, many of which are very important tothose of us with dysbiosis. Here is one exampleof what happened when rats were given a dietthat allowed their body to create Mead oil. Onegroup of rats was put on an essential fatty acid(EFA) deficient diet. (Their bodies created Meadoil.) When exposed to toxins created by gutbacteria, these rats survived the onslaught withless liver, stomach, and small intestinal damagethan rats given EFA oils. There was also lesshypoglycemia, less intestinal permeability and avery significant drop in the number of deaths.[16] In other experiments, rats deficient in EFAoils were exposed to various other toxins. Theyhad less lung, kidney, pancreas, and colondamage than rats given EFA oils. [17] Whatfollows is some other interesting experimentalfindings for you to contemplate. In the following,when it is stated that the animals are EFA(essential fatty acid) deficient, this implies theanimals are producing Mead oil and very littleEPA and AA.

1. Rats deficient in essential fatty acids areprotected from developing diabetes. [18]


64

2. Kidneys, from animals deprived of EFAs,survived and functioned when transplantedeven though the recipient was notimmunosupressed. [19]

3. EFA deficiency dramatically reduces arthriticswelling in rats (87% reduction in swelling).[20]

4. Healthy young cartilage has high levels ofMead oil in it and very little omega-6 oils init. [21]

5. Mead oil is more saturated than EPA and AA,and therefore it is less likely to oxidize andcause peroxidation damage in our warmbodies. [22]

6. Humans made deficient in EFAs by puttingthem on totally fat-free sustenance hadlowered inflammatory prostaglandins (PgI2)and lowered internal eye pressure. [23]

7. Mead oil has better anti-inflammatoryproperties than the omega-3 fatty acid calledEPA. [24] (Rats made EFA deficient had lessinflammation than those given enoughomega-3 oil to create EPA. Neither group ofrats was given omega-6 oils, and so neithergroup created the inflammatory AA.) Reflecton our current usage of language for amoment. If you cause more inflammation byfeeding omega-3 oils than by not feedingthem, then why do we refer to omega-3 oilsas anti-inflammatory? Isn’ t the omega-3 EPAmerely less inflammatory than the otherdietary oils that compete with it? Mead oil ismore deserving of the name anti-inflammatory.

8. Supplemental Mead oil has anti-inflammatoryproperties even when the rats are not madeEFA deficient. [25]

9. Large quantities of Mead oil in the diet of rats(20% of fatty acid intake) appear harmless, at

least in the short term. Long term effectswere not examined. [26]

The above studies are intriguing. Yet there arestill many questions to be answered. I wonder:

1. Olive oil does not appear to interfere with theproduction of Mead oil. Are there otherdietary oils that will do the same?

2. What are the downsides to supplementingMead oil? Although Mead oil is more stablethan AA and EPA, Mead oil is still apolyunsaturated oil, and too much couldcause oxidative stress.

3. Restricting the omega-3 and omega-6 EFAsis part of the key to having our body createand use Mead oil, but which nutrients areneeded to allow the body to create enough ofits own Mead oil? Nutrients that are known tosupport the desaturase enzymes areimportant. There have been times whenanimals showing the dry skin symptom ofEFA deficiency recovered when given B6.Therefore, this nutrient may be of particularimportance, but what else is critical?

4. If someone has symptoms of an essentialfatty acid deficiency, and if Mead oil weresupplemented, which essential fatty aciddeficiency symptoms would be mitigated? Orwould Mead oil worsen some symptoms byincreasing the body’ s metabolism andincreasing the need for B vitamins?

5. If we supplement Mead oil, what quantity ofomega-3 and omega-6 oils can be in the dietwithout substantially interfering with thebenefits of the added Mead oil? (If we take intoo much of the omega-3 and omega-6 oils,they will compete for the enzymes requiredto convert Mead oil into protectivesubstances.)

Fats And Oils 65

Eventually Mead oil may be offered for saleat your local health store, but for now, the onlyway to get Mead oil is to have your body createit for you. If you want to have your body createMead oil, then you must limit the omega-3 andthe omega-6 oils in your diet. Also, you must getyour enzymes working properly or it can’ t becreated. When Mead oil becomes available atyour local store, you must still use it with a dietlow in the omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturatedoils. If you don’ t eliminate most of those oilsfrom your diet, the body will not convert Meadoil into the protective substances that you need.Since Mead oil is made in the lab using a mold,the product purity (no mold spores) would be animportant consideration in choosing a brand.

Fish OilPolly: Fish oil is often suggested for use becauseit is known to reduce the inflammation in theintestines. People usually attribute this propertyto the polyunsaturated EPA content of fish oil. Insome cases this may be true, because the EPAwill compete with a more inflammatory fatty acidcalled AA. However, whenever you consider adietary oil, you must realize that there is more toit than just its fatty acid content. Oils containmany impurities that include hormone-likesubstances, and fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K).All of these fat-soluble vitamins (even vitaminK) have anti-inflammatory properties. [27] Thusit is hard to say exactly why fish oil reducesinflammation. However, instead of plain fish oil,I’ d suggest trying a little fish liver oil because itis particularly rich in the anti-inflammatoryvitamins A, D, and K, and it has a fair amount ofvitamin E. Eating fish seems to produce betterresults than just fish oil, too.

Of the different types of fish oil, shark liveroil has the best reputation for improving theimmune system. The immune enhancement

properties are attributed to the alkylglycerols inthe oil. Shark liver oil has shown promise in thetreatment of allergies, asthma, cancer, colds / flu,eczema / psoriasis, fatigue, heavy metal andpesticide toxicity, and AIDS. [28] It also helpswith skin hyperkeratinization (skin bumps, whichparents of the autistic have aptly named chickenskin). The oil has bacteriostatic and anti-viraleffects, and an inhibitory effect on fungi.Because excessive use of shark liver oil canstimulate overproduction of platelets, a 10-dayrest period between 30-day cycles isrecommended. There are several brands of sharkliver oil on the market. I don’ t know which isbest. However, a product called Alkyrol has beenaround for a long time. It is purified shark liveroil and only a few small pills of this each day canmake a difference. Alkyrol can be purchasedfrom many different sources. Here is one place,website www.naturesdistributors.com, or phone1-800-624-7114. It would be best if you can finda brand of shark liver oil that has been tested forpesticides and heavy metal contamination.However, so far, I’ ve not found a brand that testsand reports the results.

Nordic Natural carries fish oil supplementsthat have been molecularly distilled to removethe mercury and PCBs. (phone 800-662-2544)The fish oil products from Kirkman Labs have agood reputation too. www.kirkmanlabs.com(phone 1-888-kirkman) Oil from smaller fish willhave less mercury. Farm fish may have adifferent fatty acid composition because of thefood fed to the fish and this might have a bearingon its inflammatory or anti-inflammatoryproperties.

Never use a fish oil product that stinks. Thisis an indication that it has gone rancid. The oilshould be encapsulated under nitrogen topreserve its freshness. Since fish oil ispolyunsaturated, it oxidizes easily. Therefore,everyone suggests that vitamin E and other anti-

www.naturesdistributors.com

www.kirkmanlabs.com


66

oxidants should be taken when using fish oil. Ihave another suggestion. Make sure you haveenough saturated fat to balance thepolyunsaturated fish oil. Coconut oil would be agood choice in my opinion. I would take coconutor olive oil at the same time as the fish oil to helpstabilize the fish oil. Also, I wouldn’ t overdo fishoil. It is too unsaturated.

Flax, Primrose, Or Borage OilAnyone?Polly: About the only thing I’ ve done to keep theyeast from coming back is to avoidpolyunsaturated and hydrogenated oils in mydiet. I’ m quite leery of ingesting anypolyunsaturated oil, even though there might besome benefit derived by balancing the types ofpolyunsaturated oils in the diet. At one point,curiosity got the best of me. Each day for almosta week, I tried a tablespoon of flaxseed oil mixedin cottage cheese. (Dr. Johanna Budwig says thatthe flaxseed oil needs to be mixed with a sulfurrich food like cottage cheese to stabilize it.However, I think that her success with thismixture might be due, not to the flax oil itself,but perhaps to the ability of the flax oil mixtureto deliver sulfur to cells.)

Anyway, I didn’ t notice any changes thatweek or in subsequent weeks with this briefexperiment. With other oils, I could tell adifference in a very short time. Perhaps thedifference wasn’ t there because I was fairlyhealthy at that point in time. Does flax oil helpanyone here? In what way? Does it reduce yourallergies? Make you feel better?

Marilyn in Seattle: I found out years ago thatflaxseed oil gives me PMS from hell. I know Ican’ t take flax seed oil but then I braved takingthe whole seeds£I just swallow them with waterand find they really are a big help in bowel

regulation. I notice no estrogenic effects from thewhole seeds, but I don’ t think one digests themand the oil is not released or at least not much.However, a tiny bit must get extracted becausemy skin feels good. Flaxseed oil did wonderfulthings for my skin, it just made me into a PMSmonster...so does walnut oil...but I can toleratesmall amounts of hemp oil. This is probably avery individual thing.

Mary J: The flax oil has too strong an effect withme. It makes me get something like an adrenalsurge and then the opposite effect. I haven’ t triedthe seed to see whether it has a similar effect.

Diana: I feel WONDERFUL without anymigraines since I stopped taking that flaxseed oila month ago. Is it my imagination or could Ireally be over this nightmare? I had absolutely noconfidence it would work, so I doubt there was aplacebo effect. DAMN I am so excited to nothave had a headache. OK so I get carried awaybut if you got rid of these things you would betoo!!!!

Polly: It could be the effect the flaxseed had onyour hormones or prostaglandins. Or more likely,it could be just that any large quantity ofunsaturated oil is going to free serotonin fromcells. When a lot of serotonin is quickly releasedfrom cells, this constricts blood vessels andinitiates a migraine.

Harold: The oils I can tolerate well are olive(extra virgin) and grape seed. Flax does not agreewith me.

RB: My fatty acid of choice is evening primrose.It is expensive but seems to be the easiest on mydigestion and helps with hormonal balance also.

Fats And Oils 67

Shelley: I am really really sensitive to eveningprimrose oil, flax seed oil, borage oil, and fishoils£all things that are supposed to bebeneficial. Weird. Something is off, just don’ tknow what yet.

Polly: All of the oils that you mentioned arehighly polyunsaturated. Perhaps these oilspresent too strong an oxidative stress on yourbody at this time. Your sensitivity might havesomething to do with the fact that you aremercury poisoned. Heavy metals (includingexcess iron) cause oxidation of the unsaturatedoils. Vitamin E will help keep the oils fromoxidizing.

