Revolutionary Health

I think my veggie burger is looking at me kinda weird today...

My patient has kindly allowed me to share the results of his first blood test (minus his name and identifying information of course) when he started with me and his second blood test about 3 months later. The results speak for themselves. Just amazing and more powerful than drugs! I am so happy for him and the awesome job he has done. I want everyone to know that this is an alternative option to life-long drugs, heart surgeries/procedures, amputations, dialysis, and continually worsening health.

A quick analysis of his labs which were both done while fasting:
-Total cholesterol 187-->139 (26% decrease, and now below 150 to keep him safe from heart attacks and ischemic strokes)
-LDL (“bad”) cholesterol 112-->64 (43% decrease, and now below 70 which is very protective against heart attacks and ischemic strokes)
-Triglycerides 199-->129 (35% decrease, and now below the recommended 150 goal)
-HDL (“good”) cholesterol 43-->52 (impressive that this increased despite lowering the total cholesterol so much)
-Hemoglobin A1c (3-4 month measure of blood glucose control) 14.0%-->8.0% -- This is an enormous change and the fact that it was done with no medications in 3 and a half months is just amazing! This might be hard to appreciate if you are not familliar with A1c numbers, but take my word for it, this is nothing short of MIRACULOUS.
-eGFR (kidney function) 66-->77 (much more kidney function to last the rest of his life)

He has significantly decreased his risk of ischemic stroke, heart attack, cardiovascular death, neuropathy (frequently leading to diabetic foot ulcer, bone infections, and amputations), nephropathy (kidney disease frequently leading to dialysis), and diabetic retinopathy (eye disease frequently leading to blindness). See accompanying graphs. He has done this all without any additional drugs (he is still on no medications for diabetes and he has continued on a low dose statin drug that he has been on for 3-4 years).

If you think he struggled through this and ate nothing but bland food the whole 3 months, take one researcher’s observation from interviews of patients from Dr. Dean Ornish’s study showing reversal of heart disease through a vegetarian diet.

“I found that the vegetarian group did grumble a bit at first. They had to learn about some new foods and master some new cooking tricks. On average, it took about 4 weeks before the diet really became second nature to them. But they adapted well, partly because they saw such dramatic results. Their cholesterol levels plummeted, their chest pain disappeared, and their heart disease reversed. The average participant lost, believe it or not, 22 pounds during the first year. They came to love the foods they ate.

“I vividly remember one participant’s reaction. He was angry—angry that previous doctors were eager to prescribe potentially dangerous drugs and even operate on him, charging him enormous amounts of money, and did not bother to even mention the power of diet changes. Overall, the participants not only found their diets acceptable, they felt it would be wrong for the doctors not to give patients this kind of choice.

“Now, it did not surprise me that the vegetarian diet took a little getting used to, or that the patients soon came to love it. What surprised me was the reaction of the control group—the group that was not asked to adopt the vegetarian diet. They grumbled, too. Some said their diet was nothing but chicken and fish, chicken and fish, chicken and fish, night after night. All the pleasures of life were gone, some seemed to say. And they had nothing to show for it. Many were still dealing with chest pain, trying to control their cholesterol levels with medications and fighting a losing battle.” From Dr. Neal Barnard’s book “Program for Reversing Diabetes—The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs.”

If you are interested in controlling diabetes, prediabetes, cholesterol and weight through diet and would like my help, contact me at Revolutionary Health, phone 775-392-0887, email [email protected], or direct message me on facebook.

This post comes from the following question:

“Can you write about protein and the current emphasis on its consumption for health and weight loss?”

Thank you for your question! It is definitely a hot topic and has important effects on people’s health. I am not sure the origin of how protein came to have such an elevated status as part of health. I first remember hearing this when I was young about certain things they would give people to eat on TV shows, like a bug, snake or cow testicle, and although it grossed people out, they seemed to always add, “But it is high in protein!” It was kind of a joke, I suppose, but it seemed to have been the beginning of putting protein on the current pedestal it now enjoys. We do need protein to make our own proteins, which make up so much of what we actually are. But how much do we need? That depends on how much we are losing from our urine and our G.I. tract, and how much we are growing (children, weight lifters, athletes, and those healing from major illness).

