h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been suffering from gout on and off since the end of May. In early June I had a sleepless night and went to see my doctor. He said "The last time you were here was exactly a year ago, with exactly the same symptoms". I'd had a blood test done, and been put on glucosamine capsules. The blood tests showed all clear except for uriates, the sign of gout.

This time the doc just gave me anti-inflammatories (difene) which did the trick. I decided to go for acupuncture, on warm advice.

Well this morning I went and became a pincushion for half an hour. No immediate effect on the gout, which has been receding anyway. I'm inclined to discontinue the acupuncture, though, because the practitioner told me that I need to eat animal protein, which I have been persuaded against by "The China Study" by T Colin Campbell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Colin_Campbell

I was keen to give his theory a try as cancer is something I am apparently prone to, and his main thesis is (in my paraphrase) that the correlation between animal protein and various cancers is as strong as the correlation between smoking and lung cancer. That bad, or worse: he reports that regardless of the intake of carcinogens, cancer doesn't develop (in lab animals) when animal protein is kept out of their diet.

The acupuncturist somewhat contradicted herself by going on to say (as Campbell says) that proteins have to be broken down into amino acids before the body can use them to make its own proteins. According to Campbell all the amino acids we need are in common vegetables, with one exception (vitamin B-12). The acupuncturist further reduced her credibility in my eyes by saying that gout results from the inability of my body to digest protein fully; so why take it in?

We'll see.

I don't eat animals myself...but I sincerely doubt it's drastically bad for one.

Wwll, going veggie for a while wouldn't hurt you, but I can't honestly say I've heard of any evidence that suggests that veggies are less prone to tbe big C. If they happen to be, then it's probably the absence of animal fats and an increased intake of cruciferous vegetables that helps.

I've heard that not eating vegetables makes you far more prone to cancer. But it is possible to eat both meat and vegetables.

This from Wikipedia:
"Of the 20 standard proteinogenic amino acids, 10 are called essential amino acids because the human body cannot synthesize them from other compounds through chemical reactions, and they therefore must be obtained from food. Cysteine, tyrosine, histidine and arginine are considered as semiessential amino acids in children, because the metabolic pathways that synthesize these amino acids are not fully developed."

However, all the amino acids we need could be derived from either plant or animal proteins. But they get broken down in the gut to amino acides nevertheless: the body cannot absorb protein. If meat is going to cause problems then it isn't the protein component, more likely something else that comes with it.

Campbell is remarkably forthright on this. As a young nutrition researcher he was shown an Indian study that reported lab rats on high protein diets falling to cancer while similar ones on low protein diets survived. The figures were unusually clear for animal experiments: 100% of high-protein rats died, 0% of low-protein rats died.

A senior American professor he mentioned that study to dismissed the findings: "They must have got the cage numbers mixed up."

Fortified against official scepticism, Campbell repeated the experiment and found the very same result. The protein they used was casein. They fed the rats carcinogens: 100% of rats with cancers started up, who were fed low (under 5%) protein, remained sleek active and healthy at the end of the study, which lasted the normal rat life-span. 100% of the high-protein rats had died of cancer.

Later he tried different proteins and came to the conclusions that:

a) there is nothing good to be got from animal-based food that is not better got from plant-based food, the exceptions being vitamin B-12, plus possibly vitamin D for those who don't get much sunlight.

b) there are diseases that are promoted by animal-based food that are not promoted by plant-based food, including the big killers: cancer, diabetes, heart disease.

He also claims that vegans avoid Alzheimer's, arthritis, osteoporosis, stroke, high blood pressure, low energy, constipation, kidney stones and more. Sounds like a mountebank at this stage . . . but his whole career has been in well-funded and impeccably peer-reviewed medical research, over many decades.

His dietary advice is:

Eat all you want (while getting lots of variety) of any whole, unrefined plant-based food.

Minimize refined carbohydrates, added vegetable oils, fish.

Avoid meat, poultry, dairy, eggs.

So what would his view on pulses be, being that they are are good source of protein in themselves? The amino acids should be the same regardless of provenance.