Kippy: What does borage oil do? Do you knowif, like evening primrose oil, it containsphytoestrogens?

Sophie: Borage oil is supposed to provide thesame benefits as evening primrose oil. However,it has more GLA (gamma linolenic acid) thanevening primrose oil so it is supposed to bebetter. I am not sure whether it containsphytoestrogens. I have found that it has reallyhelped me with hair loss in particular and withmy skin as well. I don’ t know if it has helpedwith PMS because I have always had very severePMS symptoms due to hormonal imbalance andendometriosis.

Marilyn in Seattle: I found that borage oil didnothing for my PMS, a marked difference ascompared to evening primrose oil, which I foundreally helpful for the mood swings of PMS.There is a David Horrobin, an MD PhD, fromMagdalen College, Oxford. He founded amedical journal called Medical Hypotheses andfounded EFAMOL Research Institute. He saysthat the benefit of GLA is only realized after ithas been converted to prostaglandin E1. He has

studied borage oil and says that even though it ishigher in gamma linolenic acid than eveningprimrose oil, very little of the GLA in borage oilgets converted to prostaglandin E1, whereas mostof the GLA in evening primrose oil is converted.The Native American Indians used EveningPrimrose as a treatment for PMS! Anyway, thisman’ s work seemed to fit with my experience.Borage (Barlean’ s) did nothing for me. Eveningprimrose oil I have positive reactions to. Yet,evening primrose oil helps me AFTER ovulationand gives me PMS symptoms prior to ovulation.

Orla: I have been using organic butter and havenoticed a big improvement. I have been on a nograins/wholefood diet but my stomach andintestines still were inflamed. Since using thebutter (I can’ t tolerate grains so I am just eatingspoonfuls of butter— Yuck!), my inflammationand bloating has reduced significantly (visible tothe eye in profile). I actually did not realize theintestines were as inflamed, as they must havebeen, until I noticed the difference! P.S. My fouryear old told me today after staring at me for fiveminutes that I didn’ t look fat anymore£got to begood, right?

Polly: I found that raw butter was very beneficialfor me. I was eating about a pound of it eachweek because it seemed to help. Paul Pitchford,in his book Healing with Whole Foods, states,

“ Clarified butter promotes the healing of injuriesand gastro-intestinal inflammations such asulcers and colitis.”

To make clarified butter, you warm the butterand scoop off the milk solids that rise to the top.The clear liquid that is left is the ghee or clarifiedbutter. People with milk allergies are often ableto tolerate ghee. The ghee is better for cookingtoo. It doesn’ t burn as easily. Some health food


68

stores carry ghee. Yet, if you can tolerate regularbutter, I’ d use it instead.

When I had the yeast overgrowth, I alsofound that eating fatty fish a few times a weekhelped a little with my food allergies andmigraines. After about 6 months of doing this, Inoticed that fish no longer provided anyadditional benefit, and so I stopped this practice.Now I only eat fish occasionally, and I use abutter sauce with it. When I first started out onthis journey, I even tried margarine (believe it ornot), but it made me sick. Beef and chicken fatseemed neutral. I didn’ t try coconut oil until afterthe yeast growth was long gone. So I can’ t tellyou from personal experience what its relevanceto the yeast syndrome is. When I finally did trycoconut oil, I noticed a slight increase in energy.According to one of my doctors, raw coconut oilis very important for cell regeneration, but all fatsare good for you so long as they are in the rightproportions and are truly raw.

Lisa in Minnesota: I think coconut oil would bea great addition to the diet of anyone who hascandida since it improves the body’ s use ofthyroid, and it helps kill off infections. I knowthat I just started eating coconut oil everydaysince I read about it and I actually have energynow. I helped lift my brain fog also.

Joe: Polly, I talked with Jan Johnson, and shesaid that if I keep taking 3 tablespoons of coconutoil daily I will create a fatty acid imbalance. Ishould be taking some omega oils. Yet, my facialeczema is better since upping the coconut oildose. The mood improvement I was seeing wasbetter than it's been in over 12 years. So, I'mthinking twice about taking any polyunsaturatedfatty acids (omega 3 and omega 6 oils) again.

I'm tired of spending lots of money ofsupplements. I thought I could keep taking 3tablespoons of coconut oil daily for the rest of

my life. Will I create an imbalance? I wasplanning on getting Omega 3 from regular fisheating, and Omega 6 from other whole foods. Isthis enough EFAs?

Polly: Broda Barnes, MD, felt that you could getall the EFAs that you need just from eating thingslike butter. The amount of EFAs needed isusually quite small. Personally, most of mydietary fat is from butter, cream and whole milk.I also use a little coconut and olive oil. Presently,I eat fish maybe once every couple of months.I’ ve heard that people have better benefits fromthe whole fish rather than just the oil. So yourplan to get your EFAs from whole foods andoccasional fish seems like a good plan to me.

Yes, you can get too much coconut oil.Coconut oil creates a need for more B vitamins.Therefore, you might become deficient in Bvitamins if you get too much coconut oil. Theremay be other problems with taking too muchcoconut oil, but I don’ t know what they are. Youwill just have to pay attention to how your bodyis responding. For now, it seems like your bodyis telling you that this much coconut oil ishelpful. There are many natives that eat a lotmore coconut than you do each day. (They alsohave fish as a regular part of their diet.) So, it ispossible that you may be able to eat these threetablespoons of coconut oil each day for the restof your life.

Karen: My daughter has autism. I did tryflax/borage oil once, and I noticed a nastyregression that lasted a full week. I think ittriggered a seizure or some seizure activity. Itwas awful. We also tried cod liver oil, and herthyroid symptoms became worse until Idiscontinued the stuff.

Polly: I’ m sorry that your daughter is havingproblems with these oils. You are not alone in

Fats And Oils 69

your experience. Although many people claimthat the highly polyunsaturated oils are helpful, itseems that just as many people find them aproblem, especially with seizures. Too muchprimrose oil or borage oil is known to lowerseizure thresholds. [29] I’ ve heard that too muchfish oil can do the same. There are quite a fewpossible mechanisms by which these unsaturatedoils could contribute to seizure activity.

1) Increased intestinal irritation from lectins andfree radicals

2) Interference with the production of energy bythe mitochondria.

3) Liberation of serotonin from cells (Sincemany of those with autism have highserotonin levels, this may be a key problem.)

4) Phytoestrogens from oils like flax orprimrose.

Diluting these highly unsaturated oils withsaturated and monounsaturated oils might makethem more tolerable. Also, a few moms havereported that fish oil is tolerated if it is mixedwith a digestive product called No-Fenol byHouston Nutraceuticals.

Even though these unsaturated oils have someproblems, this doesn’ t mean that you can’ t everuse these oils. They can be beneficial for somepeople. For instance, fish oil usually reducesintestinal irritation, which may help reduceseizure activity. So, a little fish oil might behelpful for some people, but a lot would beharmful.

You said that the cod liver oil seemed toworsen her thyroid symptoms. Polyunsaturatedoils can interfere with the transport and use ofthyroid. However, since it was such an obviousand immediate response to the fish oil, it soundslike it is some other problem with the fish oil.Perhaps the liver was overtaxed by the additionof the fish oil to the diet.

Usually with autism, they suggest starting outwith primrose oil, and later try adding in somecod liver oil. To get rid of the “ chicken skin” thatis so common with autism, they suggest tryingthe shorter chain flax oil as opposed to the longerchain fish oil. However, it doesn’ t mean thatthese oils will be tolerated. Even when anindividual’ s blood fatty acid profile is measuredand studied, the subsequent recommendationsaren’ t always tolerated. (Part of the problem withthe blood fatty acid profiles is that the blood fatprofile does not mimic the intestinal fat profile.[30])

Avandish: Maybe part of the problem associatedwith cod liver oil is oxidation of thepolyunsaturated oil because of shelf storage atroom temperature and poor processingtechniques. Oxidized oils are a definite no-no fora stressed liver, and would probably account forsome liver area pain and other symptoms fromthis product.

Linda in Virginia: I went to a Chineseacupuncturist and he said my constitution wassuch that I should not eat any fats (oils, nuts) ormeats. He said I should eat fish and greenvegetables. The funny thing is that that is whatmy diet has become, but not by choice. I becameallergic to all meats. The only thing my bodyseems to tolerate is fish and green vegetables. Ido add some olive or coconut oil to myvegetables sometimes. When I followed his dietstrictly I got weak, so I needed a little more fat.The bottom line is that you have to find whatworks right for your body. You will have ups anddowns. Since I am eating healthier I can really“ hear” what my body is saying/wanting now.

Polly: Instead of flaxseed oil, many people usethe whole seed because the seed’ s mucilage cansooth a damaged intestinal mucosa. Yet, I just


70

heard something disturbing. Andrew Stoll, MD,said that the toxins in the flaxseeds were morethyroid disrupting than just the oil in them. Morethan three tablespoons of flaxseeds per day hasbeen known to cause goiter. [31]

Flaxseeds contain a lot of ligans that convertto phytoestrogens in the intestines, which inexcess can be harmful. One wonders what elsewe need to know about all of these oils besidesjust their fatty acid makeup. (Cactus is a goodsource of mucilage, and would be much better fora person than flaxseeds.)

Marilyn in Seattle: I have had a hell of a timetolerating fats, they make my hormones/emotions go whacko... Flaxseed oil makes meNUTS. I yell like a banshee at the slightestprovocation. I just tried wheat germ oil, samething— I get angry over nothing. However, I amfinding that I tolerate emu oil and that it helpswith both my gut and spinal inflammation. I triedtwo brands, one from the US that is heated to 400degrees F and one from Australia that issubjected to very little heat. I prefer theAustralian Hazelwood brand. However, if I takemore than 8 capsules a day, I get angry— thesame kind of anger I get on l-carnitine. I don'tknow what that's about.

Correcting the Fatty Acid ProfilePolly: There are two ways to correct the fattyacid profile.

1. Measure the profile and add in specific oils,

2. or correct the reason for the imbalance.

Your doctor can send in a blood sample to labslike Metametrix (www.metametrix.com) orconsulting groups like BodyBio Corporation(phone 888-320-8338). They will measure all thefatty acids in your blood’ s red cells and sendyour doctor a profile along with some suggested

dietary oils to try. (They may also provideadditional information, like which minerals arelow.) The recommended dietary oils will containsome of the fatty acids that measured relativelylow in your assay. I’ ve heard of coconut or oliveoil being recommended, but if you look at theMetametrix website, they mainly talk about thehighly polyunsaturated oils— fish, flax, primrose,current or borage oil.

