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  #1   ^
Old Fri, May-31-02, 13:54
Voyajer's Avatar
Voyajer Voyajer is offline
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Default Carbohydrates are not essential

Carbohydrates in Nutrition
by Ron Kennedy, M.D., Santa Rosa, California


Carbohydrates come in two basic forms: complex and simple. Simple carbs are one, two, or at most three units of sugar linked together in single molecules. Complex carbs are hundreds or thousands of sugar units linked together in single molecules. Simple sugars are easily identified by their taste: sweet. Complex carbs, such as potatoes, are pleasant to the taste buds, but not sweet.

There are two groups of complex carbs: high fiber and low fiber. High-fiber, complex carbs are not digestible, at least not by human beings, because we do not have the enzyme to do the job. Cows have that enzyme; that is why they can get calories out of grass, and we cannot. The main stuff in high-fiber, complex carbs which is indigestible by humans is called "cellulose."

High-fiber (high-cellulose) vegetable foods are the healthiest choices for human nutrition, and intake of these foods is associated with lowered incidences of hypertension, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, etc. Examples are lettuce and broccoli. Examples of low-fiber, complex carbs are banana, tomato, squash and all cereals and grains (therefore bread and pasta), potatoes and rice.

It matters not if a carb is simple or complex. After digestion, it appears in the circulatory system in the simple form, as glucose, on its way to the cells where it is used for energy. To be transformed into simple sugars, complex carbs must be digested by the enzyme amylase. Amylase is secreted by the salivary glands, which empty into the mouth, and by the pancreas, which empties into the head of the duodenum.

Simple sugars and low-fiber, complex carbs represent a threat to health when they are consumed in inappropriate amounts such as may occur in low-soy, vegetarian diets where they are being eaten to replace the calories which would ordinarily come from protein.

Processing of plant food strips away its fiber and/or vitamin content. A simple example of processing is cutting an orange in two pieces, pressing the juice into a glass and discarding the fiber.

While it is true that fiber is an important part of your diet, even necessary to protect you from some diseases, carbohydrates themselves are not necessary. There are "essential" fatty acids and "essential" amino acids (from protein), however there are no known essential carbohydrates.

Most of our carbohydrates come from cereals and grains, both products of the agricultural revolution. Our bodies are not genetically designed to thrive on large amounts of these fiberless complex carbs. With the popularity of cereal- and grain-based "health diets," carbohydrate metabolism has been upset in approximately 3/4 of the population which simply cannot handle this large load of carbs. Increased insulin output from the pancreas, over the years, results in hyperinsulinism, insulin resistance and the resulting diseases mentioned above: hypertension, dyslipidemia, atherosclerosis and heart disease.

Complex carbs with lots of fiber should be consumed in proper proportion for maximum health and vitality. Complex carbs with lots of fiber are rich sources of necessary vitamins and minerals as well as enzymes when in the raw state. The problem happens when carbohydrates are altered by processes which provide empty calories stripped of much of their original food value.

I should also mention the relationship between simple sugars and mucus formation. The biochemical name for mucus is mucopolysaccharide. This literally means "mucus of many sugars," and it tells us how mucus is formed through the linking together of sugar molecules. If you have a condition, such as asthma or emphysema, in which mucus is part of the problem, you can do yourself a lot of good by stopping your intake of simple sugars and lowering your intake of complex carbohydrates (which convert to simple sugars upon digestion). Unfortunately, this means such wonderful sweet fruits as plums, peaches, apples, etc., must go along with breads, pastas and pastries.

The most healthy form of sugar is the complex carbohydrates present in high-fiber vegetables; however, it is certainly acceptable to spice up your diet in moderation with simple sugars in the form of whole fruits — unless, of course, you are trying to avoid mucus formation. Eat your fruits, do not juice them and drink them, unless you are on a juice fast as described earlier in this book. Eating the whole fruit results in the inclusion of natural fiber, which allows proper absorption of sugars. If you must have juice, dilute it with twice the recommended amount of water, so as to get the taste without overdosing on simple sugars.

The Result of Excess Carbohydrate Intake

Excess carbohydrates also causes generalized vascular disease. The high-carbohydrate diet which is now so popular causes the pancreas to produce large amounts of insulin, and if this happens for many years in a genetically predisposed person, the insulin receptors throughout the body become resistant to insulin. Because insulin's action is to drive glucose into the cells, this results in chronic hyperglycemia, also called "high blood sugar." A large portion of this sugar is stored as fat resulting in obesity. Excess insulin also causes hypertension and helps initiate the sequence of events in the arterial wall which leads to atherosclerosis and heart disease.

Adult onset diabetes is known to be greatly benefited by the adoption of a low carbohydrate diet, moderate in fat, which stresses the importance of a regular intake of sufficient protein. You will not hear this advice from the American Diabetes Association, (or from most doctors) since they are still operating on the research as it was twenty years ago.

