http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ubmed_RVDocSuml



*boggle*

The Asterisk
Fruit and vegetables, last post (almost)
Damage your DNA

What kind of marked changes? Better? Worse? In what way?

That's very interesting. Hard to know what to think about that, without some kind of context of other similar studies but with different factors. So they're saying when they put people on a strict eating plan that included veggies, then withdrew the veggies, that measurable damage to DNA and some blood readings reduced, yes?

I wasn't clear on whether they were on a diet WITH veggies initially then that was withdrawn, or whether they were simply put on a meat/carb-based diet either with or without GTE (green tea extract) and their readings improved. I mean, whatever they were eating before the study compared to what they were eating during the study could be the reason for the improvement; it was not clear to me from the abstract whether all or only some of the participants saw these improvements (so I wasn't sure how the control group accounted for any change or if they did or if the diet did).

So if this meant what it implies, then merely having someone on a meat/carb diet for awhile, then adding in fruits/veggies, should show a measurable increase in damage to DNA, plasma lipids and blood proteins.

Did they spec what they were feeding as vegetables/fruits that allegedly caused this damage? I only ask since Regina was recently pointing out how the MyPyramid.gov site had a whole list of veggies which included legumes, grains, etc. so I'd be curious to see if those findings can be replicated, and whether it is related to "fruits and veggies" or whether it relates to something in those they chose to feed or not feed during the study (or what food WAS fed).

Anyway, major food for thought! Will be interesting to see where that goes.

This is pretty funny. So they hoped that green tea extract would undo the damage of a fruit and vegetable free diet, but no damage showed up? I'm glad the tea didn't hurt any. I love my tea.
Half the group studied were smokers. This reminds me of those beta carotene and other antioxidant studies where smokers received no benefit, or were even worse off with supplementation.

I liked this;



The green tea extract was served mixed into pork patties. I guess they figured this was one food they could put it into that people were less likely to skip over during a meal. The pork just got me thinking about vitamin d, lard's supposed to be a decent source. Part of the prescribed diet was milk every day, so that'd supply more. Heck, who knows, maybe the dietary interventions happened during a sunny period, following a pre-intervention cloudy period. I don't know if improved availability of vitamin d lessened genetic damage during the fruit and vegetable study, but then I'm in good company--neither do the study authors. I just did a search for the word "vitamin" on the whole paper, and there is no mention of vitamin d anywhere.









Maybe variety is bad for you? Maybe if you eat a really monotonous menu, your metabolism solves the equation?

Relatively little sugar in this diet (too much for my taste.) The only obvious source of sugar or of vegetable oil would be in the sponge and the carrot cake.

The study also seems to say (I'm getting kind of bleary-eyed) that the green tea catechins, the polyphenols that they were hoping would save the day, had a half-life of one point six hours before being expelled in the urine. Doesn't seem to me like the body wants them around at all. If the body of a mammal was all that hot for polyphenols and flavonoids and all that junk, wouldn't pork and beef be excellent sources? I thought they fed a lot of soy to pigs and cattle. I guess maybe their bodies can't wait to get rid of the stuff, either.

This brings me back to this:
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditi..._americans.html

This is an important point that I have wondered about.

When we don't eat carbs, our body waits around for carbs for awhile, and then eventually, depending on critical depletion (eg probably sooner and more severely for a 500# person on 5 carbs a day, than a 130# person on 20 carbs a day) shifts into ketosis.

Well what if the more variety we have in our diet, the more trace minerals and more our body 'waits around for' because it figures it'll get 'em eventually? What if the body is actually capable of making or substituting some things itself, chemically, but it has to think it needs to do that, in order for it to happen? And maybe needs certain primary building blocks (say extra protein/amino acids/etc.)?

I ask because the eskimo for example and some other native cultures have had a pretty limited, mostly-meat/fat-only diet, and yet they were not extinct from 101 deficiency diseases, and I think it merits asking why. Why should humans need to eat broccoli or almonds for nutrients, if people not eating those seemed to get along just fine.

Don't get me wrong, I like fruits, veggies, dairy, etc. -- I'm in no danger of becoming zerocarb anytime soon -- but from a logic standpoint, I'm having a hard time working that out in my head. I don't disagree that in modern research, modern people 'need' nutrients that veggies-etc. supply. What I don't understand is why we need them so much when it appears some native peoples didn't need them at all.

Grains, fruits, and veggies contain toxins and antinutrients. When Taubes was talking about deficiencies, he pointed out that while eating fresh fruit would cure or prevent scurvy in British sailors, that does not mean that a lack of fruit caused scrurvy. In fact, it is painfully obvious that it doesn't.

Gosh, wouldn't that be the final kicker? To find out vegetables are bad for you after all!

I'm starting to think nutrition is like religion. You can believe anything you want, but we're never really going to know for sure.

It's like taking a picture and chopping it into rice sized pieces. If you look at a single rice sized piece you can only guess what the picture was about and chances aren't very good you'll be right.

What he said caused scurvy was the fact that the sailors had so much glucose in thier cells that other nutrients, such as vitamin C could not be absorbed. The cells must absorb glucose, if they can't it will spill into the urine which we know haw dangerous that is.

I don't think that is what was implied, but I'd have to look it up. Glucose in cells should not prevent nutrients from being absorbed by the cells. Fiber certainly binds minerals making them unavailable for absorprtion, and it appears that carbohydrates hinder the availability of vitamin C. That doesn't mean that the uptake of glucose in and of itself blocks vitamin C absorption. Given that even in the absence of carbohydrates, glucose exists in the body at a nearly constant level I have doubts that the vitamin C issue involves cellular uptake.

Organ meats are a far better source of vitamins etc than veggies - but so few people eat them anymore. I can't even find sweetbreads (though I finally found a source of lamb brain!)

I vaguely recall him comparing it (was it this part? man, the book was so dense) to a taxi cab having a 'preferential passenger'; if glucose was there, that's what got taken, leaving the nutrients.

Scroll down to the paragraph before the fasting graph in Dr. Eades blog.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...ittent-fasting/

and add this but I did read a similar comment by Dr. Eaes and Gary T. but can't find that exact link yet.

http://www.mercola.com/article/suga...rs_of_sugar.htm

Ah, good thing I forced myself to eat veggies for only a year?