I have long been concerned about the nutritional adequacy of the diets of most of our senior citizens whether resident in their own homes or in various forms of care. Very often, when left to their own devices many older people cannot be bothered to prepare proper meals and many of them fall into a toast and tea or coffee regime: they do what is easiest without recognising or realising the longer term consequences of this behaviour. They often become seriously under nourished. Many do not maintain an adequate intake of fluids,  particularly water, sometimes due to fear of incontinence or of inability to get to the toilet in time, even when they have dementia. Dehydration may cause brain shrinkage, headaches, memory loss and an inability to think clearly and logically. It can also cause serious kidney malfunction.

As we age, we often become less active physically and stress levels should diminish all of which reduces our energy intake requirements. A situation which, in combination with a declining digestive system, amplifies the requirement to maintain a nutritionally adequate and balanced diet. This also maintains the immune system, body warmth, energy levels, mental activity and the body’s natural healing and repair functions. Almost conversely, it becomes more critical that as the food quantity diminishes the need for appropriate fundamental quality and adequate nutritional balance increases. To avoid doing the elderly a grave disservice we need to better understand and provide for their nutritional needs taking into account the issues that also arise from their aging metabolisms.

I also believe that it is important for the elderly to remain as physically active as possible in order to maintain bone and muscular strength as well as their balance and blood circulation. Sadly, there are many older men in nursing homes, and elsewhere, who appear to be losing weight and muscle tone through being inadequately fed: quantity and quality wise. There are also increasing numbers of elderly women with open, ulcerated sores on their shins that will not heal: due often to the combined lack of an adequate diet and physical activity regime causing poor blood circulation. They all require quality sources of protein and vegetables in their diets not snacks, convenience foods, bread, cakes and biscuits etc.

The maintenance of good nutritional status in this group is critical. The elderly have the right to enjoy healthy, productive and fulfilling lives. Better nutrition will ensure greater independence for longer, better quality of life, higher immunity, lower mortality and less need to progress to higher, more expensive forms of care.

All human beings need to eat their body weight in quality food per month if they are to maintain body weight and good health. This requirement is inescapable. If there is insufficient food the outcome is loss of weight, malnutrition and a declining immune system leading to poorer quality of life, ill health and reduced life expectancy.

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Last week I mentioned in High Sodium Levels Linked to Cancer, how Dr. Max Gerson provided us all with valuable information about the health benefits of eating high proportions of fresh fruit and vegetables, instead of foods high in acidity and sodium. This week I will build on this by looking at several long lived populations from history. By studying the diets of these long lived populations, the benefits of reducing foods with high proportions of acid and sodium from our diets are evident. Three long lived populations we should study the diet’s of are: the Hunzas in the Himalayas, Peruvian natives living in the high Andes and the Okinawans of Northern Japan.

Both lots of mountain dwellers lived into active, healthy old age (110 -120 years) on an essentially alkaline diet of fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables watered by glacier induced mineral rich irrigation water. Both the Hunzas and the Peruvian natives in the high Andes, consumed alcohol and animal proteins and fats, milk etc sparingly. The Okinawans also live into healthy old age on a traditional diet of mineral rich seafood and seaweed, tofu, miso, rice, fruit and vegetables. Similarly, their traditional diet is also more alkaline than the typical Western diet.

Quite obviously in Western communities, the combination of constipation, excess acidity and sodium levels, lack of exercise and the consumption of energy dense, mass produced and often over-processed and nutritionally deficient convenience foods high in fat, salt and sugar is proving to be a disaster. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, macular degenerative eye diseases, Coeliac Disease, asthma, osteoporosis, obesity and declining life expectancy, under our regime, are all on the rise: a very sad reflection and commentary upon our dietary and lifestyle choices. A situation, which despite our knowledge, we appear reluctant to address.

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In last week’s post, The Dangers of Acidity and Sodium, I wrote about the diet of the Western world containing too many highly processed foods with high proportions of acidity and sodium levels – leading to health serious health problems. I also wrote about Dr. Max Gerson’s discovery of high sodium intake being the cause of his recurrent severe migraines. Read on to find more about Gerson and his cancer treatment clinic.

Dr. Max Gerson believed that an excessive intake of sodium, caused the sodium to replace and displace the potassium in the human body, modifying body chemistry significantly and undesirably. In clinical trials, he found that body cells rich in potassium were highly oxygenated or aerobic – the anti-cancer condition. Whereas body cells rich in sodium become increasingly anaerobic or deprived of oxygen: a situation he believed to be cancer inducing. Gerson’s treatments involved treating people with water and seasonal fresh raw fruit and vegetable juices.

Towards the end of his life, Dr. Max Gerson complained increasingly of the declining nutritional quality of many of the fruits and vegetables he was using, also a sad indictment of our farming practices and another reason underlying our seemingly increasing poor health. His treatments involved a major cleansing regime and progressively reversed the sodium-potassium imbalance with patients often excreting 10g per day of sodium via their urine over quite extended periods.

Gerson’s cancer treatment clinic used treatments that were slow, gentle and effective. The treatments often adapted to treating a particular form of cancer, taking up to two or more years. They worked with the body’s natural healing systems, strengthened the immune system and were relatively non invasive compared to mainstream, Western, allopathic medicine. Many patients, over the years, have left his clinic free of cancer, diabetes, arthritis and the many other symptoms of an affluent lifestyle: the Gerson treatments often addressing multiple ailments simultaneously.

Sadly, Gerson’s treatments were beyond the reach of most patients financially. However, they do provide important clues as to what constitutes a more ideal long term diet for the human race; something we continue to ignore at our peril.

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If you are gluten sensitive and have cardiomyopathy it is possible that going on a gluten free diet may reverse the condition as the following cases illustrate:

Two winners, one loser (who failed to go gluten free).

Three individuals with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and coliac disease, were all instructed to follow a gluten free diet. Two of the three patients recognized the health effects of gluten free diet and were faithful to the diet. After 28 months following a gluten free diet, they showed improvement in their echocardiogram tests, as well as in a cardiological questionnaire and the Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale questionnaire. The third patient refused to eat gluten free and experienced a worsening of symptoms.

Gluten free wins again.

An account published in 2005 describes the case of a 70 year old man who was experiencing symptoms of cardiomyopathy, including the classic symptoms of non-exertional chest pain. The patient had been diagnosed with dermatitis herpetiformis 20 years earlier, but had never followed a gluten free diet. When he was examined he had a dermatitis herpetiformis rash and of course the examination showed cardiomyopathy. The man was put on a strict gluten free diet and informed about the negative health effects of gluten on his body and that he might have a gluten alergy. He also continued with his drug treatment of losartan. After 10 months on a strict gluten free diet he had gained over 8 kg, his night sweats had resolved and he had not experienced further episodes of chest pain.

A different form of cardiomyopathy, myocarditis, also responds well to a gluten free diet. In a study published in 2002, researchers screened the serum of 187 patients with myocarditis and found that 4.4 % had coeliac disease. All of the individuals responded to a gluten free diet. The researchers wrote, “Patients with biopsy proven myocarditis, especially in the presence of clinical findings of malabsorbtion, should be screened for coeliac disease. In fact, if coeliac disease is associated with autoimmune myocaditis a gluten free diet alone or the diet in combination with immuno-suppressive agents can significantly improve the clinical outcome”.

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In 2004 a research study was published examining the link between gluten sensitivity and severe headaches.

The research was focused around “soft” neurologic conditions such as headaches in young adults and children. Headaches were the most commonly found neurologic disorder in the 111 patients with celiac disease. Out of the patients in the study; 64.5% with headaches had late onset symptoms of celiac disease or were gluten sensitive, and 35.5% had the early infantile form of celiac disease.

The study broke down the type of headaches the study participants experienced:

• Migraine 45.1%
• Non-specific 35.5%
• Tension-psychogenic 19.4%

Sixteen study participants were put onto a gluten free diet which relieved them of there symptoms.

Imagine the results if all patients who showed gluten sensitivity (not only the ones diagnosed with celiac disease) had been placed on a gluten free diet.

Another study conducted in 2001 followed 10 patients who suffered severe headaches and who all had MRI tests suggesting inflammation of the central nervous system, were each found to be gluten sensitive. These patients were told to start a gluten-free diet and all but one patient found relief. Seven out of the 10 patients recovered completely from their headaches, while 2 experienced partial improvement. The one patient who continued to suffer from headaches? Well he refused to try the gluten-free diet.

The next case from the study illustrates the power of a gluten-free diet.

A 50 year old man whose medical history did not show a disposition towards migraines experienced unexplained headaches for 4 years. When his headaches increased in severity and frequency, he agreed to take a blood test, which showed that he had anti-gliadin antibodies.