I’ ve heard from people on the Internet whopurchased these profiles and were quite pleasedwith the results, but others have found thesuggested protocol totally intolerable. Why is itsometimes intolerable? Possibly the body’ s ownmechanism for creating and maintaining a properfatty acid profile is too weak. It is also possiblethat the disturbed profile is only indicative ofsome deeper underlying problem that cannot befixed by adding in oils that the body wouldn’ tmake on its own. The body naturally will be verysensitive when you short circuit (go around) thebody’ s own regulatory system.

If there is a situation, like mercury poisoning,where the antioxidant levels in the body are verylow, then the polyunsaturated oils in the body aregoing to oxidize quickly. Since addedpolyunsaturated oils are just going to oxidize inthe body, an intensive-feeding program of theseoils just seems wrong. A minimal amount ofthese oils may be helpful and perhaps necessary,but the best solution is to increase anti-oxidantsand to remove the mercury from the body. Thenthe fatty acid profile should revert to a morenormal one on its own.

Here are some of the factors that could becontributing to the poor fatty acid profile and use.

1. Oxidation of the oils fromA. mercury poisoningB. yeast and bacteria toxinsC. low antioxidants

www.metametrix.com

Fats And Oils 71

2. Poorly functioning desaturase enzymes.Desaturase enzymes remove hydrogen fromfatty acids, making them more unsaturated.For example, desaturase enzymes convert theomega-6 essential fatty acid, called linoleicacid, into GLA. The desaturase enzymes canbe hampered by:

A. nutrient deficiencies/imbalancesB. low thyroid hormone levelsC. transfatty acidsD. excess polyunsaturated oilsE. viruses

3. An inability to properly use oils can becaused by:

A. Nutrient deficiencies/imbalancesB. toxins

4. Inability to digest and absorb oils can becaused by poor liver, pancreas and intestinalfunction.

In particular, watch out for vitamin deficienciesof A, E, B6, niacin, B12, or biotin, and mineraldeficiencies of selenium, magnesium,manganese, sulfur, or zinc. Protein is importanthere too. A deficiency of any of these can causean imbalance or an inability to use the oilsproperly. [32]

Hypothyroidism interferes with the delta-6desaturase enzyme. [33] So do viruses. [34] Inparticular, parents of the autistic should take noteof these facts because often the delta-6 desaturaseenzyme is not working properly in those withautism.

If you could eliminate the imbalanced flora,the gut inflammation, the hypothyroidism, thepoor digestion, the poor diet, the toxins, theviruses, the disturbed circadian rhythm, thedisturbed pH, the poor metabolism, etc, then adirect manipulation of the fatty acid profilewould not be needed. Obviously, this is adifficult task, but it is much more desirable thancontinually adding in more polyunsatuarted oils.

references1. Sammon, AM “ Dietary linoleic acid, immune

inhibition and disease.” Postgrad Med J 1999Mar;75(881):129-32

2. Yamada K, Hung P, Yoshimura K Taniguchi S, Lim BO,Suguano M “ Effect of unsaturated fatty acids andantioxidants on immunoglobulin production bymesenteric lymph node lymphocytes of Sprague-Dawleyrats. Biochem (Tokyo) 1996, 120: 138-144 as referred toin an article by Plummer N, “ The Neonatal ImmuneSystem and Risk of Allergy: A Delicate Balancing Act,Positively Influenced by Probiotics and Fatty Acids,”Townsend Letter, February/March 2002

3. Sally Fallon, M.A. and Mary G. Enig, PhD, “ TrippingLightly Down the Prostaglandin Pathways”www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/Prostaglandin.html,Garg, M L et al, FASEB Journal 1988 2:4:A852

4. Peat, Raymond, PhD, “ Edema, estrogen, and aging: Auniversal problem, and better therapies,” Ray Peat’ sNewsletter, January 2000 Peat, Raymond, PhD,“ Aging, fats and euphoria,” Ray Peat’ s Newsletter,1998 Peat, Raymond, PhD, “ Progesterone, notestrogen, is the coronary protection factor of women,”Ray Peat’ s Newsletter, February, 2000

5. Fallon, Sally, with Connolly, Pat, and Enig, Mary,PhD, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook thatChallenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the DietDictocrats, ProMotion Publishing, San Diego, CA92122, phone (800) 231-1776, year 1995, page 9. Ifind this book very entertaining and enlightening. It isexcellent in every way.

6. Enig, Mary G., PhD, Know Your Fats: The CompletePrimer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oilsand Cholesterol, Bethesda Press, Silver Spring, MD20904-1689, www.bethesdapress.com, 2000 page 93If you want to get rid of the confusion, and finallyunderstand fats and oils, this book has a very clearpresentation.

7. Martin, Wayne, “ Reducing Deaths from Heart Attacksand Cancer,” Townsend Letter for Doctors andPatients, January 1998,

8. Enig, Mary G., PhD, F.A.C. N., “ Coconut: In supportof Good Health in the 21st Century,”www.apcc.org.sg/special.htm Address to the 36th

session of the Asian Pacific Coconut Community.

www.price

www.bethesdapress.com

www.apcc.org.sg/special.htm


72

9. This fact is also mentioned on page 126 of UdoErasmus’ s book, Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill.

10. Stephen Byrnes, ND, RNCP, “ Facing the facts aboutsaturated fats, heart disease, and cancer” Published inHealth Naturally (Canada); Explore! (USA), at varioustimes. Found on the Internet at www.coconut-info.com

11. Ravnskov, U, MD, PhD, The Cholesterol Myths:Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat andCholesterol cause Heart Disease page 225-226 alsosee Rose GA, e.t al. “ Corn oil in treatment of ischemicheart disease,” Br Med J 1965 ;1:1531-1533

12. The article, Oiling America, is also published in NexusMagazine,Volume 6, Number 1, December 1998 -January 1999). PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560Australia. [email protected] Telephone: +61 (0)75442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381 Sally Fallon isassociated with the Price-Pottenger Foundation andshe wrote Nourishing Traditions, a cookbook with lotsof nutritional information. Mary Enig, PhD is a highlyrespected professor of biochemistry at the Universityof Maryland. She is both an authority on coconut oiland a proponent of it.

13. Whitehouse, M.W. Turner A.G., Davis, C. K. C., andRoberts M.S., “ Emu Oil(s): A Source of Non-toxicTransdermal anti-inflammatory agents in AboriginalMedicine,” Infammaopharmacology 1998: 6: 1-8Correspondence: M.W. Whitehouse, Department ofMedicine, University of Queensland, PrincessAlexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland 4102

14. Politis MJ, Dmytrowich A, “ Promotion of secondintention wound healing by emu oil lotion:comparative results with furasin, polysporin, andcortisone,” Department of Medical Physiology at theUniversity of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.PMID: 9858176, UI: 99073887

15. Peat, Raymond PhD, “ Aging, fats, and euphoria” RayPeat’ s Newsletter, 1998

16. Cook JA, Wise WC, Knapp DR, Halushka PV.“ Essential fatty acid deficient rats: a new model forevaluating arachidonate metabolism in shock.” AdvShock Res 1981;6:93-105; and Li EJ, Cook JA, SpicerKM, Wise WC, Rokach J, Halushka PV “ Resistanceof essential fatty acid-deficient rats to endotoxin-induced increases in vascular permeability.” CircShock 1990 Jun;31(2):159-170; and Autore G, CicalaC, Cirino G, Maiello FM, Mascolo N, Capasso F,

“ Essential fatty acid-deficient diet modifies PAF levelsin stomach and duodenum of endotoxin-treated rats.”J Lipid Mediat Cell Signal 1994 Mar;9(2):145-53

17. Ball HA, Cook JA, Spicer KM, Wise WC, HalushkaPV, “ Essential fatty acid-deficient rats are resistant tooleic acid-induced pulmonary injury.” J Appl Physiol1989 Aug;67(2):811-6; and Morganroth ML,Schoeneich SO, Till GO, Pickett W, Ward PA, “ Lunginjury caused by cobra venom factor is reduced in ratsraised on an essential fatty acid-deficient diet.” Am JPhysiol 1989 Oct;257(4 Pt 2):H1192-9; and DiamondJR, Pesek I, Ruggieri S, Karnovsky MJ, “ Essentialfatty acid deficiency during acute puromycin nephrosisameliorates late renal injury.” Am J Physiol 1989Nov;257(5 Pt 2):F798-807; and Harris KP, LefkowithJB, Klahr S, Schreiner GF, “ Essential fatty aciddeficiency ameliorates acute renal dysfunction in therat after the administration of the aminonucleoside ofpuromycin.” J Clin Invest 1990 Oct;86(4):1115-23;and Takahashi K, Kato T, Schreiner GF, Ebert J, BadrKF, “ Essential fatty acid deficiency normalizesfunction and histology in rat nephrotoxic nephritis.” ,Kidney Int 1992 May;41(5):1245-53; and Urrutia RA,Rivolta CM, Valentich MA, Monis B “ A Feulgenmicrospectrophotometric study of the DNA content ofessential fatty acid-deficient rat pancreas treated withnitrosomethylurea.” Cell Mol Biol 1990;36(5):547-55;and Mascolo N, Izzo AA, Autore G, Maiello FM, DiCarlo G, Capasso F, “ Acetic acid-induced colitis innormal and essential fatty acid deficient rats.” JPharmacol Exp Ther 1995 Jan;272(1):469-75

18. Benhamou PY, Mullen Y, Clare-Salzler M, SangkharatA, Benhamou C, Shevlin L, Go VL, “ Essential fattyacid deficiency prevents autoimmune diabetes innonobese diabetic mice through a positive impact onantigen-presenting cells and Th2 lymphocytes.”Pancreas 1995 Jul;11(1):26-37; and “ Essential fattyacid deficiency prevents multiple low-dosestreptozotocin-induced diabetes in naive andcyclosporin-treated low-responder murine strains.Wright JR Jr, Fraser RB, Kapoor S, Cook HW ActaDiabetol 1995 Jun;32(2):125-30

19. Schreiner GF, Flye W, Brunt E, Korber K, LefkowithJB, “ Essential fatty acid depletion of renal allograftsand prevention of rejection. Science 1988 May20;240(4855):1032-3

www.coconut

Fats And Oils 73

20. Chinn KS, Welsch DJ, Salsgiver WJ, Mehta A, Raz A,Obukowicz MG, “ Modulation of adjuvant-inducedarthritis by dietary arachidonic acid in essential fattyacid-deficient rats.” Lipids. 1997 Sep;32(9):979-88.

