Re: Re: Invasive Breast Cancer

July 19, 2003

Also worth looking into the following:

" There have allso been reports in the peer-reviewed literature of cancer

patients in the grips of apparently hopelessly fatal cancers who have

experienced

dramatic improvements and recoveries on a ketogenic diet. This diet provides

energy through fats, not carbohydrates. Although this is a much stricter,

more difficult diet to follow, it starves the cancer cells of the glucose they

need to reproduce. It is the relentless reproduction of cancer cells and their

displacement of healthy ones that is cancer's greatest threat. By slowing or

halting this reproduction, the ketogenic diet allows the immune system a

window of opportunity to battle these aberrant cells. "

--Dangerous Grains, p 108, Brady MD and Hoggan, MA

In a message dated 7/18/03 11:40:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

toyotaokiec@... writes:

>

> >OK. I know the vegan recommendation for the above is a raw vegan

> diet. But

> >what do NT'ers suggest. I have read the article on WAP already.

> Anything else?

> >My aunt was just diagnosed with invasive breast cancer today.

> >

> >Marcella

> >

July 19, 2003

Thanks for the information everyone sent. I am not sure what I think of

alternative cancer treatments. I have seen people do better long term with chemo

over the past few years. It could have just been those individuals. A good

friend of the family died a year ago after fighting cancer primarily through

diet

for several years. One of my aunts best friends was just diagnosed with breast

cancer also. And a good friend of hers recently died of it after fighting it

for a number of years. It just seems so rampant. I have another aunt in

remission. She was diagnosed at stage 4 and treated it conventionally with

chemo.

Marcella

July 20, 2003

In spite of its name, the book, Beating Cancer with Nutrition, by

Quillen, is good whether you go conventional or alternative. He talks about

different diets and supplements and how the work with cancer and Chemo. At

least the edition I have does.

Irene

At 04:17 PM 7/19/03, you wrote:

>Thanks for the information everyone sent. I am not sure what I think of

>alternative cancer treatments. I have seen people do better long term with

>chemo

>over the past few years. It could have just been those individuals. A good

>friend of the family died a year ago after fighting cancer primarily

>through diet

>for several years. One of my aunts best friends was just diagnosed with

>breast

>cancer also. And a good friend of hers recently died of it after fighting it

>for a number of years. It just seems so rampant. I have another aunt in

>remission. She was diagnosed at stage 4 and treated it conventionally with

>chemo.

>

>Marcella

>

July 20, 2003

Wanita,

Yeah, I think that the ketogenic diet is multi-faceted in its mechanisms.

One obvious facet is it is low-grain! I'd be interested to see what Reading's

folks *were* eating for carbs. Dangerous Grains is pretty sloppy in

attributing things to gluten when it is unclear whether it is merited or not,

and it

would be interesting to see more investigation. One thing that *is* certain is

that *microorganisms* in the intestine secrete endotoxins that are extremely

powerful toxins that cause cancer and all kinds of neurological disorders. I

think gluten can have this effect too, though I'm not convinced gluten is the

primary mechanism of the intestinal disorders that *allow* gluten to have these

effects. But there is no question that gut health and elimination of other

forms of systemic infections is absolutely vital in preventing cancer and

neurological disorders. This is going to require a gluten-free or mostly

gluten-free diet regardless of gluten's role in the process.

Chris

In a message dated 7/20/03 10:31:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

wanitawa@... writes:

> Also in the Dangerous Grains intro pg. 9, is this strongly supportive

> paragraph

> to the gluten elimination portion of the ketogenic diet.

>

> An Australian psychiatrist, Dr. Reading, has published accounts of a

> number of cancer patients battling clinical depression, which he treated

> with a

> gluten-free diet. The diet, in conjunction with conventional cancer

> treatments,

> resulted in full recovery from the cancers in five out of six patients.

> Although this publication was not subjected to the scrutiny of the peer

> reviewed process, the results are certainly consistent with that literature

> and

> our perspective.

>

" 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

July 20, 2003

>Also worth looking into the following:

>

> " There have allso been reports in the peer-reviewed literature of cancer

>patients in the grips of apparently hopelessly fatal cancers who have

experienced

>dramatic improvements and recoveries on a ketogenic diet. This diet

provides

>energy through fats, not carbohydrates. Although this is a much stricter,

>more difficult diet to follow, it starves the cancer cells of the glucose

they

>need to reproduce. It is the relentless reproduction of cancer cells and

their

>displacement of healthy ones that is cancer's greatest threat. By slowing

or

>halting this reproduction, the ketogenic diet allows the immune system a

>window of opportunity to battle these aberrant cells. "

>

>--Dangerous Grains, p 108, Brady MD and Hoggan, MA

Also in the Dangerous Grains intro pg. 9, is this strongly supportive

paragraph

to the gluten elimination portion of the ketogenic diet.

An Australian psychiatrist, Dr. Reading, has published accounts of a

number of cancer patients battling clinical depression, which he treated

with a

gluten-free diet. The diet, in conjunction with conventional cancer

treatments,

resulted in full recovery from the cancers in five out of six patients.

Although this publication was not subjected to the scrutiny of the peer

reviewed process, the results are certainly consistent with that literature

and

our perspective.

Wanita

July 20, 2003

>Yeah, I think that the ketogenic diet is multi-faceted in its mechanisms.

>One obvious facet is it is low-grain! I'd be interested to see what Reading's

>folks *were* eating for carbs. Dangerous Grains is pretty sloppy in

>attributing things to gluten when it is unclear whether it is merited or not,

and it

>would be interesting to see more investigation.

I tend to agree. The low-carb folks do the same with carbs ... they attribute

*everything* to a low-carb diet. Clearly though, there are folks in the

world that eat a high-carb diet and do NOT have the same issues.

And if a person happens to be gluten-intolerant, that is important to

know because low and hidden amounts of gluten cause problems

and then you can't figure out where the problem is coming from.

That was what drove me nuts for a long time -- I'd do better on a lower

carb diet and then suddenly get sick without seemingly changing

anything about the carb count.

But a whole lot more research needs to be done ...

> One thing that *is* certain is

>that *microorganisms* in the intestine secrete endotoxins that are extremely

>powerful toxins that cause cancer and all kinds of neurological disorders. I

>think gluten can have this effect too, though I'm not convinced gluten is the

>primary mechanism of the intestinal disorders that *allow* gluten to have these

>effects.

And I'm not saying it is the primary cause for everyone either. I'm not sure

immune reactions are well understood -- some people can get stung by

bees a lot and never get sensitized to them, some people get deathly ill

on their second sting. Ditto with peanuts -- I can and have eaten a LOT

of peanut butter and I'm just fine with it. I suspect all the people who

live in places that eat a lot of peanuts are fine with it. But some kids

(from non-peanut-eating lineages, no doubt) do get very ill from peanuts,

and it isn't microbial. It is a combination of genes and exposure, in

those cases.

Certainly antibiotics etc. can make allergies

worse, but the problem pre-dates antibiotics. When we send wheat

to millet-eating parts of Africa, a lot of Africans get very sick. The whole

wheat isn't necessarily higher in starch than millet, but protein-wise it

is very different.

As for bacterial overgrowth -- yeah, it is a big problem! And another

multi-faceted problem (why don't the millet-eating Africans get sick

off millet? Why can the Koreans tolerate all that rice? Maybe because it

isn't finely ground and they eat lots of probiotics with it?)

> But there is no question that gut health and elimination of other

>forms of systemic infections is absolutely vital in preventing cancer and

>neurological disorders. This is going to require a gluten-free or mostly

>gluten-free diet regardless of gluten's role in the process.

That's where it get's complicated and more research REALLY needs

to be done. The reason I say that is that they are using " refined gluten " in

lot of meat-replacement low-carb products. If gluten is toxic to a large

section of the population -- those people need to know that!

I recently found out, relevant to this discussion, about my Dad's diet.

He had seizures the last few years of his life. I had brought up

the gluten thing with my Mom, who said that was not the problem,

because he " never ate bread " . When I went to visit, after his death,

I found out that he was eating a mess of " meat substitutes " in which

the #1 ingredient was purified wheat gluten. He had a lot of the

neurological symptoms I had before getting rid of the gluten, and

there is no way they would have changed anything regardless, and

those fake-meat products are full of soy too, which is another allergen.

But the point is, while " low carb " and " low gluten " are OFTEN synonymous,

it is not always the case, so the differences need to be studied.

