masai and iron

[Guest guest]

I just started reading The Cholesterol Myths today.

Price probably mentioned it, but I read NAPD a while ago and must have

forgotten-- I was suprised by how *litttle* milk the Maasai drink. I was

thinking for some reason it was gallons a day, and figured they had much more

milk available than meat. But in TCM it says they only drank a half gallon a

day, and would eat their balance in meat, and sometimes eat 4-10 pounds of

meat in a day! (I myself drink over a quart of milk a day, and I don't herd

cattle ;-) )

So that raises the question-- with all that cattle meat, why aren't the

Maasai overdosing on iron?

According to Mercola and others excess iron can be a major problem for people

who can afford to eat meat all the time. But the Maasai have no apparent

problem with this nor heart disease due to it.

That brings me back to what I'd wondered allowed a couple months ago-- is

iron excess perhaps not due to organic iron in meat, but only inorganic iron

from cooking metals and fortified flours, etc? The inorganic iron that is

used for fortifier interferes with vitamin E while the organic iron does not,

so I've read. So couldn't the oxidative damage associated with excess iron

be not related to the oxidative effect of iron, but to the depressed

anti-oxidant activity of vitamin E? This would explain why iron excess poses

a problem to folks in industrialized countries where much or most of their

iron is inorganic from flour products, and not in non-industrialized

countries where it all comes from meat.

Any thoughts?

Chris

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt

[Guest guest]

Chris-

This has been my theory for quite awhile now. It's somewhat tenuous, since

there's no direct evidence supporting it except for anthropological data

showing that even cultures which ate lots and lots of meat (including

liver) had no discernible problem with iron excess while people eating a

modern diet, even with very little meat, can develop iron toxicity.

This just goes to show that it's not just what bulk elements you eat that

matters, but the forms they come in and the cofactors that accompany

them. That's not to say we couldn't potentially give ourselves an iron

overdose, but I'd guess that would be because of other problems, like gut

dysbiosis, rather than iron consumption itself.

>That brings me back to what I'd wondered allowed a couple months ago-- is

>iron excess perhaps not due to organic iron in meat, but only inorganic iron

>from cooking metals and fortified flours, etc?

-

[Guest guest]

,

Here's one more shred of evidence for it: People who eat whole grain bread

have lower levels of heart disease than those who eat white bread. This

could be due to probably a million things, but Mercola took it to suggest

that the phytates in the bread were curbing iron overload, which contributes

to heart disease by its oxidative effect. Another interpretation: 100% whole

grain breads contain organic iron rather than " enriched " with iron, *and*

contain vitamin E, which both lacking in white bread and interfered with by

the iron in white bread.

Chris

In a message dated 5/14/03 11:39:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

Idol@... writes:

> This has been my theory for quite awhile now. It's somewhat tenuous, since

> there's no direct evidence supporting it except for anthropological data

> showing that even cultures which ate lots and lots of meat (including

> liver) had no discernible problem with iron excess while people eating a

> modern diet, even with very little meat, can develop iron toxicity.

>

> This just goes to show that it's not just what bulk elements you eat that

> matters, but the forms they come in and the cofactors that accompany

> them. That's not to say we couldn't potentially give ourselves an iron

> overdose, but I'd guess that would be because of other problems, like gut

> dysbiosis, rather than iron consumption itself.

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt