365 Guru - Recipes, Music & Health - Rock ON: Re: [fast5] My New Theory

Monday, August 31, 2009

Re: [fast5] My New Theory - Bert, does this make sense?

I'm not planning on adding grains either, at least not the
wheat variety. My diet now is mainly meats and vegies
and fruit. But I have cut down on "beef" as an experiment.
I mean, we have chicken and goose and duck and lots of types
of fish, and pork and lamb. I feel the best when I eat the most
fish.

Turmeric pulls iron out of the system: it's a "moderate chelator".
This is mainly interesting in terms of India: the thought has been
that the turmeric somehow prevents Alzheimer's, and now they
are thinking that maybe the way this happens is that turmeric
leeches iron out of the system.

I don't really think this has been a problem for most of history.
For most of history humans had gut parasites, and people with
parasites are usually iron deficient. Also, there is a very good
iron-regulating system inside people. The gut cells absorb iron
and only release it to the blood as needed: the gut cells then
slough off (they only live 3 days or so) and take the iron with
them.

However, a goodly chunk of the Northern European population
has genes that prevent this. I'm not sure about other populations.
But if you lack the "iron protection" service, then it's easy to
overdose. On the other hand, if you DO have the iron protection
genes, then it's unlikely you have too much iron. So it's not
really something that one can guess at. It's very genetic.

Also what isn't known is what blood ferritin levels SHOULD be.
What is clear is that people in the higher ferritin level categories
are more prone to heart disease and T2 diabetes. But there
really needs to be more research on it.

For myself though, I'm pretty sure that this is an issue in my
family. I'll be getting the tests I think, including the genetic
tests, then I won't be guessing. The thing is though, that
when I eat beef, take turmeric, or VIt C, I start getting heart
arrhythmia, which is often caused by high iron levels. My
working guess is that those three things all change
iron levels ... otherwise I can't see a connection between
those items!

BTW dark grape juice (and dark wine) also inhibits iron
absorption. Which makes me wonder if this isn't part of
the French diet issue: they drink wine always with
meals, which by my theory would lower their levels
of T2 diabetes and heart disease.