21. Adkisson HD 4th, Risener FS Jr, Zarrinkar PP, WallaMD, Christie WW, Wuthier RE, “ Unique fatty acidcomposition of normal cartilage: discovery of highlevels of n-9 eicosatrienoic acid and low levels of n-6polyunsaturated fatty acids.” FASEB J 1991 Mar1;5(3):344-53

22. Wey HE, Pyron L, Woolery M, “ Essential fatty aciddeficiency in cultured human keratinocytes attenuatestoxicity due to lipid peroxidation.” Toxicol ApplPharmacol 1993 May;120(1):72-9

23. Naveh-Floman N, Belkin M “ Prostaglandinmetabolism and intraocular pressure.” Br JOphthalmol 1987 Apr;71(4):254-6

24. Lefkowith JB, Morrison A, Lee V, Rogers M,“ Manipulation of the acute inflammatory response bydietary polyunsaturated fatty acid modulation.” JImmunol 1990 Sep 1;145(5):1523-9

25. James MJ, Gibson RA, Neumann MA, Cleland LG,“ Effect of dietary supplementation with n-9eicosatrienoic acid on leukotriene B4 synthesis in rats:a novel approach to inhibition of eicosanoidsynthesis.” J Exp Med 1993 Dec 1;178(6):2261-5

26. Cleland LG, Neumann MA, Gibson RA, Hamazaki T,Akimoto K, James MJ, “ Effect of dietary n-9eicosatrienoic acid on the fatty acid composition ofplasma lipid fractions and tissue phospholipids.”Lipids 1996 Aug;31(8):829-37

27. Gorog P, Kovacs IB, Szporny, L, Fekete G,“ Antiinflammatory and antianaphylactic action ofvitamins K1 and K3,” Arzneimittelforschung 1968Feb;18(2):227-30

28. Pugliese P, MD, Devour Disease With Shark LiverOil: Breakthrough Discovery Can Help Boost YourImmune System, IMPAKT Communications, Inc. 1999

29. Miller, L. G., “ Herbal medicinals: selected clinicalconsiderations focusing on known or potential drug-

herb interactions “ Arch Intern Med 1998 Nov9;158(20):2200-11

30. Korotkova M, Strandvik B. “ Essential fatty aciddeficiency affects the fatty acid composition of the ratsmall intestinal and colonic mucosa differently.”Biochim Biophys Acta. 2000 Sep 27;1487(2-3):319-25.

31. Stoll, Andrew, MD, “ Omega-3 Fatty Acids in thePathophysiology and Treatment of Autism and RelatedDisorders,” Tape is available from Insta-Tapes phone(800) 669-8273 or (208) 667-0226. The seed husks offlaxseeds (also lima and cassava beans) containcyanogen, which is converted thiocyanate. Thocyanateinhibits iodine uptake by thyroid. Flaxseed oil is freeof cyanogen. (Simopoulos A, 1999.)

32. Eramus, Udo, Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill, AliveBooks, Curnaby BC, Canada, 1993, page 51, and 57and this excellent article by Sally Fallon, M.A. andMary G. Enig, PhD, “ Tripping Lightly Down theProstaglandin Pathways” which can be found athttp://www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/Prostaglandin.html, whichreferred to this publication Horrobin, David F, “ Theregulation of prostaglandin biosynthesis bymanipulation of essential fatty acid metabolism” ,Reviews in Pure and Applied PharmacologicalSciences, Vol 4, pp 339-383, Freund PublishingHouse, 1983

33. van Doormaal JJ, Muskiet FA, Martini IA, DoorenbosH, “ Changes in fatty acid profiles of plasma,erythrocytes and polymorphonuclear leukocytes ininduced hypothyroidism in man: indirect evidence foraltered delta 6 desaturase activity,” Clin Chim Acta1986 May 15;156(3):299-313

34. Reid GM, “ Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS): T-cell immunodeficiency--Part 1.” Med Hypotheses.2001 Feb;56(2):256-8 and Das UN, “ Auto-immunityand prostaglandins,” Int J Tissue React. 1981Jun;3(2):89-94. Review

http://www.price

Acid & AlkalinePolly: The current fad is to eat lots of fruit andgreen vegetables and to avoid meat and grains inan attempt to alkalize the body. This is supposedto help the body get rid of toxins. Yet everyonedoesn’ t need to become more alkaline. In fact,such a mind set could get some people intotrouble. I’ d like to start this chapter out with aquote from Jan Johnson. This lady was extremelyenvironmentally sensitive due to formaldehydepoisoning. By learning how food affected heracid/alkaline balance, she was able to regain herhealth.

“ It is extremely important to emphasize theindividuality of this approach at this pointbecause so many people are self-diagnosing andself-prescribing according to what they read orwhat was best for someone else. If anabolicgreen magma made their mother-in-law feelfabulous and got rid of her arthritis, they willtake it too, and feel ill every day. But because thebook said that they should keep themselvesalkaline, they’ ll continue to take it regardless ofhow they feel. The fact is that people aredifferent. Any program that fails to take this intoaccount is not going to be optimal.” [1]

Food, exercise, breathing, hormones andsupplements will all change your pH (pH is ameasure of acidity or alkalinity). You must usesome common sense in how you employ these.

For example, you don’ t want to change your pHby adding estrogen, because estrogen willencourage yeast growth. The correct way tocontrol your pH is with thyroid, carbon dioxide,bicarbonates, salt, other minerals (especiallymagnesium and potassium), adequate protein,vegetables and fruit.

The Benefits Of Controlling pHJoyce in Pennsylvania: My gynecologistconsulted with another physician in immunologyduring my visit. Then he told me that one wayimprovement in candidiasis patients occurs isthrough pH monitoring. I’ m thankful to have thistype of a doctor— one who is willing to go thatextra mile for his patients. His openness to learnmore about this syndrome gives me hope that thetraditional medical community will eventuallyplay a positive role in eliminating this “ CandidaRelated Complex.” He and his wife are inpractice together (Partners in Women’ s HealthCare).

Polly: There are extra special doctors in allfields. Wish we could tell each one how muchthey are appreciated.

Sally: I started a web search on pH and acid /alkaline and found more than I could possiblyread on some of the most fascinating health info

Acid & Alkaline Balance 75

I’ ve come across in a long time. I’ ll include someof what I discovered here. The pH is a measureof how acid or how alkaline a substance is. ThepH scale is in exponential increments£thatmeans that a one point difference on the scale isa multiple of ten. So a small change measured onthe scale is in actuality a huge change inacidity/alkalinity. (pH literally means the“ potential of hydrogen” in water. The pH scalereads from 0 to 14. The larger the number, themore alkaline a substance is, and the smaller thenumber, the more acidic a substance is.)

Just about every body system and function isaffected by pH. We would die if we strayedeither way outside the very narrow margin that isconsidered normal pH. The foods we eat have agreat effect on our pH. Other things that changepH are exercise, sunlight, temperature, and slowdeep breathing. This made me understand whyyoga can be so beneficial. I found way too muchto post, but would really encourage others tosearch the web and learn about this topic.

Franca: Hi Sally. A few months ago this was ahot topic here. It seemed to be agreed that pHlevels do affect your general health. The pHlevels do have an effect on fungal infectionsbecause different fungi/bacteria thrive at differentpH levels. So if your pH level is off, you maycreate the right setting for the wrongbacteria/fungus to grow.

Polly: If you can keep your body from shiftingpH outside of its comfort zone, this will cut downon the misery and the food reactions. To keep thepH from shifting outside of your personalcomfort zone, you need to learn how differentfoods affect your pH. Fruit and vegetables areusually alkaline. Coconut oil, butter, and salt arealso classified as alkaline. Meat and grains areusually classified as acidic. If you aren’ t too badoff, then you can just generally note if you feel

better with acid foods in the morning and alkalinefoods at night, or vice versa.

However, if you are quite ill, you will want tokeep a food and urine pH diary. Write down whatyou eat and the time that you ate it. Check yoururine pH each morning, and three or four moretimes throughout the day. Plot the results on agraph piece of paper. Also make a notation nextto each point on the graph about how you feel.From this, you will eventually learn which pH atwhich time of day makes you feel the best. Youwill also learn how different foods affect yourpH. Then you pick and choose foods so that youdon’ t become too acid or too alkaline at thewrong time of day. The procedure is explainedmore fully in Jan Johnson’ s workbook.Information on her workbook is at her website, www.randomrat.com/index.html

Random Rat, Inc. P.O. Box61407, Santa Barbara,California 93160 USA,phone (805) 692-8577

Here is an example of this procedure. Anindividual might notice that so long as he keepshis urine pH readings between 5.5 and 6.5 in themorning, he doesn’ t get a headache. Maybe inthe afternoon he feels fine if he keeps his urinepH between 5.0 and 6.0. But he falls asleep if thepH goes above 6.0 in the afternoon. He thennotices that coconut oil moves his body veryalkaline shortly after ingestion. And he notesthat unsalted popcorn and bread makes him moreacidic. So if his morning pH is too acidic, he eatsa little coconut oil to bring it more alkaline.Later, in the afternoon, he starts to get sleepy andnotices his pH is more alkaline than he likes. Sohe eats a little bread or some unsalted popcornthat tends to bring his pH more acidic.

Each person has to determine the range of pHvalues that makes him or her feel the best during

www.randomrat.com/index.html


76

a given part of the day. For ill people, they mayhave to control the pH cycling so that it doesn’ tvary too much during the day. Also, according toJan Johnson, it is best that you notice when youare headed towards your pH limits and make acorrection well before you cross those limits.You can use food and supplements to pullyourself back into your comfort zone, but it ismuch easier to make corrections before you fallout of your pH comfort zone.

Although I listened to Jan Johnson’ s tape andI have her workbook on how to do this, I nevergot up the energy to implement this technique. Ijust noted that I did better if I combined acid andalkaline foods at each meal. Perhaps this way theshift in pH was not as great.

Harold: Go to this site for a good overview ofthe acid/alkaline condition of the body. www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/Acid_alk_bal.htm

Polly: Harold, that is an exceptional article byVirginia Worthington, ScD. Thank you so muchfor posting it. The article is ever so much betterthan everything else I’ ve seen on the Internet orin most books for that matter. Did you notice thatshe said the bacteria in the mouth could throw offa pH saliva reading? Maybe saliva isn’ t such agood pH test to go by. Urine may be better.

Shelley: How do you test pH? I ordered somestrips but they aren’ t right. I’ ve asked thepharmacist but he says he can’ t get a pH striptest. He said to use a pool testing kit???

Mary in Pennsylvania: My pH paper wasobtained from my local health food store. Prettypricey I thought $12.50 for a roll by:

Micro Essential Lab. Inc4224 Ave. H.BrooklynNY 11210

On the box they say write for their completecatalog. You can also obtain pH paper fromN.E.E.D.S. (a vitamin discount store, phone 800-634-1380, website www.needs.com). They evenhave a doctor there who would be glad to answerany questions you may have. I think they quoteda price of $10.00 but then you have to pay the$5.00 shipping and handling.

Polly: Sedna Quality Health Products carries pHpaper at a similar price. They also carry a lot ofother products suitable for people with yeastovergrowth. (800) 223-0858 or (828) 321-2240www.sednaproducts.com/default.asp

Anthony: Paper test strips are not very accurate.A better method would be to use a freshwater pHtest kit from an aquarium/pet store.

Mrs. Generic: What should my pH be?

Polly: Don’ t fall into the trap of thinking the goalis to alter the urine or saliva pH to an idealnumber. That does not create health. These pHreadings are only a tool to monitor your body. Asmentioned previously, the saliva pH can varydepending on what microbes are present in themouth. Therefore you can’ t possibly rely on thisreading absolutely. Urine pH is a little morereliable. However, the best urine pH will bedifferent for each person and will varythroughout the day. There is no perfect answerthat applies to everyone all the time.

Many books imply that if the urine is acidicthen the blood, tissue, cells and saliva are acidic.However it doesn’ t work this way. You can’ t usethe urine pH as an absolute gage of what is going

www.price

www.needs.com

www.sednaproducts.com/default.asp


on in the rest of the body. The urine pH reflectswhat material the body is getting rid of. It doesn’ ttell you what the cells, tissue and blood are at.For example, if you have very low energy, someof the cells may be expelling lactic acid into theblood and surrounding tissue. This may causemetabolic acidosis. The cells that are producingthe lactic acid are becoming more alkaline as thisacidic material leaves the cells. They may need tobe acidified with more carbon dioxide beforethey stop producing the lactic acid. Salt can alsoreduce the production of lactic acid and thereforemay turn the urine more alkaline. So it isn’ tsimply pH, but how you get to that pH.

Fortunately, we don’ t have to knoweverything that is going on inside our body tomonitor pH and learn from it. Just keep track ofwhich urine pH values make you feel the best atthe present time. Learn how to keep your pH nearthese values. According to Jan Johnson, an illperson usually has very little buffering capabilityand thus must strive to keep the urine pH fromvarying too much. Later, as the person heals, theywill be able to tolerate a wider range of urine pHvalues.

For your reference, here are what the pHvalues usually look like. Blood pH varies verylittle. It is usually very close to 7.4, but it can beas low as 7.35 or as high as 7.45, and the pH willstill be considered within normal range. Tissue orcell pH is closer to 7.0, and it will vary somewhatfrom organ to organ. According to Jan Johnson,a healthy person’ s urine will cycle between a pHof 5 and 7 over a 24 hour period. Usually in theearly morning hours it will be close to 7 and inthe early evening, the urine pH will be close to 5(acidic). The average urine pH is close to 6. Thispattern is reversed in some people with themorning readings more acidic than the eveningreadings. In other cases, people are stuck oneither the alkaline end or the acidic end. Eachperson is different.

Yet, there is also another explanation thatmakes sense to me. At the Biomedx website, theysuggest that it is very important to have enoughminerals so that your body can use these to bufferyour pH (keep your pH pretty steady). Theysuggest that a healthy person with a lot ofbuffering capability will be able to keep theirurine pH fairly steady, near 6.4 in the morning.See http://biomedx.com/pH/page2.html 1-847-299-0236

There are other explanations that don’ t makeany sense to me. These say one shoe size fits alland it doesn’ t matter how you get your foot intothat shoe.

Bicarbonates And Food ReactionsMr. Generic: Alka Seltzer really helps with myfood reactions and die-off. Why is this so?

Polly: Be sure to use Alka Seltzer Gold, notregular Alka Seltzer. I’ m not sure why it ishelping with the die-off, but it is known to helpwith food reactions. There are several differentcarbonate and bicarbonate products that will helpyou with your food reactions.

Alka Seltzer Gold is perhaps the best known.It is sodium and potassium bicarbonates withcitric acid. You can also use a tablespoon or twoof baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and getalmost the same effect. Buffered C products willwork too. The buffered vitamin C from AllergyResearch / Nutricology contains calcium,magnesium and potassium carbonates. A mixturemade specifically for such allergic-like reactionsis tri-salts from BioTech Pharmacal. It is amixture of calcium carbonate, sodiumbicarbonate, and potassium bicarbonate, phone,800-345-1199 or 501-443-9148, and website, www.bio-tech-pharm.com.

Even if you don’ t need to use the carbonatesto get rid of allergic reactions, their use can be of

http://biomedx.com/pH/page2.html

www.bio


78

benefit to your health. The bicarbonates increasecarbon dioxide in the body. The increased carbondioxide improves the amount of oxygen that isdelivered to your tissue. This reduces lactic acidproduction, and increases energy production. Ithelps the cells create more of their own carbondioxide, and it also helps the body get rid ofammonia. Thus bicarbonate supplements do morethan just alkalinize you. They can help normalizeyour blood, urine and tissue pH by restoringproper bodily functions.

The best time to take bicarbonates isinbetween meals. Unless you are having a badreaction and need to take the bicarbonates, don’ ttake them with a meal or shortly afterwards.Their alkalinity will counteract some of thestomach acid and thus interfere with digestion.You will have to experiment with how much touse and the timing. The stomach usually emptiesin about an hour and a half after a low fat meal,and up to three or four hours after a high fatmeal. [2] Some bicarbonates taken a little whileafter meals are one of Patricia Kane’ s standardsuggestions for most autistics.

Besides bicarbonates, you can use breathingtechniques to increase your carbon dioxide.Another option is the drug acetazolamide(Diamox), which increases carbon dioxideretention. See

www.siumed.edu/neuro/epilepsy/QNA/QNAframes/diamoxjs.html

A few precautions. Most of thesebicarbonates contain a high proportion ofsodium, which is a very alkalinizing mineral.You need enough inorganic acids from protein tobalance this. Also, a mixture of minerals isprobably best if you are going to use thistreatment on a long-term basis. In particular, youwant to keep a balance between sodium andpotassium. Sodium will initially cause the bodyto retain more fluid. Those with a heart condition

must very gradually increase their use of salt forthis reason.

Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, AndBreathingPolly: According to Raymond Peat, PhD, carbondioxide, CO2, has many beneficial properties. Itimproves oxygen delivery to the tissue, it isneeded to detoxify ammonia, it limits theformation of lactic acid, it tends to decreaseintracellular calcium, and it tends to decreasebrain excitability. It also regulates water,proteins, oxygen and minerals. To avoid losingso much CO2, we can learn to slow down ourbreathing, relax, and use our diaphragms. (egLearn Yoga breathing or learn some of Dr.Buteyko’ s breathing techniques, like practicing apause before your next breath.)

Mrs. Generic: I’ ve heard that quick shallowbreathing loses carbon dioxide, but so does deepbreathing. How can they both be true?

Polly: Confusing, isn’ t it? Hyperventilating(quick shallow breathing) gets rid of carbondioxide. The carbon dioxide is blown out beforeit has a chance to accumulate. Deep breathingcan cause the same phenomena if you don’ tadjust your breathing rate. If you keep the samerate of breathing in and out, but just increase thevolume by breathing in deeper, then this isessentially a type of hyperventilating. Think of itas taking in two breaths at a time. If you breathein deeply, you need to slow down your breathingto compensate and get approximately sameexchange rate. Slow it down even further, andyou will start to retain the carbon dioxide. Therelative speed is very important. Fast shallow orfast deep breathing gets rid of carbon dioxide.Slow breathing keeps it. The speed is the key.

www.siumed.edu/neuro/epilepsy/QNA/QNAfram


Dr. Cheney’s Oxygen WithCarbon Dioxide TreatmentPolly: Dr. Cheney goes beyond ordinarybreathing techniques, and suggests that hisCFIDS patients be given a combination of CO2

and oxygen. He uses oxygen delivery devicesthat require the patient to rebreathe some of theCO2 that they exhale. The combination of CO2

and oxygen allows the blood cells to deliver moreoxygen to the cells. When the cells get moreoxygen, they produce less lactic acid. Often, hispatients have alkaline blood and acidic urine.Giving them the CO2 corrects this by acidifyingthe blood and by reducing the amount of lacticacid formed by the cells and excreted in theurine. Carol Sieverling posted an excellentexplanation of Dr. Cheney’ s use of oxygen andcarbon dioxide for his CFIDS patients. With herpermission it is repeated here.

Carol: This article is intentionally technical sothat those who wish to try this treatment canshare it with their doctor. It is based a recordedvisit with Dr. Cheney and is shared with hispermission.

Dr. Cheney recently began prescribingoxygen for patients with alkaline venous blood.Up to an hour of oxygen in the morning canprovide half a day of significant improvementand numerous benefits. He has been seeingalkaline blood results in patients for years, butdismissed it as insignificant, based on what hewas taught in medical school. His growingsuspicion that it was actually very significant wasconfirmed when a speaker at an internationalconference on fatigue in London began apresentation by announcing “ Ladies andgentlemen, I’ m here to tell you that CFS patientsare alkalotic.”

Blood alkalosis inhibits the transport ofoxygen to tissues and/organs, constricts the blood

vessels, and lowers overall circulating bloodvolume. The putative cause of the alkalosis is theglutathione deficiency that is pervasive inCFIDS. Low glutathione causes an elevation incitrate, which in turn lowers a substance (2,3DPG) that controls the release of oxygen fromthe hemoglobin. Our blood could be full ofoxygen, but without enough of this substance itcannot break free of the hemoglobin and get intothe cells. This causes oxygen deprivation in thetissues (hypoxia), which makes the body switchover to anaerobic metabolism, which can bepainful.

This blood alkalosis is unusual in thatCheney usually sees venus blood pH values over7.4 and urine pH values under 6.0. When bothblood alkalosis and urine acidosis are seen, it’ s ametabolic problem£not a psychogenic reactionto a needle stick. A blood pH above 7.4 showsimpairment, and above 7.5 there is significantimpairment£almost no oxygen transport at all.A urine organic acid test will also reveal thisproblem: elevated citrate and/or low 2-oxo-glutaric are markers.

The really terrible thing is the presence of avicious cycle: the blood alkalosis further lowersthe levels of 2,3 DPG (inhibiting the release ofoxygen), causing tissue hypoxia, which thencauses blood alkalosis, which lowers 2,3 DPGeven further. And around and around we go.