When he started on a gluten-free diet, his balance improved and his headaches disappeared completely. But 2 years later his symptoms had returned. When questioned, the man confessed he had stopped following a gluten-free diet. Another blood test was taken and this confirmed the return of anti-gliadin antibodies.

The results convinced the man that gluten was the reason for his headaches. He took up his gluten-free diet and has remained headache free to this day.

If this isn’t enough evidence to show that gluten can be the reason for headaches consider the following case.

One patient said that he had suffered from migraine headaches for more than 10 years. Neurologists that were consulted could find no cure, and the migraines continued to intensify so much that he had to take early retirement. By 2002 his 3 headaches a week had increased to an almost non stop headache, during one particular month he was headache free for only 3 days. Migraine medications did not work to help the patient’s pain.

The patient’s family doctor then suggested a gluten-free diet. The headaches slowly became less frequent and after several months he was 98% headache free.

Gluten-free wins again.

When parents discover they have an autistic child they often take drastic measures including drugs to control or offset their child’s autistic patterns. The Autism Research Institute (ARI) in the US, collected information provided by more then 23,700 parents who completed the questionnaire. ARI wanted to find out which remedies were the most effective in treating autism.

They found that one of the most effective treatments was following a special diet: removing gluten and casein from the autistic child’s diet, with 65% of parents reporting that their child got better.

Parents themselves report excellent results from a gluten-free, casein-free diet (Casein is the major protein in milk).

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The most common type of anaemia is Iron Deficiency Anaemia. Iron is an important part of haemoglobin which is the oxygen-carrying pigment in the blood.

Your blood usually gets iron from the food you eat and by reusing the iron in old blood cells. When your blood is not gathering enough iron from you food you become anaemic, symptoms of anaemia include being easily tired, fatigued, or prone to other illnesses.

Well before the sensitive blood tests that we have today, that detect gluten sensitivity and coeliac disease, some doctors realised that iron deficiency anaemia could be caused by coeliac disease. A case from 1994 demonstrates this.

A 40 year old woman ha suffered from iron deficiency anaemia for 2 years without her doctors being able to determine the cause. Multiple endoscopic examinations had not revealed any abnormalities of her gastrointestinal system. Iron supplements had no effect, and eventually her doctor performed a biopsy revealing she had coeliac disease. She started a strict gluten free diet and her bloods iron levels increased. Her anaemia went away.

Researchers reported in 2001 that coeliac disease was diagnosed in 13.7% (26 out of 190) of people who had iron deficiency anaemia. These individuals were put on a gluten free diet, to determine there progress they were tested at 6, 12 and 24 months after going on the diet.

After 6 months on the gluten free diet, 77.8% of the patients had recovered from anaemia; only 27.8% had reversed their iron deficiency. After 12 months all but one patient recovered from anaemia and 50% had recovered from iron deficiency. After 24 months only one individual was still anaemic.

These results lead the researchers to conclude that screening for coeliac disease should be done in adults with iron deficiency anaemia. Adhering to a gluten free diet allows the intestine to heal, and as a result the anaemia goes away after 6-12 months.

A more recent study published in 2004 discovered a different rate of coeliac disease, 2.8% of 105 people with iron deficiency anaemia then the first study. The authors make a similar conclusion, that the ability to treat coeliac disease is why it should be a suspected cause of unexplained iron deficiency anaemia.

So, are you are tired and possibly achy all the time, and can’t figure out why? Go gluten free and see what happens.

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The Coeliac Society of Australia was formed to provide a forum to promote the national welfare and uniformity of purpose and objectives of the state coeliac societies throughout Australia.

They provide information and support to those diagnosed with coeliac disease and their families, sufferers of dermatitis herpetiformis and those medically diagnosed as requiring a gluten free diet.

So why did they stop listing a commercial food list?

When someone is first diagnosed as requiring a gluten free diet, the first thing they want is a list of acceptable gluten free foods – a commercial food list.

For many years the Coeliac Society prepared a food list for its members.

However, some time ago a decision was made to discontinue this list and prepare the ingredient list booklet.

In their “The Australian Coeliac” magazine they listed the reasons for this decision.

• Preparation of a commercial food list is a very time consuming activity. It can take over two years.

• The list was always limited to those companies who were prepared to give us the information. This limited the food choices available to members.