Many cancers, such as breast, colon and lung cancer, apparently have a hereditary tendency. However, it may be that nutritional habits are passed on from one generation to the next, thus accounting for the familial tendency toward cancer.

Excess fats damage the immune system through irradiation by free radicals during peroxidation of fats. Excess carbohydrates upset the hormonal system mentioned above (known as the "eicosanoids") and results in an imbalance favoring the type of eicosanoid (known as "prostaglandins E-2" or "PGE-2") which also suppresses the immune system. Thus obesity is associated with a higher incidence of infection.

http://www.medical-library.net/site..._nutrition.html
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  #2   ^
Old Fri, May-31-02, 17:19
Lisa N's Avatar
Lisa N Lisa N is offline
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Good article. I don't agree with the part about excess fats damaging the immune system unless they are the wrong kinds of fats (trans-fats and hydrogenated) or fats damaged by overheating (burning), but the rest of it was right on the money.
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  #3   ^
Old Sat, Jun-01-02, 11:20
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Kent Kent is offline
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Voyajer,

Thanks for the information and link. I agree with Lisa on Dr. Ron Kennedy's comments about carbohydrates. However, a visit to his web site will show that he drifts into myths, distortions and lies, especially concerning protein, fats and nutritional requirements. Being a vegetarian, Dr. Kennedy takes a position against carbohydrates that is rare in his group. That is a slight improvement. As stated on his web site:

Quote:
Perspectives on Nutrition in Related Species

I recommend a no-meat, no-dairy diet, with eggs allowed, an ovo-vegan diet balanced in respect to complex carbohydrate and protein. This diet should be high in fiber and feature organically grown food. I could recommend this sort of diet for nutritional reasons, without reference to spiritual and environmental considerations, which also have merit. Healing happens faster for a person on this type of diet. Speed of healing reflects overall health and is of great interest to most doctors.


I strongly recommend that anyone seeking nutritional and health truth NOT get your information from Dr. Ron Kennedy's web site.
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  #4   ^
Old Sat, Jun-01-02, 17:51
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bdeeley bdeeley is offline
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Plan: Syndrome X
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I was particularly interested in his comments about the sugar-mucous link. As someone with environmental allergies and asthma I have noticed a significant improvement in my symtoms since I started LC. It would be interesting to find out if there was a link between carbs and allergy/asthma.
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  #5   ^
Old Sat, Jun-01-02, 23:59
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trisharau trisharau is offline
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Thumbs up Low carbs and no asthma and few allergies

This time of the year I would usually have been on medication for a few months already (it is winter here). This has not happened this year as I have been on low carb and generally don't have dairy (well sometimes I have some cream).

I am sure the elimination of cereals and fruit has played an important factor in this new healthy me. Also I no longer have bloating or digestive problems (they were chronic before this WOE).

Trisha
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  #6   ^
Old Sun, Jun-02-02, 19:40
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tofi tofi is offline
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In 1929/30, one of the early polar explorers, Vilhjalmur Stefansson and a colleague, Karsten Anderson, returned from the Arctic to report that Eskimo/Inuit were able to survive on nother but caribou meat all winter, while performing heavy labour. For a year, they ate only meat more than 2500 calories per day and 75% fat) while staying in Bellevue Hospital in New York. After a year of NO carbohydrates, they had each lost about 6 pounds but all their blood test results were normal and they had NO adverse effects on their health. (See Protein Power Plan Chapter 1, footnote 2 - page 9)

The same explorer proved conclusively that lightly cooked meat and fish, contain enough of a vitamin C-like substance (as well as all other critical micronutrients) to prevent scurvy and other deficiency diseases. But you'd have to eat fresh meat, cooked rare to get this Vitamin C substitute, which is why LCers should generally take Vitamin C supplements.

The Journal of the American Medical Association documented that Stefansson, who spent an one full year on a drastic diet of nothing but fresh meat and water not only did not die as predicted but emerged fitter, leaner, with lower cholesterol counts and healthier in every regard. (PPP - page 172) But PPP also says that cutting your carbs below 7-10 gm per meal will NOT speed your loss, and will only save you about 100 calories per day.
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Old Thu, Jun-06-02, 20:28
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Voyajer Voyajer is offline
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Plan: Protein Power LP Dilletan
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American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 75, No. 5, 951-953, May 2002
© 2002 American Society for Clinical Nutrition

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Letter to the Editor

Is dietary carbohydrate essential for human nutrition?
Eric C Westman
Department of Medicine Duke University Medical Center Suite 200-B Wing Box 50, 2200 West Main Street Durham, NC 27705 Email: ewestman~duke.edu

Dear Sir:

I read with interest the article by Dewailly et al (1) regarding diet and cardiovascular disease in the Inuit of Nunavik, but I was disappointed that no information regarding macronutrient intake was presented or considered in the estimation of cardiovascular risk. The traditional Inuit diet consists primarily of protein and fat, somewhat similar to the low-carbohydrate diets promoted in popular weight-reducing diets (2). These diets have caused concern among nutritionists because of the metabolic changes and health risks associated with limited carbohydrate consumption (3). However, in exploring the risks and benefits of carbohydrate restriction, I was surprised to find little evidence that exogenous carbohydrate is needed for human function.