The ultimate treatment for this situation isImmunocal or IMUPlus, the undenatured wheyprotein supplements that helps restoreglutathione. But some patients cannot affordthem, and they do not work on all patients. Animmediate solution to the oxygen transportproblem is to use a partial rebreather mask set at35 to 40% FIO2 (Fraction of Inspired Oxygen),which requires a flow rate of about 10 liters perminute. Try to do an hour a day, broken into one,two, or three sessions. You can do more than onehour a day, but do not do more than one hour at


80

a time. Do not breathe heavily – breathenormally. Most CFS patients have headaches,and this can help those headaches. If theprescription is written for headaches, insurancemay cover it. One hour of oxygen a day can run$75 to $100 a month.

Oxygen through nasal prongs will not work.Oxygen alone in a mask will not work. It has tobe a partial rebreather mask, which has a bagattached. This allows you to rebreathe yourexpired carbon dioxide along with the oxygenthat is flowing into the mask. It is important tothe function of the rebreather that the bagcontracts and expands with the breathing cycle.It’ s not working properly otherwise. Breathingincreased levels of both carbon dioxide (CO2)and oxygen (O2) at the same time is essential.The CO2 breaks the cycle. It corrects thealkalosis and frees the O2 in your blood to moveinto your cells. With proper functioning, vesselsdilate and you start perfusing your brain andtissues, bringing out the toxins and bringing inthe nutrients. Raising oxygen levels will also helpkill off yeast and other pathogens. Lack ofoxygen allows them to multiply.

The speaker at the London fatigue conferencesends his patients to breathing experts like TeresaHale, who wrote Breathing Free. Most patientsare walking around over breathing and thusbecoming more alkaline. Learning to underbreathe properly can help increase oxygenperfusion and transport.

Two problems can be seen in some patientson a rebreather mask.

(1) Rapidly correcting blood alkalosis orovercorrecting (ie. acidosis) can provokevasodilation. If there is significant bloodvolume contraction some patients willbecome hypotensive and feel dizzy or faint.This problem can be prevented by takingoxygen lying down and by expanding bloodvolume with an isotonic electrolyte drink

such as Gookinaid ERG (ERG meansElectrolyte Replacement with Glucose) http://members.aol.com/Gookinaid, or phone1-800-283-6505. You can also address thisproblem by reducing the time spent on themask rebreather.

(2) Patients with a history of migraine mayprovoke a migraine in the moments just aftergoing off the rebreather. Again, expandingblood volume and reducing the time of therebreather can help this side effect.

Later— Carol: A year ago, Dr. Cheney wasprescribing oxygen (with a partial rebreathermask) to increase oxygen transport from theblood into the cells. The benefits were many, butmost people found it expensive and difficult toarrange. He now recommends that his patientspractice this breathing technique: Inhale throughyour nose for four seconds, hold your breath forseven seconds; then exhale through tightly pursedlips, creating “ back pressure,” for eight seconds.Do this eight times, twice a day, everyday. Youmust do this regularly for it to work, and it takesweeks for the body to adjust the 2,3 DPG levels.But your oxygen transport will get better andbetter over time.

Yeast And AcidityGloria: Polly, I’ d like to pick up on a problemwe’ ve already been through without solving. Yousay: “ Yeast prefer an alkaline environment. Acidwill kill them.” I disagree. I have been told that inthe intestines yeast thrives on an acidenvironment. So I have been eating a lot ofalkaline foods and feel great! Especially since Istopped meat, tea, coffee, all carbonated drinks,fats and oils, nuts. All of these things are acidproducing.

There are no clear scientific findings onthis£or do you know of some? I can only go bytrial and error and since I discovered that MY

http://members.aol.com/Gookinaid


yeast diminishes when I stick to alkaline foods(most vegetables, milk products£I am notallergic to dairy) I feel great, my digestion isgood and I have no symptoms.

Polly: Acid in the intestines inhibits yeastgrowth. If the pH of the chyme in your colon isslightly acidic, this is good. It helps kill the yeast,and helps keep the good bacteria healthy. Anacidic pH in the colon also helps keep youhealthy by reducing the amount of ammoniaabsorbed from the intestines. However, to createan acidic environment in the colon, you don’ tnecessarily eat so-called “ acid foods.” Usuallywhen a person is talking about an acid food, theyare referring to its effect on the blood or urineonce it has been metabolized. They are notreferring to its effect on the chyme inside theintestines. In fact, meat, which is a so-called“ acid food,” might turn the chyme alkaline. Andcomplex carbohydrates, might turn the chymeacidic. It depends on how well the food isdigested, and which bacteria are present. Forinstance, milk is considered an alkaline food, butit feeds the bacteria called L. acidophilus whichmakes the intestinal environment more acidic.Your body’ s pH shift from a particular food willnot necessarily be the same as another person’ spH shift, especially if you are allergic to aparticular food. That is why you keep adiary/chart, and learn how each food affects you.

Is This Food Acid Or Alkaline?Polly: Food is the most talked about method ofcontrolling your acid/alkaline balance. Yet it canbe pretty confusing, especially since no oneseems to agree on the lists of acid and alkalinefoods. Generally, you see fruit and vegetablesclassified as alkaline, and meat classified asacidic. (The sulfur amino acids in particular shiftyour body more acid.) Usually grains are

considered acidic. Yams and potatoes are usuallyclassified alkaline. Salt is very alkaline. Greenvegetables are very alkaline.

The exceptions to these rules vary fromsource to source. For instance, sometimes anauthor will place dark meat in one class and lightmeat in another. Some authors place a few of thevegetables and fruits in with the acidic foods.Some say all fats are acidic. Others say coconutand butter are alkaline. This classificationproblem is partly due to the fact there are degreesof acidity or alkalinity. On page 110 of Dr.Patrick Quilllin’ s book, Beating Cancer WithNutrition, he has a nice chart that gives you anidea of the spread between the acidity andalkalinity of different foods.

It is the way the body processes and reacts toa food that determines whether or not it isalkaline or acidic. Meat has a neutral pH, butwhen the body processes it, the result is usuallya shift towards acidity. Yet, you might be pushedmore alkaline by the meat if you are notproducing enough stomach acid and are notdigesting your meat properly. There are generalrules (vegetables are alkaline, meat is acidic), butthey are not hard and fast rules. Each individual’ smetabolism and ability to utilize food is a littledifferent. That is why it is important to keepnotes on how each food affects you.

What about refined sugar? Most people callit acidic. Yet, according to Jan Johnson, simplesugars first turns the body more acidic and thenlater the body becomes more alkaline thanbefore. Refined sugar is sort of like a cocainehigh followed by a crash. It energizes you, andthen it makes you tired. Anyone who hastendencies towards hypoglycemia knows thefeeling well. She claims that caffeine and salt arein this same category of first pushing you moreacidic, and then later more alkaline. Oh, in JanJohnson‘s opinion, the acid state is “ good.” Youwant to be in the catabolic state (acidic) for the


82

majority of the day. This is the mode that givesyou energy. You don’ t want to be in the anabolic(alkaline) state all day. You would keep fallingasleep in the middle of the day.

Joe: Polly, do you think that coconut oil isextremely alkaline forming? I bet that's why I'vehad alkaline problems lately. I've been helped byvirgin coconut oil, so I think I will keep taking 3tablespoons of coconut oil daily. I should try tobalance my diet / pH by eating less of the otheralkalinizing foods. I found a pH foods list andlearned that carrots, celery, and greens are a fewof the most alkaline forming foods there are, soI'm going to not eat too much of that. I guess I'vegot a pH sensitive body.

Polly: I suspect that coconut oil is prettyalkalinizing. Most of the time coconut oil is listedas being alkalinizing. Also, the regular coconutoil puts me almost immediately to sleep, which isassociated with an alkaline shift. However, itcould be just an adverse reaction to the heatedoil. The unheated virgin coconut oil does not dothat to me. Jan Johnson would caution that eachperson’ s pH reaction to a food could be different,so you will just have to pay attention to your ownreaction.

Many Factors Influence pHPolly: Besides food, there are many other factorsthat affect your pH. For example, exercise andrest change your pH. According to Jan Johnson,vigorous exercise will pull the acid out of thetissue and turn the urine acidic. Yoga, meditation,and sleep will push your urine more alkaline.

Your environment makes a difference. Theelectro-magnetic radiation you receive fromsitting in front of your computer moves the urinemore alkaline. A reaction to an inhalant will alteryour pH. Any stress will alter your pH. Sunlight

makes you more acidic, and so some people willwant to emphasize alkaline fruits and vegetablesduring the summer.

Hormones will affect the pH. Some womenfeel better eating more acidic during the first twoweeks of their cycle and eating more alkalineduring the last two weeks, or vice versa. Therecan be some seasonal variation too.

The state of your gastrointestinal system willaffect your pH. If you have diarrhea, the loss ofwater and electrolytes will tend to make youmore acidic. If you up-chuck, this pushes youmore alkaline. [3] Fermentation of sugar byexcess bacteria in the small intestine can produceorganic acids, which in excess could interferewith cellular respiration. There is also atemporary change in your blood and urine pHdue to the secretion of gastric juices. Wheneveryour stomach puts out acid, then alkaline materialis dumped into the blood. Similarly, wheneverbicarbonates are released by your pancreas andby your gut mucosa, then acidic material isdumped into the blood— sort of a balancing act.

Supplements change your pH. Antifungals,pancreatic enzymes, and L. acidophilus tend topush the urine more acidic; and aspirin andinsulin will push the urine more alkaline.According to Jan Johnson, vitamin A, C, D, B12,B6, and coenzyme Q10 are generally acidifying.(Yet, the people at BioMedex suggest thatvitamin D is alkalinizing.) Bioflavonoids,vitamin E, chlorophyll, vitamin K, bufferedvitamin C, and the other B vitamins arealkalinizing. However, if you get an overdose ofa vitamin, it can give you a different effect.Different amino acids have different acid/alkalineproperties too.

Minerals are a mixed bag. Some will pushyou more alkaline, and others will push you moreacidic. It also depends on the form the mineralsare in. For instance, a mineral carbonate maystart out by pushing your more alkaline because


of the carbonate. Then later, the general effect ofthe mineral might be to make you more acidic.According to Revici’ s work, magnesium isexperientially catabolic (acidic). However, youwill find many others classifying magnesium asalkalinizing. Sulfur and sulfur containing aminoacids, by their conversion to sulfate, will tend tomake you more acidic. Sodium and potassium arethe important alkalizers of the body.

The acid/alkaline effects of all of theminerals are not known. However, theoretically,a good guess can be made using Revici’ sclassification system. According to Revici’ sclassification system, the alkalinizing elementsare sodium, potassium, zinc, iron, bismuth,molybdenum, chromium, iodine, lithium, nickel,fluoride, chloride, and mercury. The acidifyingelements are sulfur, magnesium, calcium,selenium, manganese, copper, silicon,germanium, aluminum, and lead.

Linda in Virginia: I found this of interest sincemany of us are concerned with balancing out pHand getting enough magnesium. Jacques deLangre, PhD, writes as follows about theimportance of magnesium in maintaining properbody pH, in the 1992, Volume XVL, number 1issue of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition FoundationJournal:

“ The human organism functions at its peak onlywhen the balance between acid and alkaline ismaintained. All substances that nourish the bodyare either acid or alkaline. Magnesium possessesthe remarkable ability to maintain theacid/alkaline balance within the organism. It alsointervenes in the oxido-reduction mechanism. Weknow, for instance, that the human body isoxidized by the action of oxygen and becomesalkaline. Oppositely, an organism, under theaction of hydrogen, is in reduction and becomesacid. This back and forth fluctuation passing

from acid to alkaline and back again from basicto acid is a chemical phenomenon absolutelyneeded for keeping the body alive. This is wheremagnesium shines brightly.”

Polly: The author of the above quote, Jacques deLangre, PhD, wrote the book Seasalt’ s HiddenPowers. He was associated with the Grain andSalt Society, a mail order company that sellsCeltic Sea Salt®, and many other products, www.celtic-seasalt.com, phone 1-800-867-7258.You will find some interesting articles aboutdifferent kinds of salt at their website.

Should We Alkalinize The Body?Sally: My candida is gone and I’ ve been onvarious stages of the macrobiotic diet for over ayear— transition, strict healing, and modified.One of my few remaining symptoms is deep skinlesions that periodically ulcerate and poor woundhealing. I have had several biopsies reporting:acanthotic, hypercarototic, psoriaform lesions,with no clue as to cause. (I suspect the skinlesions are a deep fungal infection.) Althoughthese symptoms have improved they have nevercleared in 8 years. Within 48 hours of theintroduction of one umeboshi plum per day, Iexperienced a vast improvement. Theinflammation is gone and the lesions seem to behealing.

Mrs. Generic: What are umeboshi plums?

Sally: The umeboshi plums are tiny Orientalplums that are fermented in a salt brine. You canbuy them in health food stores, they are acondiment typically used in the macrobiotic diet.They are super-salty. I’ ve been using one a day(about a half teaspoon of the paste) in any recipethat I would use salt in. They have a mild slightlysour, but not unpleasant, flavor. I tried a recipe

www.celtic


84

with umeboshi plums about a year ago and didn’ tlike it. Recently I introduced them into some ofmy own recipes with good results. They aretouted to be great body alkalizers, which is one ofthe main goals of eating macrobiotic.

Franca: Eating “ alkaline ash” leaving foods isthe best way to restore the body’ s ideal pH level.Raw fruits and vegetables seem to be the best forthis, with freshly cut lemon being tops on the list.So, I drink freshly squeezed lemon juice mixedwith distilled water sometimes.

Polly: It isn’ t just the mineral or “ alkaline ash”content of fruit that alkalinizes the body. Fruit,especially lemons, contains citric acid. (Citricacid causes the sour taste of lemons.) Normally,citric acid will increase bicarbonate formation.This is alkaline. Vinegar is also consideredalkalinizing because it combines with oxaloaceticacid in the body and becomes citric acid. Ofcourse, you can overdo just about anything,including citric acid. When you get too much ofa substance, your pH shift may be the opposite ofwhat you expect. Perhaps the most importantthing to remember is to monitor your total bodyreaction to a substance— not just the pH. Toomuch or too little of a substance will interferewith energy production.

Gloria from Germany: From my experience, inorder to combat candida, you need to keep yoursystem alkaline. It helped me get over candidaand in my opinion is the key to long-lastinghealth. Unfortunately I like acid-type foods toomuch to give them all up at once (especiallysince I am over my candida, or at least have nosymptoms whatsoever), but if I ever had a seriousdisease, this is the first thing that I wouldradically change. For example, I like a cup ofcoffee a day, but I’ d stop that immediately. I canonly suggest to others to try this. I know that

there are books out on the subject too. Greenfoods keep the body alkaline.

Polly: You can’ t just say everyone needs toalkalinize. It just isn’ t true. In fact, I worry thatsome people will push themselves too alkaline.Cells are always more acidic than the blood. Thecells need this acid to create a battery/voltage;this voltage is required to create energy and carryon the process of life. If the cells ever got asalkaline as the blood, there would be no battery,and there would be no life.

Some people can get better by pushingthemselves more alkaline, but others must do theexact opposite. Still others must walk a tightropeof eating more alkaline during part of the day andmore acidic during the other part of the day.Once they get things figured out, acid/alkalinebalancing may greatly help with their symptomsand health. Eventually their needs will changethough, and they will find themselves needing toeat differently. It is important that people realizethis and they don’ t stay stuck on their originaldiet.

In the book, Wellness Against All Odds, Dr.Sherry Rodgers talks about a cancer patient whowent into remission when she went on theMacrobiotic diet, which is a fairly low-protein/alkaline diet. Later the cancer returned,and this time a diet high in protein put the cancerin remission. According to Dr. Revici’ s workwith cancer patients, usually if the patient wasyoung and healthy looking, the cancer was morelikely to be anabolic (alkaline). If the patient wasold and feeble, the cancer was more likely to becatabolic (acidic). Children who were small fortheir age, tended to be catabolic (acidic), andlarge children tended to be anabolic (alkaline). Along-term predominance of either anabolic orcatabolic activity would lead to abnormality anddisease. (Emanual Revici, MD was a highlysought-after cancer doctor. Amazingly, he


continued his research and even made house callsat the age of 100. He passed away in 1993 at theage of 101.) Jan Johnson mentioned that one ofher clients felt ill when she went too anabolic, butlater, after a major stress, the client felt ill whenshe would go too catabolic. So one always mustbe on the lookout for changes. Alkaline foodsaren’ t the answer to every problem.

Let The Body CyclePolly: In a healthy body, the pH cycles betweenalkaline and acidic each day. Usually in themorning the pH is more alkaline, and usually inthe afternoon, the pH is more acidic. Why doesthe body do this? According to Jan Johnson, thispH cycling is the key to good health. Thechanging of the pH is like the turning on and offof a light switch. A given pH will turn on certainenzymes, which in turn will allow certainbiological processes to take place— change thepH, and other biological processes will takeplace. At night there is usually an alkaline pH. Atthis pH, the body grows, repairs itself, andprepares for the more intense activities of thecoming day. During the daytime, there is usuallya more acidic pH. At this pH, the body burnsmore fuel, breaks down the structure preparedearlier, and releases more energy. You want tohave this relatively acidic state turned on duringthe day, or else you won’ t be able to keep awake.

Okay, here is a silly analogy. You can makefun of it if you wish. You live on a farm and usean old-fashion wood stove. You have lots of kids,say 10, and since it is haying time, you haveanother 6 thrashers to feed. You are very busy inthe kitchen and the stove is hot all day long.When are you going remove the ashes from thestove? In the mist of your cooking chores whilethe stove is still hot? No. Probably after thecooking is done or very early the next morning,when the ashes are cold. What happens if you

neglect to do this? Eventually the stove is filledwith ashes and the stove does not work.

This is analogous to what is happening inyour body. Filling the stove with wood andlighting the fire is analogous to making the cellsacidic and producing energy. Removing the ashesis analogous to removing the acidic waste andpreparing the body for the next day. If you don’ tremove the waste, then eventually you will clogup the mechanism. If you never light the fire andallow the cells to become acidic, then you aren’ tgoing to have any energy.

For those who have eaten very little freshfruit and vegetables, it is perhaps time to changethose eating habits. For those who are vegetarianand are now sick, it is rather obvious, that more“ acidic” protein should be at least tried. By theway, proteins do much more than just shift thebody towards the acidic state. Protein is requiredto create enzymes. Without enzymes, you willnot be able to maintain the proper pH, be it acidicor alkaline. Designing a diet that allows the bodyto cycle its pH each day should allow you to bothrepair and cleanse when you are alkaline andproduce more energy when you are acidic.

In one of Sidney Baker, MD’ s books, “ TheCircadian Prescription,” he talks about using thetiming of your food selections to help the body toproduce energy in the day and to repair at night.His suggestion is to emphasize protein during theday, and to reserve most of your carbohydrateallotment for the evening meal. Your liver needsthe carbohydrates at night for cleansing. Duringthe day, you need the protein to help stabilizeblood sugar. It sounds like something worthtrying, but again remember that each person mayneed a different program.

Biological TerrainPolly: Recently, I attended a lecture by HansGruenn, MD, on Biological Terrain Assessment.


86

In his practice, Hans Gruenn, MD measures hispatient’ s urine, blood, and saliva pH in themorning before they have eaten. This pH testingis part of the Biological Terrain Assessmentmethod that he and some alternative doctorsemploy. Taking the measurements at any othertime of the day can be confusing. For instance,after you have eaten, your urine and saliva willbe influenced by what you have eaten. Also, ingeneral, your blood, urine and saliva pH willtemporarily become more alkaline just after ameal. (This is because in the process of makingacid for the stomach, alkaline products aredumped into the blood.)

Dr. Gruenn stated that the best pH readings inthe morning are slightly acidic relative to thenorms. This means that the cells are producingenergy and acidic waste, and that they aredumping this waste in the blood stream. Since thecells produce acidic waste as a by-product ofenergy production, you want them to beproducing this waste. Normal respiration ofhealthy cells produces acidic waste. Patientsoften come in to him saying they are finallyalkaline, but they feel so much worse. So becareful. Don’ t push yourself too alkaline or tooacidic. You will make yourself sick.

If you would like to find a practitioner whoemploys Biological Terrain Assessment (BTA),you can probably ask one of the companies thatmakes the testing devices. Biomeridian is onesuch company. This is their website, www.biomeridian.com, and phone (801)-501-7517. Or here is another company, Biomedx.http://biomedx.com/pH/page2.html (847) 299-0236

Beware of any doctor that just blindly usesthese measurements to design a program for you.Some common sense and detective work must be

employed. For instance, if your urine is acidic,then why might it be acidic? Is it because there isa bacteria overgrowth in the small intestine? Is itbecause your cells are producing too much lacticacid? Or is it both? Is it because you havediarrhea? Are you dehydrated? Is your thyroidlow? Are you producing enough carbon dioxide?Are you eating a lot of meat and very littlevegetables? Or is it because you haveaccumulated a lot of toxins? Or all of the above?

references1. Johnson, Jan, “ Metabolic Balancing: Organizational

Workbook” , and her lecture tape “ MetabolicBalancing, Acid-Alkaline,” from the Candida andDysbiosis Information Foundation Symposium, May1990. The most recent version of her workbook isfound at her website.www.groupprofessionals.com/News/rat Also there isan article available from another organization. StevenWm. Fowkes, “ Interview with Jan Johnson“ (applyingthe concepts of pH comfort range, acid and alkalinemomentum, and pH balance to aging, addiction,allergy, immune dysfunction, digestion, exercise,headaches, PMS, and/orgasms) JMS Vol. 3, No. 5,Issue #13, September 1987 Available from theMegaHealth Society, c/o CERI, P.O. Box 4029, MenloPark, California, 94026-4029 USAhttp://www.ceri.com/ff.htm $3.50 plus tax, plus $2.00shipping charge. phone 650-321-CERI

2. Broda O.Barnes, MD Research Foundation, Inc.,“ Thyroid Therapy II” with Broda O. Barnes, MD,PhD.

3. Abelow, Benjamin, MD, Understanding Acid-Base,Williams and Wilkins, 1998

4. Peat, Raymond, PhD., “ Homeostasis and Aging,Thyroid mysteries and minerals: Cramps,excitotoxicity, dementia, and CO2” , Ray Peat’ sNewsletter, December 1999

www.biomeridian.com

http://biomedx.com/pH/page2.html

www.groupprofessionals.com/News/rat

http://www.ceri.com/ff.htm

Index

A

AA (arachidonic acid) · 65acid, alkaline and pH · 13,

27, 29, 34, 38, 47, 48,71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78,79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84,85, 86

acidophilus · 20, 22, 23adrenal · 27, 51, 52, 66AIDS · See HIV and AIDSallergies · 12, 13, 14, 16,

17, 24, 26, 28, 35, 36,37, 38, 40, 45, 46, 48,49, 50, 51, 60, 66, 67,68, 69

AllergyResearch/Nutricology ·19

alpha-ketoglutaric acid · 48aluminum · 26, 83amino acids · 18, 46, 48,

49, 50, 53ammonia · 46, 47, 48, 53antibiotics · 24, 38, 46, 47,

48, 49, 51, 52, 57, 59, 62antifungals · 33, 37Armour · 25, 26arthritis · 13, 17, 28, 40, 42,

61, 64, 74asthma · 29, 65attention deficit · 30, 45autism · 25, 33, 45, 47, 59,

60, 65, 68, 69, 71

B

bacteria overgrowth · 86Baker, Sidney, MD · 34Bifidus · 47bile · 32, 56bioflavonoids · 82bioflavonoids and

flavonoids · 15, 18Bio-K · 20birth control pills · 49Broda Barnes, MD · 50bulgaricus · 34butter · 75, 81

C

calcium · 30, 48, 50, 77, 78,83

Campbell Douglass, MD ·19

Candida and DysbiosisInformation Foundation ·54, 86

caprylic · 59carbohydrates · 11, 17, 35-

45, 48, 81, 85carbon dioxide · 47carrageenan · 31casein · 13, 19, 25celiac · 39, 44, 45cellulase · 33CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue

Immune Dysfunction

Syndrome) · 18, 49, 54,79

chronic fatigue · SeeCFIDS (Chronic FatigueImmune DysfunctionSyndrome)

Clostridium and Clostridia ·47

Clostridium or Clostridia ·13, 42, 47

coenzyme Q10 · 82coffee · 13, 28, 29, 36, 80,

84colitis · 45, 67, 72colon cleansing · 16constipation · 13, 32, 45copper · 83cortisol · 27, 51craniosacral therapy · 16Crohns · 61cysteine · 18, 32, 51

D

D'Adamo, Peter J., MD ·24, 25, 53

depression · 17, 29, 35DHA · 31diabetes · 40, 45, 63, 72diarrhea · 39, 45, 82, 86Diflucan · 28digestion · 20, 21, 25, 38,

40, 46, 47, 49, 66, 71


88

E

eczema · 65Edgar Cayce · 25, 26, 28EFA (essential fatty acids) ·

60, 65endometriosis · 67Enig, Mary, PhD · 32, 34,

55, 59, 60, 61, 71, 72, 73environmental · 15enzymes · 18, 32, 33, 42,

56, 71EPA (eicosapentaenoic

acid) · 31, 65estrogen · 32, 48, 51, 57,

71, 74

F

Fallon, Sally · 19, 43, 55,61, 71, 72, 73

fasting · 16, 17fats and oils · 11, 17, 32,

43, 44, 55-72borage · 67, 68, 69, 70butter · 25, 37, 55, 67coconut · 32, 37, 55, 56,

57, 58, 60, 68, 69, 72emu · 14, 55, 61, 62, 72fish · 14, 55, 65, 69flaxseed · 66, 69olive · 39, 55, 56, 58, 70primrose · 62, 66, 67

fiber · 17, 32fibromyalgia · 38fluoride · 83food allergies · 14FOS (fructo-

oligosaccharides) · 47fruit kefir · 22, 23

G

garlic · 13, 58ghee · 67GLA (gamma linolenic

acid) · 67, 71glutathione, · 18gluten · 25, 27, 31, 35, 37,

40, 44, 45, 53glutyl-cysteine · 18glycine · 18, 52Great Smokies Laboratory ·

12

H

histamine · 14HIV and AIDS · 18, 60, 61honey · 37, 38, 39, 41, 42hyperthyroid · 31hypothyroid · 26, 31

I

IgA · 40IgG · 12immune system · 14, 20,

24, 25, 36, 55, 59ImmunePro (undenatured

whey) · 19Immunocal (undenatured

whey) · 18, 79IMUPlus (undenatured

whey) · 19inflammation · 14, 40, 65,

67, 70, 71iodine · 25, 26, 27, 31, 83iron · 29, 67, 83isoflavones, also see

phytoestrogens · 15, 16,34

J

Jarrow · 60Johnson, Jan · 74, 75, 77,

81, 82, 85, 86

K

Kefir · 22, 23

L

Lamisil · 39leaky gut · 14, 32, 34, 38,

39, 40, 49lectins · 25, 40, 41, 45, 53Leo Galland · 32, 56liver · 13, 16, 18, 32, 48,

49, 50, 51, 53, 59, 68,69, 85

Lyme · 14

M

macrobiotic · 83magnesium · 27, 48, 50, 53,

71, 74, 77, 83manganese · 71, 83Manuka honey · 39, 41, 42Mead oil · 63mercury · 13, 18, 25, 29,

34, 49, 50, 65, 67, 70,71, 83

methionine · 18migraines · 14, 29, 33, 68milk · 12, 13, 16, 19, 20,

23, 24, 25, 36, 37, 40,51, 67

molds · 12, 28, 29, 38, 40MSG (Monosodium

Glutamate) · 13, 29, 30,31, 43

Index 89

MSM (Methyl-Sulfonyl-Methane) · 14, 39, 63

N

N.E.E.D.S. · 19, 76NAET · 14Natren · 24nightshade plants · 13Nystatin · 43

O

organic · 13, 24, 33, 38, 40,48, 49, 50, 53, 60, 67,79, 82

P

pancreas and pancreaticenzymes · 48, 82

parasites · 51Peat, Raymond, PhD · 32,

36, 40, 51, 53, 54, 55,56, 60, 71, 78, 86

pesticides · 17, 24, 25, 26,29, 46, 48, 51, 57, 59

phytoestrogen · 15potassium · 25, 27probiotics · 14, 21, 22, 24,

32, 37, 47progesterone · 32, 63prostaglandins · 65, 67, 71,

73

R

Rogers, Sherry, MD · 73

S

salt · 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30,32, 43

SCD · See SpecificCarbohydrate Diet

seizures and epilepsy · 29,68

selenium · 71, 83serotonin · 35sodium cromoglycate · 14soy · 12, 15, 16, 30, 48, 49,

53, 55, 57, 61Specific Carbohydrate Diet

· 14, 15, 20, 36, 37, 39,40, 41

stomach acid · 13, 29, 34,47, 53, 78, 81

T

taurine · 18Ted H Spence, DDS, ND,

PhD · 27Th1 and Th2 · 20, 55thyroid · 15, 16, 25, 26, 31,

32, 34, 35, 45, 47, 50,51, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 86

Trowbridge, John, MD ·23, 24

Truss, O., MD · 33, 34

tryptophan · 35tyramine · 13

V

vinegar · 13, 22, 32, 33, 38,43

vitamin A · 65, 71, 82vitamin B12 · 52, 71, 82vitamin B2 · 48vitamin B6 · 29, 30, 34, 48,

50, 60, 64, 71, 82vitamin C · 82vitamin D · 65, 82vitamin E · 63, 65, 67, 71,

82vitamin K · 65, 82Vonderplanitz, Aajonus ·

33

W

whey · 18, 19, 25, 30, 40,79

Y

Yoga · 16, 75, 78, 82

Z

zinc · 14, 48, 71, 83

More Health Forum books can be found at www.dysbiosis.com

Book 1: Candida’ s Impact on your Health

Book 2: Candidiasis and Dysbiosis Abatement Techniques

Book 3: Diets for Immune Support and Gut Health

Book 4: Hormones, Dysbiosis and Candidiasis

Book 5: Hope for Autism through Nutrition

Book 6: Cleansing the Body of Mercury

Book 7: Fibromyalgia Treatment Options

About Polly Hattemer, PhD — editor of The Health ForumPolly Hattemer’ s formal education is a doctorate in System Science Engineering fromUCLA. She has spent over 20 years working in the aerospace industry. Specifically, sheanalyzed and helped to design missile guidance systems, satellite sensors, and radarwaveforms. This background perhaps explains the way she looks at health. Because ofher systems engineering background, she is always looking for the interactions betweendifferent “ systems” in the body. However, her perspective is just one of many that willbe found in the Health Forum books.

Polly Hattemer used to have intestinal yeast overgrowth with the accompanyingsymptoms of migraines, food sensitivities, fatigue, brain-fog, and of course, intestinalupsets. Over many years, she accumulated information on how to get rid of theseailments and how to heal the damage left in its wake. Several years ago, she startedchatting with others on the Internet about this problem. She discovered that the Internetwas a vast resource of technical information and an interesting source of personalexperiences. With the permission of her Internet friends, she recorded their personalexperiences and organized them into the Health Forum books. She also addedreferences to tutorial and technical articles.

www.dysbiosis.com