-- Heidi

July 21, 2003

ChrisMasterjohn@... wrote:

> Also worth looking into the following:

>

> " There have allso been reports in the peer-reviewed literature of cancer

> patients in the grips of apparently hopelessly fatal cancers who have

experienced

> dramatic improvements and recoveries on a ketogenic diet. This diet provides

> energy through fats, not carbohydrates. Although this is a much stricter,

> more difficult diet to follow, it starves the cancer cells of the glucose they

> need to reproduce. It is the relentless reproduction of cancer cells and

their

> displacement of healthy ones that is cancer's greatest threat. By slowing or

> halting this reproduction, the ketogenic diet allows the immune system a

> window of opportunity to battle these aberrant cells. "

>

> --Dangerous Grains, p 108, Brady MD and Hoggan, MA

I've read a story in TherapeuticNutrition group about curing

cancer in a dog with a similar approach. Here it is:

" I want to share one case history of cancer in a dog that might be

revealing to some. I was faced with a dog that at age 4, was in very bad

shape. She had both amyloidosis and cancer, either of which should have

been fatal within a few weeks. The tumor was 6cm, lodged between her

liver and spleen. Removing it wasn't an option, because her heart and

lungs were too clogged with amyloid deposits to survive general

anesthesia. Chemo wasn't an option, because she was in acute renal

failure. Since amyloidosis and cancer have opposite treatment protocols,

I had to make a decision. The standard low protein, refined diet would

spare the kidneys for a while, but all those carbs would feed the

cancer. I decided to go with a cancer fighting diet and hope for the

best. She was allowed nothing to eat but an assortment of raw, organic

meats; buffalo, venison, duck, fish, turkey, eggs, beef, rabbit, lamb,

etc. complete with the organ meats. That was made into a formula with

vegetables, 80% meat and 20% vegetables. The rotation was such that she

did not eat the same thing twice in a month. Small amounts of cold fish

oil, flax oil, lecithin, kelp, liver extract, co-Q-10, yeast, vitamin E

& C, cold filtered whey, probiotics and digestive enzymes were added.

Since she was still willing to eat a little, I didn't add any vitamins

to her IV fluids. Her prognosis at the time was perhaps ten days to

three weeks.

Instead, she began to eat more every day. Soon I was barely able to keep

up with her appetite and energy level. All of her clinical symptoms

disappeared and I was amazed to find her running at full speed playing

with puppies. At 6 months, her urine was completely clean and other

markers normal.

By any textbook standard, a high protein, high nutrient diet would have

killed her. Instead it starved the cancer of sugars and carbon dioxide,

and the EFA's helped to dissolve the dense amyloid deposits. That wasn't

the first time I've know tumors to shrink and disappear, but this case

was special in that she had advanced cardiopulmonary and renal failure,

unrelated to the cancer, which also resolved.

Based on other cases I've come to believe that if the very same diet was

used, but cooked instead of raw, the outcome would have been very different.

That was around three years ago (a long time for a dog) and i know the

amyloidosis will never be completely gone - kidneys aren't able to grow

new tissue like the liver can. But she certainly seems happy to be alive

and has had no recurrant malignancy. It just goes to show that even when

surgery and chemo are not an option there are other things you can do.

I am *not* claiming to have a cure for cancer in humans. Just sharing a

story, that's all. "

July 21, 2003

In a message dated 7/20/03 6:48:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> Certainly antibiotics etc. can make allergies

> worse, but the problem pre-dates antibiotics.

You don't need antibiotics for damaged intestines. Infants today get damaged

intestinal flora and get allergies, and when the intesitnal flora is fixed,

the allergies go away. I had eczema and food allergies like mad when I was a

baby, but chiropractic treatment fixed it. There are studies on infant eczema

and probiotics.

When we send wheat

> to millet-eating parts of Africa, a lot of Africans get very sick. The

> whole

> wheat isn't necessarily higher in starch than millet, but protein-wise it

> is very different.

>

It isn't higher in starch, but it is different arrangment. The starch is

harder to digest because it's trapped in the gliaden molecule. What are the

ratios of amylopectin (branchy starch) and amylose (linear). What are the

differences in viscosity, and what implication does that have on how easily they

are

digested? Which starches have more and stronger dipole/hydrogen bonds?

Africans have also been eating *grains* in general for a much shorter time.

We can't dismiss the gliaden out of hand, but also can't dismiss these

things.

> As for bacterial overgrowth -- yeah, it is a big problem! And another

> multi-faceted problem (why don't the millet-eating Africans get sick

> off millet? Why can the Koreans tolerate all that rice? Maybe because it

> isn't finely ground and they eat lots of probiotics with it?)

May well be.

> That's where it get's complicated and more research REALLY needs

> to be done. The reason I say that is that they are using " refined gluten " in

> lot of meat-replacement low-carb products. If gluten is toxic to a large

> section of the population -- those people need to know that!

>

> I recently found out, relevant to this discussion, about my Dad's diet.

> He had seizures the last few years of his life. I had brought up

> the gluten thing with my Mom, who said that was not the problem,

> because he " never ate bread " . When I went to visit, after his death,

> I found out that he was eating a mess of " meat substitutes " in which

> the #1 ingredient was purified wheat gluten. He had a lot of the

> neurological symptoms I had before getting rid of the gluten, and

> there is no way they would have changed anything regardless, and

> those fake-meat products are full of soy too, which is another allergen.

>

> But the point is, while " low carb " and " low gluten " are OFTEN synonymous,

> it is not always the case, so the differences need to be studied.

>

Yeah, the soy also has irritating starches and doesn't it ahve it's own

*lectins* too?

Chris

July 21, 2003

>It isn't higher in starch, but it is different arrangment. The starch is

>harder to digest because it's trapped in the gliaden molecule. What are the

>ratios of amylopectin (branchy starch) and amylose (linear). What are the

>differences in viscosity, and what implication does that have on how easily

they are

>digested? Which starches have more and stronger dipole/hydrogen bonds?

I'm not sure that poorly-digesting starches are necessarily bad ...

corn is a " resistant " starch and the folks who eat high-resistant-starch

corn, even when it is highly processed, seem to get less colon cancer.

The quick-digesting ones, when they aren't fully digested, seem

to be associated with more problems.

>Africans have also been eating *grains* in general for a much shorter time.

True.

>We can't dismiss the gliaden out of hand, but also can't dismiss these

>things.

Agreed. Actually by the " gene " theory 2/3 of the American population

does NOT react to gliadin with an IgA reaction. Mercola seems

to think avoiding some grains is just a good idea in general though

(hence his " no grain diet).

>Yeah, the soy also has irritating starches and doesn't it ahve it's own

>*lectins* too?

Yeah, the people who dislike lectins really dislike soy. The foods

associated with IgA reactions are gliadin, casein, yeast, soy, and eggs.

As far as anyone has studied that I've heard of, anyway. No one

complaining about beef though ...

-- Heidi

July 21, 2003

>>>It isn't higher in starch, but it is different arrangment. The starch is

harder to digest because it's trapped in the gliaden molecule. What are the

ratios of amylopectin (branchy starch) and amylose (linear).

------>here is something i question: gotschall writes that amylose is more

easily digested than amylopectin. we had a thread about this on beyondprice

sometime last year. an abstract was posted that found just the opposite. i

think amylopectin has a lot more surface area exposed to digestive enzymes.

and i'm not sure, but since amylose is linear strands, similar to how

saturated fats are linear and therefore clump together, they may have less

surface area for digestive enzymes due to clumping.

here's a study that found amylose to be significantly more resistant to

digestion than amylopectin:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=8935440 & dopt=Abstract

i would like to know which is true...if anyone has additional info on the

digestibility of amylose vs. amylopectin, could you please post it?

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

July 22, 2003

In a message dated 7/21/03 3:48:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> I'm not sure that poorly-digesting starches are necessarily bad ...

> corn is a " resistant " starch and the folks who eat high-resistant-starch

> corn, even when it is highly processed, seem to get less colon cancer.

> The quick-digesting ones, when they aren't fully digested, seem

> to be associated with more problems.

Quick digesting like what? Wheat is harder to digest than corn.

I think this is obviously false, or there wouldn't be so many people having

success on SCD which takes the exact opposite principle.

By the way, raw honey is probably the #1 quickest digested sugar, and it

causes the *least* problems with blood sugar stability. Honey is right up

there,

but raw honey breaks down some sucrose into fructose and glucose by the

digestive enzymes.

Moreover, its been demonstrated that fructose is *far* more harmful than

glucose, which needs no digestion at all. Fructose doesn't either, but it stays

in the system a lot longer (not in the gut though) because it needs to be sent

to the liver. Sally's said this, but it says it in the fructose article I

posted a while back too.

> Yeah, the people who dislike lectins really dislike soy. The foods

> associated with IgA reactions are gliadin, casein, yeast, soy, and eggs.

> As far as anyone has studied that I've heard of, anyway. No one

> complaining about beef though ...

Hey, what's to complain? Tastes great, *more* filling! ;-)

Chris

July 22, 2003

In a message dated 7/21/03 8:43:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> here's a study that found amylose to be significantly more resistant to

> digestion than amylopectin:

> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

> ds=8935440 & dopt=Abstract

Suze,

I couldn't figure out how it was saying that amylopectin was more easily

digested. It said that amylose corn contained more " resistant starch " but that

wasn't in the results part of the study, that was in the intro. It went on to

give figures in terms of energy per gram of resistant starch, without

specifying anything about either of the two diets.

Assuming " resistant starch " is starch that can't be broken down, than they

are implying the amylopectin is better digested, but they didn't write any

*findings* about that in their study.

If amylopectin is so much easier digested, that might help explain Heidi's

success with sorghum too, which is something like 70% amylopectin.

I don't know how amyloses/pectins clump together. if the amyloses aggregate

that might make sense, otherwise the amylose is definitely better exposed to

enzymes.

Starches are very sticky. It seems feasible that Amylopectins might

aggregate despite their shape. I have no idea. Neither starches are allowed on

SCD

though.

Chris

July 22, 2003

>> I'm not sure that poorly-digesting starches are necessarily bad ...

>> corn is a " resistant " starch and the folks who eat high-resistant-starch

>> corn, even when it is highly processed, seem to get less colon cancer.

>> The quick-digesting ones, when they aren't fully digested, seem

>> to be associated with more problems.

>

>Quick digesting like what? Wheat is harder to digest than corn.

I think you'd have to define what is " hard to digest " . Wheat is hard

to digest, I think, but a lot of that has to do with gliadin (wheat is

half protein nowadays). A lot of pure starches are just two glucose

molecules connected and they turn to glucose really quickly.

>I think this is obviously false, or there wouldn't be so many people having

>success on SCD which takes the exact opposite principle.

That doesn't follow logially -- SCD could succeed for numerous reasons, and a

lot of people DO succeed on slowly digestible foods also. When

it comes to bacteria, nothing is obvious. Every bacteria and yeast

has it's own preferred food, and the levels of stomach acid,

absorption abilities, motility, which bacteria happen to be there,

how much food the person ate, and how much oil and protein

are in the mix, and how well they chewed their food -- all have

to do with the bacterial/yeast levels.

>By the way, raw honey is probably the #1 quickest digested sugar, and it

>causes the *least* problems with blood sugar stability. Honey is right up

there,

>but raw honey breaks down some sucrose into fructose and glucose by the

>digestive enzymes.

>

>Moreover, its been demonstrated that fructose is *far* more harmful than

>glucose, which needs no digestion at all. Fructose doesn't either, but it

stays

>in the system a lot longer (not in the gut though) because it needs to be sent

>to the liver. Sally's said this, but it says it in the fructose article I

>posted a while back too.

So isn't that one of the reasons resistant starch is supposed to be better?

I'm not sure humans need much starch or sugar at all, but if you

DO eat starch, starch that breaks down more slowly seems to

be better for people -- either because it is " resistant starch " or

because it is in whole-grain or cracked-grain form, or boiled

so it has that nice gelatanous coating to slow down digestion.

The research on resistant starch is that it digests slowly,

and the bacteria eat it to produce butyrate. The gut loves

butyrate, and it is protective against gut cancer. That would

seem to counteract Gottschal? I don't think you can starve

ALL the bacteria -- you need bacteria, and as near as I

can tell the good bacteria (like my kefir-beer ones, or kamboucha)

seem to eat the same food as the bad bacteria (they love plain

sugar).

See below ... (this has some about amylose and amylopectin,

for whoever was asking about that).

http://www.newhope.com/ffn/FFN_backs/jun_03/starch.cfm

Dietary starch is converted to glucose, which the body stores for relatively

short periods as glycogen, a high molecular-weight polymer of glucose. The body

is capable of storing approximately 200 to 500 grams of glycogen.1 Any excess

glucose that is not rapidly burned as fuel or stored as glycogen is converted to

fat and stored in adipose tissue. Protein proponents therefore argue that to

lose weight we should eat less starch.

In fact, not all starch is rapidly converted to glucose, as was commonly

believed as recently as in the 1980s. We now know that a significant portion of

dietary starch escapes digestion and absorption in the small intestine and

reaches the large intestine essentially intact.2 This portion of starch is

called resistant starch (RS) because it is resistant to stomach acid and

digestive enzymes.3 Thus, RS behaves as dietary fibre, providing faecal bulk and

fuel for the beneficial bacteria in the large intestine.4

Once in the large intestine, RS is extensively fermented by the microflora to

short chain fatty acids (SCFA), primarily acetate, propionate and butyrate.5 The

production of SCFA helps lower the pH of the gut and reduce levels of toxic

ammonia in the gut and blood.6 Studies in both humans and rats inoculated with

human microflora have shown that fermentation of RS produces significantly

higher levels of butyrate in relation to acetate or propionate.7,8

Butyrate is readily metabolised by the cells lining the colon, which derive

about 60 to 70 per cent of their energy from bacterial fermentation products,

such as butyrate.9 Butyrate is therefore an important regulator of colonic cell

growth and differentiation.10 This may explain the dramatic observations of RS

pioneer Dr Cummings, that the incidence of colon cancer is inversely

related to the intake of starch, in particular RS, and that diets high in RS

appear to provide protection against colon cancer.11 Notably, dietary intake of

RS is two- to fourfold lower in the US, Europe and Australia compared with

populations consuming high-starch diets, such as in India and China.12

Because resistant starch is not digested in the small intestine, the formation

and absorption of glucose are

significantly less compared with starch that is rapidly metabolised. In one

small, but well-designed, Danish study, ten healthy, normal-weight males

consumed test meals containing either 50g starch free of RS (0% RS), or 50g

starch containing a high level of RS (54% RS). Postprandial concentrations of

glucose, insulin, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and epinephrine were

significantly lower following the high RS meal.13

These findings have important implications for diabetics as well as healthy

individuals. Foods containing starch composed of high levels of RS, such as

energy bars, have been shown to dramatically decrease postprandial blood glucose

and insulin levels and improve blood glucose control in subjects with type 2

diabetes.14 In healthy individuals, studies have shown that RS provides only

about 30 to 70 per cent of the energy of rapidly metabolised starch.15,16 The

wide range of values may be explained by the use of different forms of RS and by

the lack of a standardised method for analysing the RS content of foods at the

time the studies were conducted. Nevertheless, these results indicate that foods

containing high levels of RS yield fewer calories and lower glycaemic loads and

clearly should be part of a healthy diet.17

Engineering RS

So, what is resistant starch, and how can we consume more of it in our diets?

Much as glycogen is the storage form of glucose in mammals, starch is the

storage form of glucose in plants. Starch is formed within plants as microscopic

granules, with the starch molecules deposited in organised amorphous and

crystalline regions within the granule.18 Starch molecules occur in two forms:

amylose, a nearly linear polymer composed of several thousand glucose molecules

linked end-to-end, and amylopectin, a much larger, highly branched polymer

containing perhaps a million molecules of glucose linked in ways that form

numerous short- and long-chain branches similar to glycogen.

The ratio of amylose to amylopectin, as well as the molecular size of the

molecules, varies widely in different crops, such as corn, wheat, rice and

beans. Granules of common cornstarch are composed of approximately 75 per cent

amylopectin and 25 per cent amylose. Linear amylose molecules exhibit a natural

tendency to form double helixes, which aggregate into tightly packed, highly

stable crystallites by a process known as retrogradation.19 The terminal

branches of amylopectin can also form short helixes, but the resulting

crystallites are much less stable and are easily disrupted.20

The amorphous regions of starch, as well as some of the less-stable amylopectin

crystallites, are readily digested in the small intestine, while the more-stable

crystallites formed from amylose are highly resistant to penetration and

digestion by mammalian enzymes, as well as hydrolysis by stomach acid.

Therefore, only a portion of the starch is rapidly digested, while the remainder

is slowly digested or resistant. Studies have shown the proportion of starch

that is resistant is directly correlated with the amylose content.21

July 22, 2003

>I couldn't figure out how it was saying that amylopectin was more easily

>digested. It said that amylose corn contained more " resistant starch " but that

>wasn't in the results part of the study, that was in the intro. It went on to

>give figures in terms of energy per gram of resistant starch, without

>specifying anything about either of the two diets.

>

>Assuming " resistant starch " is starch that can't be broken down, than they

>are implying the amylopectin is better digested, but they didn't write any

>*findings* about that in their study.

>

>If amylopectin is so much easier digested, that might help explain Heidi's

>success with sorghum too, which is something like 70% amylopectin.

The link I gave earlier talks about this somewhat. It sounds like amylose is the

more resistant of the two.

http://www.newhope.com/ffn/FFN_backs/jun_03/starch.cfm

The amorphous regions of starch, as well as some of the less-stable amylopectin

crystallites, are readily digested in the small intestine, while the more-stable

crystallites formed from amylose are highly resistant to penetration and

digestion by mammalian enzymes, as well as hydrolysis by stomach acid.

Therefore, only a portion of the starch is rapidly digested, while the remainder

is slowly digested or resistant. Studies have shown the proportion of starch

that is resistant is directly correlated with the amylose content.21

Whole-grain sorghum is very high in resistant starch, and refined sorghum flour

is not -- I don't really know where my sorghum flour falls in there, though I'm

told it is whole grain. Beans are higher though! Cereal grains tend to lose

their resistant starch through processing and cooking.

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/01/02legume.html

-- Heidi

July 22, 2003

In a message dated 7/22/03 4:30:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> I think you'd have to define what is " hard to digest " . Wheat is hard

> to digest, I think, but a lot of that has to do with gliadin (wheat is

> half protein nowadays). A lot of pure starches are just two glucose

> molecules connected and they turn to glucose really quickly.

>

Wheat *starch* is hard to digest because of the gliaden, not just the gliaden

itself. Two glucose molecules are maltose I believe, which is a sugar, not a

starch.

> >I think this is obviously false, or there wouldn't be so many people

> having

> >success on SCD which takes the exact opposite principle.

>

> That doesn't follow logially -- SCD could succeed for numerous reasons,

That's true, for example, if someone has gluten-induced intestinal damage

they will get better because SCD is gluten-free. However, a lot of folks, even

celiacs, do *not* get better on gluten-free diets who *do* get better on SCD...

and it isn't low-carb or low-sugar, because the monosacharides that are

available basically have no restriction, so for these particular people there is

something about the *digestible carbs* vs undigestible carbs that is causing the

success.

and a > lot of people DO succeed on slowly digestible foods also.

I don't know whether this is true or not, but I should make the distinction

that SCD is a temporary diet for people who need to heal gut damage. So if you

have the enzymes to digest starch efficiently, the starch is not going to

cause problems. But I'm willing to wager that most people eating an SAD have

*some* degree of damage with these enzymes, and either way, for the people who

*do* they need the digestible carbs, because the " slowly digesting " carbs are

simply *un*digestible for them.

A lot of people claim " complex carbs " are good versus " simple carbs. " No

doubt people who eat whole grains are better off than people eating refined

grains. The grains aren't more complex, but they do digest more slowly because

of

fiber and whatnot. But that's one subpar food compared against another.

People are much healthier on properly prepared whole grains than on straight

whole

grains, and the preparation predigests the starches (and proteins). Sprouting

turns the starches into simple sugars, and soaking in an acidic medium must

break down the starches to some degree. And these are by far healthier than

their slower digesting whole grain counterparts. At the same time, they're also

richer in vitamins and available minerals, some of which would contribute to

stabilizing blood sugar. And again, raw honey is much faster digesting than

sucrose, but it doesn't destabalize blood sugar anywhere near as much.

At the same time, eating fat with the meal seems to help a lot with

stabalizing blood sugar. So there must be some differentiation between *speed*

and

*ease* of digestion. I don't know exactly how to make this differentiation but

I'm thinking of it as burning fuel in a car or wood in a fire more efficiently

(using more efficient wood or using a high gas mileage system) versus globbing

glue all over a machine's berrings and whatnot.

When > it comes to bacteria, nothing is obvious. Every bacteria and yeast

> has it's own preferred food, and the levels of stomach acid,

> absorption abilities, motility, which bacteria happen to be there,

> how much food the person ate, and how much oil and protein

> are in the mix, and how well they chewed their food -- all have

> to do with the bacterial/yeast levels.

>

I don't really know anything about these effects.

>

> >By the way, raw honey is probably the #1 quickest digested sugar, and it

> >causes the *least* problems with blood sugar stability. Honey is right up

> there,

> >but raw honey breaks down some sucrose into fructose and glucose by the

> >digestive enzymes.

> >

> >Moreover, its been demonstrated that fructose is *far* more harmful than

> >glucose, which needs no digestion at all. Fructose doesn't either, but it

> stays

> >in the system a lot longer (not in the gut though) because it needs to be

> sent

> >to the liver. Sally's said this, but it says it in the fructose article I

> >posted a while back too.

>

> So isn't that one of the reasons resistant starch is supposed to be better?

I don't understand. Glucose is processed more quickly than fructose, but is

supposedly less harmful. Raw honey is processed more quickly than any other

sugar (maybe besides glucose syrup) but is by far the healthiest.

> I'm not sure humans need much starch or sugar at all, but if you

> DO eat starch, starch that breaks down more slowly seems to

> be better for people -- either because it is " resistant starch " or

> because it is in whole-grain or cracked-grain form, or boiled

> so it has that nice gelatanous coating to slow down digestion.

I don't really understand this, but according to the study Suze posted

high-amylopectin grains are much lower in resistant starch than high-amylose

grains,

and you've had a lot of success with sorghum which is a high-amylopectin

grain. So who are all these people doing so great with more resistant starches?

Noone seems to be doing so great on wheat (I know, for more than one reason).

I agree that for stable blood sugar you don't want the glucose hitting your

blood so fast, but making things *harder* to digest doesn't seem to be the

route to get there.

>

> The research on resistant starch is that it digests slowly,

> and the bacteria eat it to produce butyrate. The gut loves

> butyrate, and it is protective against gut cancer. That would

> seem to counteract Gottschal?

Not really, because Gottschal is addressing people who have microbial

overgrowth in the gut. What's produced in the gut by starches is going to

depend on

who's hanging out in the gut.

I don't think you can starve

> ALL the bacteria -- you need bacteria, and as near as I

> can tell the good bacteria (like my kefir-beer ones, or kamboucha)

> seem to eat the same food as the bad bacteria (they love plain

> sugar).

But if you have bad bacteria populating your intestine/colon you need to

starve them. Your body seems to do best having adequate carbs at moderate

amounts, but if you have cancer it might be good to starve it-- temporarily.

I agree with you that the idea that all fermentation in the gut is bad just

doesn't make sense. Bacteria belong there, and I don't understand how they

could not just die off if they didn't ferment (fermenting's how they live, isn't

it?) So I'm very interested to read 's friend's paper when it is ready.

But Gottschal does not recommend staying off disacharides and starches

forever.

> See below ... (this has some about amylose and amylopectin,

> for whoever was asking about that).

>

> http://www.newhope.com/ffn/FFN_backs/jun_03/starch.cfm

>

There is a lot more to this than the GI index of a food. RS might be great

for postprandial glucose levels in the short-term, but in the long-term who

knows. Fructose is *much* better than glucose in terms of postprandial GI. But

in fact it seems to *cause* glucose dismetabolism. I think it talked about

this in the article I posted on fructose for a couple months ago, and it

talks in greater detail about it in an article I have from the same source which

I was going to post, but my scanner is a pain and can't handle it so I have

to find another scanner. The point being that it's just to simplistic to say

low GI means its good for blood sugar levels and for diabetics. I've read

studies in highly reputable sources (like reviews in AJCN) that have found the

exact opposite-- that fructose is contraindicated for diabetics.

The article you posted confirmed what Suze said-- that Gottschal is wrong

about amylopectin being harder to digest and infact it is amylose which is the

resistant starch. And iirc, sorghum is about 70% amylopectin. The study that

Suze posted found over 30 times as much RS in the 70% amylose corn as the 70%

amylopectin corn.

It may well be that in *healthy* guts, RS is a good thing, but I'd be highly

skeptical of any study that is praising the high-grain diets of Indians and

Asians! There are obviously so many other factors.

Chris

July 22, 2003

In a message dated 7/22/03 5:16:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> Whole-grain sorghum is very high in resistant starch, and refined sorghum

> flour is not -- I don't really know where my sorghum flour falls in there,

> though I'm told it is whole grain. Beans are higher though! Cereal grains tend

> to lose their resistant starch through processing and cooking.

Interesting, because according to this link

<A HREF= " http://www.fao.org/inpho/vlibrary/t0818e/T0818E0c.htm " >Sorghum and

millets in human nutrition - Chemical composition and nutritive

value</A>

Sorghum is 70-80% amylopectin, which would make it extremely low in RS,

according to the values from the two kinds of corn Suze posted. This website

makes no distinction between whole grain and refined sorghum, but it does note

the

difference between regular and waxy, and waxy is much lower in amylose, about

1%.

Chris

July 23, 2003

In a message dated 7/22/03 10:38:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> ----->this is another aspect i find questionable about gottschal's

> hypothesis. i haven't read the book in over a year i think, but i recall

> being confused that she talks about starving the bacteria in the gut, and i

> kept looking for a discussion of WHICH bacteria she was referring to, but i

> don't think she differentiated between the good and the bad. that left me

> confused. obviously, it would be absurd to rid the gut of ALL bacteria, plus

> impossible?. and from the canine studies i've read some beneficial and

> harmful strains feed on the same substate, so how can you starve one without

> starving the other?

You can't but while you're daily consuming extremely probiotic-rich foods

like 24-hr yogurt or 48-hr kefir you're going to be constantly flooding the

system with beneficial bacteria while you are hacking away at any overgrowth,

since

you are not daily ingesting whatever you're fighting.

Chris

July 23, 2003

>>>>The research on resistant starch is that it digests slowly,

and the bacteria eat it to produce butyrate. The gut loves

butyrate,

----->as i've posted in the past, i've mostly read research on how fibrous

starch is digested in *dogs*. what they have found is that certain types of

fiber, referred to as " moderately fermentable " fibers have been the most

effective at relieving GI issues and increasing beneficial bacterial

populations in the gut. these are fibers that are kind of in the middle of

the fermentation indexes that most of my canine nutrition books have, they

include rice bran, beet pulp and FOS. all have been found to increase

bacterial counts in the colon particularly, i think. most of the data i've

read show that these and similar fibers increase beneficial strains mostly,

although some substrates also increase non-beneficial strains

at_the_same_time. it depends on the type of fiber. but i beleive these three

tend to produce higher levels of SCFAs including butyrate, propionic acid,

acetic acid, and one other acid i always forget the name of.

>>>>>and it is protective against gut cancer. That would

seem to counteract Gottschal? I don't think you can starve

ALL the bacteria -- you need bacteria, and as near as I

can tell the good bacteria (like my kefir-beer ones, or kamboucha)

seem to eat the same food as the bad bacteria (they love plain

sugar).

----->this is another aspect i find questionable about gottschal's

hypothesis. i haven't read the book in over a year i think, but i recall

being confused that she talks about starving the bacteria in the gut, and i

kept looking for a discussion of WHICH bacteria she was referring to, but i

don't think she differentiated between the good and the bad. that left me

confused. obviously, it would be absurd to rid the gut of ALL bacteria, plus

impossible?. and from the canine studies i've read some beneficial and

harmful strains feed on the same substate, so how can you starve one without

starving the other?

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

July 23, 2003

> ----->this is another aspect i find questionable about gottschal's

> hypothesis. i haven't read the book in over a year i think, but i recall

> being confused that she talks about starving the bacteria in the gut, and

i

> kept looking for a discussion of WHICH bacteria she was referring to, but

i

> don't think she differentiated between the good and the bad. that left me

> confused. obviously, it would be absurd to rid the gut of ALL bacteria,

plus

> impossible?. and from the canine studies i've read some beneficial and

> harmful strains feed on the same substate, so how can you starve one

without

> starving the other?

>>>>You can't but while you're daily consuming extremely probiotic-rich

foods

like 24-hr yogurt or 48-hr kefir you're going to be constantly flooding the

system with beneficial bacteria while you are hacking away at any

overgrowth, since

you are not daily ingesting whatever you're fighting.

----->right, but kefir doesn't contain any bifidum species AFAIK, and you

have to be sure to use a commercial yogurt that does, to culture your

homemade yogurt in order to get any bifidum species. these are the guys that

predominate in the colon and the ones that do most of the fermenting, AFAIK.

moderately fermentable fibers " feed " them. i don't know of any food that

*contains* them, other than commercial yoghurt. maybe there are some foods

in the scd that do feed them, and i just don't know. so, on the scd, it

*seems*, you are starving ALL bacteria while putting good bacteria into your

upper intestines, but apparently not very much (any?) into your lower

intestines (which has a different millieu than the upper intestines)

*unless* she specifically says you have to eat yogurt every day and it has

to be made with a commercial starter culture that contains bifidum species.

or, does she say to take probiotics that contain bifidum?

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

-

July 23, 2003

>Wheat *starch* is hard to digest because of the gliaden, not just the gliaden

>itself. Two glucose molecules are maltose I believe, which is a sugar, not a

>starch.

Are you saying that because the gliaden attaches to the starch?

>> That doesn't follow logially -- SCD could succeed for numerous reasons,

>

>That's true, for example, if someone has gluten-induced intestinal damage

>they will get better because SCD is gluten-free. However, a lot of folks, even

>celiacs, do *not* get better on gluten-free diets who *do* get better on SCD...

>and it isn't low-carb or low-sugar, because the monosacharides that are

>available basically have no restriction, so for these particular people there

is

>something about the *digestible carbs* vs undigestible carbs that is causing

the

>success.

True (though it isn't true, as some have said, the " celiacs don't get better on

GF diets " -- most

DO get better, some have problems). And yeah, it could be the digestible carbs,

but shoot,

eating homemade yogurt daily could cure a LOT of problems all by itself. I think

it is

a little like the Ornish diet -- the Ornish diet seems to work, but no one knows

exactly

which piece of it makes it successful (and he claims it is the synergy between

all

the pieces ...). I can say for myself, that even when I was on a diet full of

wheat, taking

probiotics with each meal got rid of a whole lot of problems. If I don't take

probiotics

now (kefir-beer, in my case!) then I still get problems, albeit not the red-dot

kind

of problems I get from wheat.

I really don't think you can " starve out " the bad bacteria/yeast -- eating some

highly

invasive tough Borg of a bacteria like kefir or homemade yogurt will kill them

off

though. And the kind of starch DOES make a big difference too: I experiment with

my kefir-beer, feeding it different foods. Yeast, for instance, doesn't like to

eat

certain malts ... which is why they are used in Porters, because they will leave

a " sweet " taste. Bacteria eat malt just fine.

>and a > lot of people DO succeed on slowly digestible foods also.

>

>I don't know whether this is true or not, but I should make the distinction

>that SCD is a temporary diet for people who need to heal gut damage. So if you

>have the enzymes to digest starch efficiently, the starch is not going to

>cause problems. But I'm willing to wager that most people eating an SAD have

>*some* degree of damage with these enzymes, and either way, for the people who

>*do* they need the digestible carbs, because the " slowly digesting " carbs are

>simply *un*digestible for them.

The reason I say this is because the SAD diet is very low in the " resistant "

(slow to digest)

starches AND we have the highest rate of gut problems. A study in Africa between

the white community (low resistant starch) and the black community (also lots of

starch, but high-resistant starch) found that the black community had far less

gut cancer. AND when they put people on a high-resistant starch diet, they

actually get healthier guts (and mice show resistance to gut tumors).

Even if you digest starch efficiently, if you eat a lot of it, it will cause

yeast/bacterial overgrowth, esp. if it is in the finely-ground form. Mainly

because it just can't be absorbed fast enough, before the bacteria/yeast

get to it. Most people have absorption problems too, making it worse.

But slower digesting starch is usually better in this regard, because

the bits that are breaking off can be absorbed before the bacteria

can get to them. So eating cracked corn is better for animals, for

instance, than corn flour. Granted they don't study this much in

humans, but the process is well-described in ruminants and pigs.

And yes, they aren't humans, but the digestive issues are SOOO

similar to what is described in humans (and the blood sugar

and weight-gain problems seem to be very similar between

humans and farm animals!).

Anyway, avoiding *all* starch would avoid all those issues, for

those that have them, so the SCD would work well enough.

>A lot of people claim " complex carbs " are good versus " simple carbs. " No

>doubt people who eat whole grains are better off than people eating refined

>grains. The grains aren't more complex, but they do digest more slowly because

of

>fiber and whatnot. But that's one subpar food compared against another.

>People are much healthier on properly prepared whole grains than on straight

whole

>grains, and the preparation predigests the starches (and proteins). Sprouting

>turns the starches into simple sugars, and soaking in an acidic medium must

>break down the starches to some degree. And these are by far healthier than

>their slower digesting whole grain counterparts. At the same time, they're

also

>richer in vitamins and available minerals, some of which would contribute to

>stabilizing blood sugar. And again, raw honey is much faster digesting than

>sucrose, but it doesn't destabalize blood sugar anywhere near as much.

Again, the issue is awfully complex and you'd have to do some fancy

experimenting

to really figure it out. Soaking and sprouting might break down the starch --

but it also

breaks down phytates and lectins and who knows what else. Soaking nuts makes

them

REALLY easy to digest, but that is, I think, because it breaks down the tannins

-- at any

rate, nuts don't have all that much starch. So how would you test WHY sprouts

are easier to digest? You'd have to identify all the elements in seed vs.

sprouted seed

and test all of them.

And yeah, not everything that digest quickly destabilizes the blood sugar -- to

say

so would be really simplistic. Not everything that breaks down quickly causes

bacterial growth either. MCT really gets absorbed quickly, and doesn't affect

bacteria OR blood sugar. If you compare one form of the same food against

itself, you get a better measure: whole boiled oats vs. oat flour, maybe.

And I'm not making any claims about complex vs. simple carbs ... my basic

point is that it is very complex and you *can't* make really good claims

that " this is a good carb " and " this is a bad carb " . Good for what and bad

for what?

>At the same time, eating fat with the meal seems to help a lot with

>stabalizing blood sugar. So there must be some differentiation between *speed*

and

>*ease* of digestion. I don't know exactly how to make this differentiation but

>I'm thinking of it as burning fuel in a car or wood in a fire more efficiently

>(using more efficient wood or using a high gas mileage system) versus globbing

>glue all over a machine's berrings and whatnot.

Exactly. Digestion is really complex. To use the wood analogy -- there is an

optimal rate

to burn wood. Really dry wood with gas on it and all the air it wants just kind

of explodes

and doesn't give you a good fire at all. Wet wood mixed with plastics gives you

a smoldering,

smoking, toxic fire that keeps going out. " Optimal digestion " seems to involve a

mix

of different things -- fast digesting and slow digesting, plus some optimal mix

of

bacteria, yeast, fats, protein.

Though as far as I've read, the healthier people seem to eat more slow-digesting

foods, like meat. Meat takes a long time to digest, but it isn't " hard " to

digest in

the sense that it tends to make people feel bad or gives them gas. The anti-meat

folks claim that it's slow digestion makes it " putrify " and is bad for you --

but as we all know here, a good bit of meat in the diet makes you feel great!

>When > it comes to bacteria, nothing is obvious. Every bacteria and yeast

>> has it's own preferred food, and the levels of stomach acid,

>> absorption abilities, motility, which bacteria happen to be there,

>> how much food the person ate, and how much oil and protein

>> are in the mix, and how well they chewed their food -- all have

>> to do with the bacterial/yeast levels.

>>

>

>I don't really know anything about these effects.

It is interesting to learn! I do a bit of expermenting with my kefir

bacteria -- well, since I drink a fair bit of kefir-beer, I figure my

gut flora are probably along the same bacterial mix. It acts VERY

different depending on what you feed it.

>I don't understand. Glucose is processed more quickly than fructose, but is

>supposedly less harmful. Raw honey is processed more quickly than any other

>sugar (maybe besides glucose syrup) but is by far the healthiest.

It depends how you mean " harmful " . Fructose raises the blood sugar less ... but

some

people can't digest it, and it seems to cause some *other* health effects, esp.

in the amounts it is added via corn syrup. Honey will raise your blood sugar,

but

if it is absorbed quickly enough, it won't cause bacterial overgrowth. I was

thinking we were talking mostly about bacteria though.

>I don't really understand this, but according to the study Suze posted

>high-amylopectin grains are much lower in resistant starch than high-amylose

grains,

>and you've had a lot of success with sorghum which is a high-amylopectin

>grain. So who are all these people doing so great with more resistant

starches?

>Noone seems to be doing so great on wheat (I know, for more than one reason).

Wheat isn't very resistant. Most other cultures eat more resistant starch than

ours -- my

guess is that those cultures Price found that were doing ok on high-grain diets

were

eating resistant grains (and probably in semi-whole-grain form). The Swiss, for

instance,

used to eat a LOT of oatmeal. My grandad said he " grew up " on oatmeal. But

whole-grain

oatmeal doesn't digest very quickly.

As far as butyrate -- I know someone personally whose gut problems never

resolved until

she started butyrate *enemas*. The gut loves butyrate! She says it worked like

magic.

Resistant starch gets eaten by the bacteria in the lower gut which produce

butyrate.

However, I think you need the right bacteria for this to work -- someone who

took

Metamucil to increase butyrate got a lot of gas from it.

I think sorghum works for me primarily because I don't eat MUCH of it. Sorghum

cookies

and bread seem to raise my blood sugar just like any other flour. Wheat flour

makes

me sick in small amounts -- sorghum I eat *some* but my basic diet doesn't

revolve

around *any* flour. My gut is probably ok mainly because I eat a ton of

probiotics

and vegies and meat and the fruit I eat is whole fruit (not juice or syrup).

My thinking is that Gottschall based a lot of her findings on Lutz and on

experimentation ...

Lutz did a lot of experiments and had some GREAT results, though his reasoning

does

not, I think, take into account the newer research. If one was to experiment

with starches,

you'd probably come up with the conclusion that high-amylose starches were

" better "

because they made you feel better, and would conclude that they must be more

digestible because they are shorter chain molecules. But ... maybe in fact they

were

digesting slower, increasing butyrate, and thus healing the lower gut.

>I agree that for stable blood sugar you don't want the glucose hitting your

>blood so fast, but making things *harder* to digest doesn't seem to be the

>route to get there.

I think this might be the confusion between " harder " and " slower " . You have 30

feet

or so of intestine ... things digest all the way along the way. Maybe the words

to use would be " properly digested " vs. " improperly digested " .

>Not really, because Gottschal is addressing people who have microbial

>overgrowth in the gut. What's produced in the gut by starches is going to

depend on

>who's hanging out in the gut.

That I totally agree with.

>But if you have bad bacteria populating your intestine/colon you need to

>starve them. Your body seems to do best having adequate carbs at moderate

>amounts, but if you have cancer it might be good to starve it-- temporarily.

Maybe. I just started eating kefir though -- my gut was a war zone for a few

days, as they

duked it out (really, that's what it felt like!) then everything was ok. A lot

of kefir-eaters

seem to have this result.

>I agree with you that the idea that all fermentation in the gut is bad just

>doesn't make sense. Bacteria belong there, and I don't understand how they

>could not just die off if they didn't ferment (fermenting's how they live,

isn't

>it?) So I'm very interested to read 's friend's paper when it is ready.

>

>But Gottschal does not recommend staying off disacharides and starches

>forever.

The paper would be interesting. I don't think you ever get rid of bacteria ...

shoot, if

I clean out and sterilize my Harsch crock, then fill it with chopped cabbage,

I'll

get a whole new set of bacteria in a day. Some kinds of bacteria, such as kefir

bacteria,

actually glom onto the gut and live there, and they tend to take over from other

bacteria. Eating less starch and sugar though, would seemingly cause the *yeast*

to die out more, like candida. Bacteria eat a lot of things: they like sugar ok,

but

usually if there is sugar around you get more yeast activity (I think the yeast

grow faster). For instance, when you let dough rise or make beer, the yeast

crowd out the bacteria rather quickly and you don't get much lactic acid

unless you REALLY let it go a long time.

The point being that it's just to simplistic to say

>low GI means its good for blood sugar levels and for diabetics. I've read

>studies in highly reputable sources (like reviews in AJCN) that have found the

>exact opposite-- that fructose is contraindicated for diabetics.

Right -- and I'm not talking about blood sugar in a vacuum. Fructose absorbs

quick, period. Food

absorbing more slowly and gradually seems to be better from a number of

points of view -- meat being a good example, keeps you full a long time.

>The article you posted confirmed what Suze said-- that Gottschal is wrong

>about amylopectin being harder to digest and infact it is amylose which is the

>resistant starch. And iirc, sorghum is about 70% amylopectin. The study that

>Suze posted found over 30 times as much RS in the 70% amylose corn as the 70%

>amylopectin corn.

It varies between varieties etc. too. I love sorghum but I don't recommend

large amounts of ANY grain, personally, esp. in things like baked goods.

Now as a coating on oven-fried chicken, on the other hand ...

I'd love to see better studies on carbs vs. antinutrients etc. Grains have

a lot of issues that vegies don't seem to have, but most of the " carb "

studies just lump all carbs together and use mainly wheat/sugar as the carb.

That is just too many factors!

>It may well be that in *healthy* guts, RS is a good thing, but I'd be highly

>skeptical of any study that is praising the high-grain diets of Indians and

>Asians! There are obviously so many other factors.

Like I said above, there seem to be some very detailed studies about the action

of RS

in intestines (mainly mouse intestines!), and they focus on the butyrate.

I'd guess you can get butyrate from meat/fat too -- the other main source

of it is rancid butter, so you'd think the bacteria could produce it from

animal meat/fat also. Or maybe from yogurt ... maybe that is a reason Gottschall

had good results with yogurt ... butyrate is very healing to damaged guts,

it seems.

-- Heidi

July 23, 2003

>----->this is another aspect i find questionable about gottschal's

>hypothesis. i haven't read the book in over a year i think, but i recall

>being confused that she talks about starving the bacteria in the gut, and i

>kept looking for a discussion of WHICH bacteria she was referring to, but i

>don't think she differentiated between the good and the bad. that left me

>confused. obviously, it would be absurd to rid the gut of ALL bacteria, plus

>impossible?. and from the canine studies i've read some beneficial and

>harmful strains feed on the same substate, so how can you starve one without

>starving the other?

Having not read the book, I've wondered if maybe she is speaking intuitively,

rather than based on gut samples etc. In most older writings, there is a lot

of talk, for instance, of " meat putrifying " in the gut as bacteria ate it, so

therefore you don't want bacteria eating meat.

Well, I'd guess that in fact meat DOES putrify, I mean, it digests slowly

and bacteria is part of that digestion. If the bacterial mix is wrong it

is no doubt smellier and more awful than otherwise ... but how the

heck would you know from the outside? The inside of guts no doubt

smells pretty nasty anyway, that's why it is on the INSIDE.

So now that we are getting smarter we are figuring out, say, that

having bacteria eat leftover lactose isn't good (because lactose

isn't supposed to exist in the lower gut) but bacteria eating

fiber is good (because fiber IS supposed to be leftover). But no

one suspected that 20 years ago ... sheesh, I still remember

when it was such an incredible thing that they discovered you

NEED bacteria in the gut, and everyone started eating yogurt ...

-- Heidi

July 23, 2003

>Sorghum is 70-80% amylopectin, which would make it extremely low in RS,

>according to the values from the two kinds of corn Suze posted. This website

>makes no distinction between whole grain and refined sorghum, but it does note

the

>difference between regular and waxy, and waxy is much lower in amylose, about

>1%.

>

>Chris

In this reference, sorghum 36% RS in whole grain form, which puts it up

with legumes, but 1.6% as a flour -- I don't know if that means " dehulled flour "

or what. Interestingly I also found a link that says sorghum protein

is slower to digest than wheat protein (good or bad? who knows) and that

it is less digestible after cooking. But even if it is 36% RS, wouldn't that

leave about 64% NOT RS? So the two numbers aren't that far off, between

this and Suze's. And there are lots of different kinds of sorghum too!

Corn seems to keep it's RS after it is turned into flour.

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/01/02legume.html

Anyway, I repeat: I eat sorghum mainly because it is NOT WHEAT,

and I use it for a lot of absolutely decadent stuff that I'm

not going to defend on a health basis (except maybe that

sharing a nice gooey family dessert weekly is good for

the social brain).

For RS, I think legumes are a better bet, and they have lots of

other good stuff in them too.

-- Heidi

July 23, 2003

In a message dated 7/23/03 12:15:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> ----->right, but kefir doesn't contain any bifidum species AFAIK, and you

> have to be sure to use a commercial yogurt that does, to culture your

> homemade yogurt in order to get any bifidum species. these are the guys that

> predominate in the colon and the ones that do most of the fermenting, AFAIK.

> moderately fermentable fibers " feed " them. i don't know of any food that

> *contains* them, other than commercial yoghurt. maybe there are some foods

> in the scd that do feed them, and i just don't know. so, on the scd, it

> *seems*, you are starving ALL bacteria while putting good bacteria into your

> upper intestines, but apparently not very much (any?) into your lower

> intestines (which has a different millieu than the upper intestines)

> *unless* she specifically says you have to eat yogurt every day and it has

> to be made with a commercial starter culture that contains bifidum species.

> or, does she say to take probiotics that contain bifidum?

Not afaik, but it seems to *work* nevertheless...

Chris

July 23, 2003

In a message dated 7/23/03 1:46:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> Are you saying that because the gliaden attaches to the starch?

>

According to Gottschal, the gliaden molecule *surrounds* the starch, until it

begins to be digested.

> True (though it isn't true, as some have said, the " celiacs don't get

> better on GF diets " -- most

> DO get better, some have problems).

I don't know whether most get better or not, but some don't, and those who

don't often get better on SCD, which seems to indicate for those individuals SCD

is working for the reasons Gottschal claims it works.

And yeah, it could be the digestible carbs, but shoot,

> eating homemade yogurt daily could cure a LOT of problems all by itself. I

> think it isa little like the Ornish diet -- the Ornish diet seems to work,

> but no one knows exactly which piece of it makes it successful (and he claims

> it is the synergy between all the pieces ...). I can say for myself, that even

> when I was on a diet full of wheat, taking probiotics with each meal got rid

> of a whole lot of problems. If I don't take probiotics now (kefir-beer, in

> my case!) then I still get problems, albeit not the red-dot kind of problems I

> get from wheat.

>

Sure. But I'll speak from my experience. I've had some problme for the last

few weeks that has been very mild in symptoms, but has been producing

rumbling in my tummy, gas I can hear moving around (though not too much

farting), and

odd stools that are almost diarrhea but not quite, (soft and formless but not

really fluid) and very light in color, sometimes brown, sometimes grey and

once or twice real diarrhea. I was drinking a half gallon of kefir a day. Now

I've been pretty much following SCD for the third day and I've been making

half as much kefir fermented for 48 hours, which according to Dom eliminates all

the lactose. Before I was still drinking the kefir, but it wasn't fighitng

off the bug very well, and in fact when I drank it, I would here a little bit of

rumbling inside, though not as much as other foods. When I drink the 48-hr

kefir, I don't get any rumbling. I made a smoothie for my mom this morning

with straight milk in it and I tasted a bit to check the sweetness and one sip

gave me some rumbling. (could have been coincidence, but maybe not). Anyway,

more importantly, my symptoms are going away very fast, whereas before they

were staying steady for 2-3 weeks, despite a half gallon a day of kefir,

kombucha, kimchi, etc.

> I really don't think you can " starve out " the bad bacteria/yeast -- eating

> some highly

> invasive tough Borg of a bacteria like kefir or homemade yogurt will kill

> them off

> though.

I don't know why you think this. People " starve out " candida all the time--

it's one of the main parts of all the candida protocols!

And the kind of starch DOES make a big difference too: I experiment with

> my kefir-beer, feeding it different foods. Yeast, for instance, doesn't

> like to eat

> certain malts ... which is why they are used in Porters, because they will

> leave

> a " sweet " taste. Bacteria eat malt just fine.

>

Interesting... but there are a plethora of bacteria and yeasts each that

could be overgrown. Often they apparently go hand in hand, from some things

I've

read.

> The reason I say this is because the SAD diet is very low in the

> " resistant " (slow to digest) starches AND we have the highest rate of gut

problems. A

> study in Africa between the white community (low resistant starch) and the

> black community (also lots of starch, but high-resistant starch) found that

the

> black community had far less gut cancer. AND when they put people on a

> high-resistant starch diet, they

> actually get healthier guts (and mice show resistance to gut tumors).

There must be more than one way of preventing the gut cancer. Resistant

starch comes mostly in grains, no? And most humans never ate any grains, and

humans evolved on low-starch diets. Hunter-gatherers would probably have little

if any in the diet, wouldn't they?

Some studies indicate the exact opposite, such as one Gottschal cites that

found an increase relationship between bad bacteria in the colon and increased

intake of RS. I would guess the discrepancies could be attributed to different

bacterial make-up of the colon in different people.

I'm not going to say RS is bad for everyone, and I don't think there's

grounds to say it. I do think that for people with gut problems it would be

easier

to health the gut while eliminating starch, though, resistant or not.

> Even if you digest starch efficiently, if you eat a lot of it, it will

> cause

> yeast/bacterial overgrowth, esp. if it is in the finely-ground form. Mainly

> because it just can't be absorbed fast enough, before the bacteria/yeast

> get to it. Most people have absorption problems too, making it worse.

> But slower digesting starch is usually better in this regard, because

> the bits that are breaking off can be absorbed before the bacteria

> can get to them.

That might be true, but it wouldn't be true in someone with gut damage where

the starches couldn't be digested.