The currently established human essential nutrients are water, energy, amino acids (histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine), essential fatty acids (linoleic and -linolenic acids), vitamins (ascorbic acid, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B-6, pantothenic acid, folic acid, biotin, and vitamin B-12), minerals (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and iron), trace minerals (zinc, copper, manganese, iodine, selenium, molybdenum, and chromium), electrolytes (sodium, potassium, and chloride), and ultratrace minerals (4). (Note the absence of specific carbohydrates from this list.)

Although one current recommended dietary carbohydrate intake for adults is 150 g/d, it is interesting to examine how this recommendation was determined at a recent international conference (5):

"The theoretical minimal level of carbohydrate (CHO) intake is zero, but CHO is a universal fuel for all cells, the cheapest source of dietary energy, and also the source of plant fiber. In addition, the complete absence of dietary CHO entails the breakdown of fat to supply energy [glycerol as a gluconeogenic substrate, and ketone bodies as an alternative fuel for the central nervous system (CNS)], resulting in symptomatic ketosis. Data in childhood are unavailable, but ketosis in adults can be prevented by a daily CHO intake of about 50 g. This value appears to approximate the quantity of glucose required to satisfy minimal glucose needs of the CNS and during starvation. The Group therefore concluded that the theoretical minimum intake of zero should not be recommended as a practical minimum....about 100 g of glucose/d are irreversibly oxidized by the brain from the age of 3–4 y onward. However, this excludes recycled carbon, gluconeogenic carbon, for example from glycerol, and it does not account for glucose used by other non-CNS tissues. For example, in the adult, muscle and other non-CNS account for an additional 20–30 g of glucose daily. For this reason a safety margin of 50 g/d is arbitrarily added to the value of 100 g/d and the practical minimal CHO intake set at 150 g/d beyond the ages of 3–4 y."

Thus, although carbohydrate could theoretically be eliminated from the diet, the recommended intake of 150 g/d ensures an adequate supply of glucose for the CNS. However, it appears that during starvation (a condition in which the intakes of carbohydrate, protein, and fat are eliminated), an adequate amount of substrate for the CNS is provided through gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis (6). The elimination of dietary carbohydrate did not diminish the energy supply to the CNS under the conditions of these experiments. Second, carbohydrate is recommended to avert symptomatic ketosis. In the largest published series on carbohydrate-restricted diets, ketosis was not typically symptomatic (7).

The most direct way to determine whether carbohydrate is an essential nutrient is to eliminate it from the diet in controlled laboratory studies. In studies involving rats and chicks, the elimination of dietary carbohydrate caused no obvious problems (8–12). It was only when carbohydrate restriction was combined with glycerol restriction (by substituting fatty acids for triacylglycerol) that chicks did not develop normally (13). Thus, it appears that some minimum amount of a gluconeogenic precursor is essential—for example, glycerol obtained from fat (triacylglycerol) consumption. More subtle abnormalities from carbohydrate elimination might not have been observed in these studies. In addition, the essentiality of some nutrients is species-specific; therefore, these studies do not provide convincing evidence that elimination of dietary carbohydrate is safe in humans (4).

The usual way to discover the essentiality of nutrients is through the identification of specific deficiency syndromes (4). I found no evidence of a carbohydrate deficiency syndrome in humans. Protein deprivation leads to kwashiorkor, and energy deprivation leads to marasmus; however, there is no specific carbohydrate deficiency syndrome. Few contemporary human cultures eat low-carbohydrate diets, but the traditional Eskimo diet is very low (50 g/d) in carbohydrate (2). It is possible that if more humans consumed diets severely restricted in carbohydrate, a carbohydrate deficiency syndrome might become apparent.

When carbohydrates are eliminated from the diet, there is a risk that intakes of vitamins, minerals, and perhaps yet unidentified beneficial nutrients provided by carbohydrate-rich foodstuffs (eg, fiber) will be inadequate. There are case reports of extreme dieters who probably developed deficiencies. One dieter who only ate cheese, meat, and eggs (no vegetables) was reported to have developed thiamine-deficient optic neuropathy (14). Another dieter may have developed a relapse of acute variegate porphyria (15). However, most of the current low-carbohydrate, weight-reducing diets advocate the consumption of low-carbohydrate vegetables and vitamin supplements.

Although there is certainly no evidence from which to conclude that extreme restriction of dietary carbohydrate is harmless, I was surprised to find that there is similarly little evidence to conclude that extreme restriction of carbohydrate is harmful. In fact, the consequential breakdown of fat as a result of carbohydrate restriction may be beneficial in the treatment of obesity (7). Perhaps it is time to carefully examine the issue of whether carbohydrate is an essential component of human nutrition.
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