Pulses are not mentioned in the index, but from what I remember they come under the "all you want" umbrella. Plant proteins are more easily broken down (digested) than animal and therefore beneficial and not harmful.

He started his career as a nutritionist trying to get more protein into the Third World diet, as that was the holy grail in the fifties and sixties. He brings up what he terms the red herring of "quality": the way they measure protein quality is (I gather) the nearness of the amino-acid mix in the food to the amino-acid mix we require. For this purpose, he says, the perfect food is human flesh. But not only is that not an option, it wouldn't actually be good for us. That sort of "quality" is not a positive value; or rather its positive value is overwhelmed by the negative side effects.

What about the idea of complementary amino acids? The idea that you're meant to eat, say, pulses plus wholegrains or pulses plus nuts or wholegrains plus dairy to make 'complete' proteins? I have some hippyish books on it.

Nevertheless - I remain sceptical. I suggest that a sensible, balanced diet can include meat and dairy - provided it also contains the unrefineds en masse.

"Plant proteins are more easily broken down (digested) than animal and therefore beneficial and not harmful."

I think he's talking crap, to be honest. Proteins get broken down in the stomach by a combination of hydrochloric acid and peptase. This is a pretty indiscriminate process.

hi people,
a few facts: Gout is known as the king´s disease because they used to eat a lot of meat.
pulses and any other legume have incomplete the amino acid chain, but if you add rice or any cereal to the legume you obtain a protein of high quality free of nasty residues for the body as the meat leaves.
B12 can be obtained from the yeast of beer (excellent for everything)
Spinachs, tomato and some other vegetables contain oxalates that help to create renal stones ( the ones formed out of calcium)
Mediterranean diet is the one recomended by the WHO as the most healthy. It is based in vegetables, legumes, fish, cereals, olive oil, fish, egg, cheese and very little amount of meat.
maria

Can someone explain to me what these 'nasty residues' are? Are they related to the mythical 'toxins' that nutritional charlatans claim to be able to remove by pumping cofee up one's fundament?

But I certainly agree that olive oil is .

Hi ed,
Doctor recomend to any patient who suffer from renal condition not to eat meat, proteins give extra work to kidneys.
When fat is getting assimilated by the body, it gives up cetones and others "toxins". that´s proved, pregnant women with diabetes know that very well.Meat also gives up toxins. It´s not the same to burn wood than to burn tyres to heat yourself.
I´m not a doctor, may be a charlatan... But not about health. I may be wrong, but i talk on a scientic base and experience. I´m very fond of nutrition, I studied it when I wanted to be a nurse.
maria

About gout:
In Spain and France (as I know) People take a tea made out of boiling the leaves of olive. It is used too for rheumatism and highblood pressure. ( but if the cause of highblood pressure is emotional stress it won´t do much)
Also the leaves of fresno, (fraxinus oxycarpa) dont know the name in English) is used to fight gout. Archokim is a french company that sell it.

Fair enough.

So long as we're not confusing the abnormal products of specific disease conditions with the mysterious gunk that 'detox' diets are meant to flush from our bodies.

Mediterranean diet:
Shame on me!!!
I forget to mention the RED WINE
and the beer too. Doctors recomment to drink every day a glass of wine or two. Excellent. Cheesus, what a joy to drink wine in winter and beer in summertime!!!

A friend of mine do a detox diet sometimes, and I find her as bad as always. She say something about "energy flows better..." this New Age-hippy.hedonist-crappy jargon.
I know that in springtime and autumn people in my village take dandelion salads and grapes to clean the body they say. They dont know what a hippy is,but they do it. I like the flavour and I do too.

There's nothing wrong with hedonism.

In the UK, we have a peculiar TV witch who pokes around in fat people's faeces. She recommends dietary regimes and - lo and behold - they lose weight. On the one hand, she's a complete fraud with scary psychological 'issues' of her own. On the other hand - she's getting people to stop eating fat-filled non-vegetarian meat substitute and drinking gallons of sugar-laden fizzy drinks and saying hello to fruit and vegetables for the first time in their life. They're bound to lose weight.

Indeed not, a bit of hedonism makes you feel better. Everything in moderation, especially moderation itself.