So eating cracked corn is better for animals, for

> instance, than corn flour.

Because they'd choke on the corn flour!

> Anyway, avoiding *all* starch would avoid all those issues, for

> those that have them, so the SCD would work well enough.

Well SCD isn't really geared at all toward avoiding RS, it's geared towards

temporarily avoiding all starches and disacharides, after which one could go

back to starch in moderation, resistant or not.

> Again, the issue is awfully complex and you'd have to do some fancy

> experimenting

> to really figure it out. Soaking and sprouting might break down the starch

> -- but it also

> breaks down phytates and lectins and who knows what else. Soaking nuts makes

> them

> REALLY easy to digest, but that is, I think, because it breaks down the

> tannins -- at any

> rate, nuts don't have all that much starch. So how would you test WHY

> sprouts

> are easier to digest? You'd have to identify all the elements in seed vs.

> sprouted seed

> and test all of them.

I'd imagine it would vary from person to person. Tannins and lectins and

starches would all contribute, I'd think, and in different degrees depending on

the person. But my point was that the starches do break down, and you have

more simple sugars and less complex carbs, yet it's healthier.

> And yeah, not everything that digest quickly destabilizes the blood sugar

> -- to say

> so would be really simplistic. Not everything that breaks down quickly

> causes

> bacterial growth either. MCT really gets absorbed quickly, and doesn't

> affect

> bacteria OR blood sugar. If you compare one form of the same food against

> itself, you get a better measure: whole boiled oats vs. oat flour, maybe.

>

> And I'm not making any claims about complex vs. simple carbs ... my basic

> point is that it is very complex and you *can't* make really good claims

> that " this is a good carb " and " this is a bad carb " . Good for what and bad

> for what?

I agree with that. That was actually my point too ;-)

> Exactly. Digestion is really complex. To use the wood analogy -- there is

> an optimal rate

> to burn wood. Really dry wood with gas on it and all the air it wants just

> kind of explodes

> and doesn't give you a good fire at all. Wet wood mixed with plastics gives

> you a smoldering,

> smoking, toxic fire that keeps going out. " Optimal digestion " seems to

> involve a mix

> of different things -- fast digesting and slow digesting, plus some optimal

> mix of

> bacteria, yeast, fats, protein.

>

> Though as far as I've read, the healthier people seem to eat more

> slow-digesting

> foods, like meat. Meat takes a long time to digest, but it isn't " hard " to

> digest in

> the sense that it tends to make people feel bad or gives them gas. The

> anti-meat

> folks claim that it's slow digestion makes it " putrify " and is bad for you

> --

> but as we all know here, a good bit of meat in the diet makes you feel

> great!

Agreed...

>

> >When >it comes to bacteria, nothing is obvious. Every bacteria and yeast

> >>has it's own preferred food, and the levels of stomach acid,

> >>absorption abilities, motility, which bacteria happen to be there,

> >>how much food the person ate, and how much oil and protein

> >>are in the mix, and how well they chewed their food -- all have

> >>to do with the bacterial/yeast levels.

> >>

> >

> >I don't really know anything about these effects.

>

> It is interesting to learn! I do a bit of expermenting with my kefir

> bacteria -- well, since I drink a fair bit of kefir-beer, I figure my

> gut flora are probably along the same bacterial mix. It acts VERY

> different depending on what you feed it.

>

> >I don't understand. Glucose is processed more quickly than fructose, but

> is

> >supposedly less harmful. Raw honey is processed more quickly than any

> other

> >sugar (maybe besides glucose syrup) but is by far the healthiest.

>

> It depends how you mean " harmful " . Fructose raises the blood sugar less ...

> but some

> people can't digest it, and it seems to cause some *other* health effects,

> esp.

> in the amounts it is added via corn syrup.

That's what I was saying...

Honey will raise your blood sugar, but

> if it is absorbed quickly enough, it won't cause bacterial overgrowth.

According to several things I've read, in NT and on the internet, *raw* honey

does *not* cause blood sugar/insulin problems in the same amounts that other

sugars do.

> Wheat isn't very resistant. Most other cultures eat more resistant starch

> than ours -- my

> guess is that those cultures Price found that were doing ok on high-grain

> diets were

> eating resistant grains (and probably in semi-whole-grain form). The Swiss,

> for instance,

> used to eat a LOT of oatmeal. My grandad said he " grew up " on oatmeal. But

> whole-grain

> oatmeal doesn't digest very quickly.

>

Does it when it's fermented in a fish head?

> As far as butyrate -- I know someone personally whose gut problems never

> resolved until

> she started butyrate *enemas*. The gut loves butyrate! She says it worked

> like magic.

> Resistant starch gets eaten by the bacteria in the lower gut which produce

> butyrate.

> However, I think you need the right bacteria for this to work -- someone who

> took

> Metamucil to increase butyrate got a lot of gas from it.

>

Right... I think that accounts for some discrepancies between Gottsschal's

theory and some of the stuff you've been posting on RS.

> I think sorghum works for me primarily because I don't eat MUCH of it.

> Sorghum cookies

> and bread seem to raise my blood sugar just like any other flour. Wheat

> flour makes

> me sick in small amounts -- sorghum I eat *some* but my basic diet doesn't

> revolve

> around *any* flour. My gut is probably ok mainly because I eat a ton of

> probiotics

> and vegies and meat and the fruit I eat is whole fruit (not juice or syrup).

>

yep...

> >I agree that for stable blood sugar you don't want the glucose hitting

> your

> >blood so fast, but making things *harder* to digest doesn't seem to be the

> >route to get there.

>

> I think this might be the confusion between " harder " and " slower " . You have

> 30 feet

> or so of intestine ... things digest all the way along the way. Maybe the

> words

> to use would be " properly digested " vs. " improperly digested " .

>

I think it's good to make that distinction. And whether a starch is RS or

simply undigested is going to depend on your gut flora and enzymes.

> >But if you have bad bacteria populating your intestine/colon you need to

> >starve them. Your body seems to do best having adequate carbs at moderate

> >amounts, but if you have cancer it might be good to starve it--

> temporarily.

>

> Maybe. I just started eating kefir though -- my gut was a war zone for a few

> days, as they

> duked it out (really, that's what it felt like!) then everything was ok. A

> lot of kefir-eaters

> seem to have this result.

I think kefir has helped me a lot, but see my experience above in response to

this. Depends on the problem and the degree, I'm sure.

> It varies between varieties etc. too. I love sorghum but I don't recommend

> large amounts of ANY grain, personally, esp. in things like baked goods.

> Now as a coating on oven-fried chicken, on the other hand ...

>

> I'd love to see better studies on carbs vs. antinutrients etc. Grains have

> a lot of issues that vegies don't seem to have, but most of the " carb "

> studies just lump all carbs together and use mainly wheat/sugar as the carb.

> That is just too many factors!

>

True.

>

> Like I said above, there seem to be some very detailed studies about the

> action of RS

> in intestines (mainly mouse intestines!), and they focus on the butyrate.

> I'd guess you can get butyrate from meat/fat too -- the other main source

> of it is rancid butter,

Rancid or sour? What about in the butter fat of kefir?

so you'd think the bacteria could produce it from

> animal meat/fat also. Or maybe from yogurt ... maybe that is a reason

> Gottschall

> had good results with yogurt ... butyrate is very healing to damaged guts,

> it seems.

Yes, but why the best results with no-lactose yogurt/kefir....

Chris

July 23, 2003

>----->this is another aspect i find questionable about gottschal's

>hypothesis. i haven't read the book in over a year i think, but i recall

>being confused that she talks about starving the bacteria in the gut, and

i

>kept looking for a discussion of WHICH bacteria she was referring to, but i

>don't think she differentiated between the good and the bad. that left me

>confused. obviously, it would be absurd to rid the gut of ALL bacteria,

plus

>impossible?. and from the canine studies i've read some beneficial and

>harmful strains feed on the same substate, so how can you starve one

without

>starving the other?

>>>>Having not read the book, I've wondered if maybe she is speaking

intuitively,

rather than based on gut samples etc.

-----> i don't think so. her bio in the back of the book says that she spent

four years postgraduate, when she was a member of the dept. of cell science

at u. western ontario zoology dept. " investigating the effects of various

sugars on the digestive tract working mainly on the cellular level. " then

she got her (2nd?) grad degree from that dept. in '79. so that work was in

the 70s. then she continued studying " the changes that occur in the bowel

wall in inflammatory bowel disease " the following year. so maybe most of her

investigative work is about 20 years old? the book's first publication

appears to be in '94, so i would guess that it would at least be up to date

in '94.

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

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