When the previous dietary protein recommendations were made, they did measure protein loss from the body (urine and stool), and they found that we would need about 5% of our diet from protein to replace what was lost. They doubled it in the recommendation to 10% just to make sure they were not overlooking something and giving a dangerously low recommendation to the country (not very scientific, but I understand the desire to be in the safe zone). Later they came up with a recommendation of 10-35% protein. I have never heard of the scientific basis for this recommendation, and I don’t particularly like the “Well they’re the experts!” rationale. I don’t care who the experts are (FDA, CDC, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc.), I prefer to see the proof, and I don’t believe they have any for this current recommendation. There is definite proof that diets high in protein from animal sources are linked to increased rates of cancer, kidney disease, increased calcium excretion, and more inflammation.

These days there are diet recommendations for every one of the 3 MACROnutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates [a.k.a. “carbs”]). We need all three of the macronutrients, but we do not need to focus much on managing the percentages in our diet. Rather our focus should be on eating the most nutritious foods—i.e. the ones with the most MICROnutrients (vitamins & minerals) and PHYTOnutrients (things that are in foods by the thousands and important for us, but are not in the vitamins category). The percentages of these three macronutrients will work themselves out if we focus on eating highly nutritious foods. To be transparent, foods with the most vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients are plants (vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruit, grains, mushrooms). Eating a mostly plant or all plant diet does result in a high carb diet. ***However, it is not the “high carb” part of the diet that makes it healthy (more specifically anti-cancerous, anti-diabetic, anti-atherogenic [plaque in the arteries], anti-hypertensive, and good for the immune system), what makes it healthy--and this is the TAKE-HOME MESSAGE--is the vast amount of micronutrients and phytonutrients. And what makes a high animal protein diet unhealthy is the miniscule amount of micronutrients and phytonutrients.***

Many people have strong opinions about their diet. People will point out that our body does not make all of the amino acids (the building blocks of protein) that we require. We need all 20 of the amino acids to make the proteins we need. Our body makes 11 of those. The remaining 9 are called “essential” because our body cannot manufacture them. Several of the others are “conditionally essential” because our body can make them, but may not make enough of them, and so some need to be eaten and absorbed. There is no doubt that the singular foods that contain the highest amount of “essential” amino acids and in the same proportions that our body needs are meat and other animal products. However, a diet composed of only plants will provide all of the essential and conditionally essential amino acids we all need need. So, although a bean may not provide every essential amino acid you need, beans + broccoli + corn + rice + lettuce + peach + banana certainly will, as will almost every other combination of plants. There is no one right combo of plants to get all the essential amino acids—there are hundreds of correct combinations. In fact, it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to make a diet of plants that does not give you the right combination of amino acids. Only 3% of people in the United States are deficient in protein and it is not because they eat a plant-based diet. May I please refer you to the bull, the horse, and the rhinoceros. All of these animals have an abundance of muscle made of protein and eat only plants! Their amino acid needs which are most similar to our own, come only from plants! Also, the gorilla, who also is a very muscular animal, eats a diet of about 85-95% carbohydrates, and is even more similar to us than the previous animals.

To those who are open to a paradigm shift, I will also say that eating a plant-based diet is delicious. Forget thinking that you are giving up tasty food. That is just false. Also, bear in mind that vegetarians live about 10 years longer than others eating a standard diet.

And to answer the last part of your question about the recommendation of protein for weight loss, this probably comes from the keto diet. Low-carb high-protein diets, can put people into ketosis. Ketosis is the result of the breakdown of fat for energy when there are not enough carbs available for energy. The thought is that by limiting carbs, a person will be in a constant fat-burning state. Unfortunately, they don’t just lose fat, they also lose muscle. Although everyone wants to believe that eating meat puts muscle on, the truth is that eating such a low carb diet results in MUSCLES being broken down to be made into glucose (gluconeogenesis) because although the brain can use ketones for fuel, it prefers glucose (carbs). So unfortunately, although keto diets result in WEIGHT loss that we see on the scale, it is actually a combination of fat and lean-protein muscle mass loss, not just pure fat loss. Nobody wants to lose muscle mass. The fact is that low fat diets result in more fat loss than low carb diets.

Thank you again for the great question! I hope this answered it!