• Manufacturers can be very conservative in their advice on which products are gluten free. Products containing ingredients from a gluten source which we know to be gluten free (eg. glucose from wheat) were sometimes withheld from the list.

• Within a very short time, and sometimes even before publication, some of the information was out of date. New products are introduced onto the market and some withdrawn. A manufacturer can change the formulation and replace a gluten free ingredient and we may not be informed. Members could then be consuming products that are not recommend for their diet.

Learning the language of reading product ingredient labels enables a wide range of food choices to be made confidently in all locations in Australian and New Zealand.

When new products appear, The Coeliac Society have the knowledge to determine whether they are gluten free or not.

It is certainly harder and takes much longer to shop when a person is first diagnosed; however in the long run it gives you the power to control your condition.

There is no need to ring manufacturers and no need for a commercial food list.  It does mean the Society receives a constant stream of enquiries regarding labelling issues, many of which relate to trying to interpret information from manufacturer’s consumer help lines.

With the requirement to declare allergens (including gluten), their knowledge has now been enhanced and the product range available to us vastly increased.

Regards

Paul Smith

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There are many good people online writing about Gluten Free and health, Coeliac and Celiac disease and symptoms related to the disease.

This is one more of my weekly posts about articles I’ve been reading and I think are worth your time to read.

Tesco asks for ideas from coeliacs |
Living gluten free? Celiac or Coeliac disease? Need to avoid gluten? Raising a gluten free child?Absolutely astonished this morning to see that one of Tesco’s buyers has posted on the gluten free message board, asking what the gluten free community would like to see in store.
http://www.free-from.com/blog/

Family focuses on gluten-free diet benefits
Hawke’s Bay Today – Hastings,New Zealand
It may be hard for most kids to imagine not having a piece of birthday cake at a friend’s party, never buying lunch from the school tuckshop and never enjoying takeaways.
But for the Wilson siblings of Taradale it’s a life they’re just learning to cope with.
For Georgia, 12, it’s especially hard as she has never had any symptoms of coeliac disease, which tests have shown she has a severe case of.

Childhood Diabetes on the Rise in Europe
Truthdig website
Auto immune diseases in general — Celiac, the colitis’s, Lupus and so on — tend to be familial, though not necessary hereditary in the strictness sense.

NICE backs serological testing for celiac disease
Healthcare Republic (press release) – London,UK
Persistent gastrointestinal symptoms and prolonged fatigue are among symptoms that should alert gp’s to a possible diagnosis of celiac disease.

Wal-Mart gets Points for Labeling Gluten-Free
By AmyLeger
If those marketers are reading this post — we celiacs would love to see more of this! I thoroughly enjoy the fact that we can have a box of augratin potatoes now! They may not be the best for us, but I haven’t purchased them in 10 years

Best Regards
Paul Smith

www.glutenfreehealth.net

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There are many good people online writing about Gluten Free and health, Coeliac and Celiac disease and symptoms related to the disease.

This is one more of my weekly posts about articles I’ve been reading and I think are worth your time to read.

1)Gluten Free Trina
Presents a new support group, it says “There are many support groups for those with various food intolerances, this is a nice place to share and help others along the way.”

2)Glutenfreetrina
It’s a new support group where users share their experiences with gluten free food and it’s benefits for a health life.

3)Gainesvilletimes.com
Writes in details about Celiac Coeliac Disease and supermarkets that have created special sections for gluten-free foods

4)Msceliacsays.blogspot.com
Ms. Celiac writes a delicious story about gluten Free, celiac coeliac and Starbucks.

5)GlutenFreeMom
It’s a great blog. Please check it out and subscribe

6)The View, interviews Dr. Peter Green about Celiac Disease and it’s symptoms.

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Best Regards

Paul Smith
GlutenFreeHealth.net

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B Vitamin Supplements Benefit Celiac Patients
FOXNews.com
B vitamin supplements reduce the risk of developing very high levels of homocystine in patients with celiac disease and “should be considered in disease management,” a Dutch team concludes, based on a new study.

Celiac Disease Testing May Help Osteoporosis
WEBMD.com
Screening people with osteoporosis for a condition that makes it difficult to digest wheat may help improve treatment and reduce the risks associated with the common bone-weakening disease.

How important is the timing of gluten introduction for children with celiac disease?
www.nature.com
Background – The factors associated with the development of celiac disease in childhood are unknown.

Best Regards
Paul Smith

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