Posted by Jim Whitaker

In Reply to: the research you're quoting makes some valid points posted by Ron Roth

From: r ()
Subject: Re: Hypertension CURE found, 100% effective
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
View complete thread (9 articles) Date: 1996/09/05

So far I find no reason to question the first post or anything in it.

But the second when it started talking about cholesterol is, whew,
largely utter nonsense. For those of you who want to understand this,
I offer some major corrections. The part about regulating with insulin
and glucagon is correct, but not the how and why. Apparently the "how
and why" was the result a brain seizure, getting several concepts all
studied at the same time all garbled together.

Here is how the mechanism actually works:

Human body cells need to use cholesterol internally to build cell walls
and other parts. Cells get cholesterol either by making it themselves
for internal use or they grab LDL cholesterol from the blood and
dissassemble it. In the presence of insulin, the cells make it
internally. In the presence of glucogon, they take LDL cholesterol
from the blood. An LDL molecule is basically a used up trigyceride
scavenger that has reached the end of its useful life. There are three
ways the body has to deal with an LDL molecule: the liver can filter
it out, a cell can eat it, or it can stick onto the artery walls. The liver
isn't very efficient. Therefore in situations of chronic high insulin,
and high triglyceride production, the LDL is not taken up by the body
cells because the cells are making their own, only some of it is
filtered out by the liver -- the rest floats around until it
accumulates on the artery walls.

If a human being eats cholesterol, in about 70% of the population, it is
inert and just goes through the digestive system. In the remaining 30%
a fair portion of it gets slightly processed and fed into the bloodstream.

Since glucagon is produced as a result of amino acids in the blood, and
insulin is produced as a result of glucose in the blood, a low rate of
glucose intake and a high protien intake will cause massive scale
scavanging of LDL cholesterol from the blood and tightly controlled
cholesterol levels, even if you are one of those burger eaters who send
dietary cholesterol into the blood. In such a case a person can eat
all the cholesterol he can gag down, and his body cells will eat it
even if it goes directly into the bloodstream. Back in the hunter-gatherer
days, there was no reason not to get some supplimental cholesterol to build
your cells walls with and lighten the load on your cells, and in those
days, we weren't overwhelmed with insulin from the grains in our diets.

I couldn't find the reference about Japanese, and it seems unlikely
in light of this. Don't take it seriously.

Byron Graham (byrong@ix.netcom.com) wrote:

: >Jim Whitaker wrote:
: >>
: >> : (Give us each day, our daily HYPERTENSION...)
: >>
: >>. If you eat
: >> lots of grains and etc, you are NOT GUARANTEED of getting high blood
: >> pressure because you may not be genetically predisposed to insulin
: >> resistance. However -- if you have hypertension, it is basically a
: >> 100% guarantee that you suffer from hyperinsulinemia and insulin
: >> resistance.
: Not necessarily. Hyperinsulinemia has been doumented in 50 to 75% of
: cases of essential hypertrension. While still a high number, it is not
: 100%. And the data is still conflicting as to whether the high insulin
: levels are causing the hypertension or whether the underlying factors
: causing the hypertension are leading to the high insulin levels.

Hmmm.... I am curious where your numbers come from, and what test
was done. Hyperinsulinemia is very hard to track. It doesn't always
show up on a glucose tolerance test. It doesn't always show up on
blood workups. As such it would be rather hard to prove it as the
cause of hypertension. The only way to really test it is to put
the person through a dietary and excercise regimen designed to treat
insulin resistance, something along the lines of Sears, and if it
works, fill him full of rice cakes for a few weeks and then check
the blood pressure again to verify that it went up.

So far I am pulling off 100% by getting people off grains, milk,
and minimizing sugars and fruit. My guess is that many of the people being
tested above are not being tested properly and not being put on the
proper low carbohydrate diets and excercise regimins to verify that
the high carbs and resulting insulin are the cause of their hypertension.

Maybe part of my success is because I am eliminating almost all
trans-fats (dairy fats and those fats baked into breads), all dairy
protien, all gluten, and almost all simple sugars for lower triglyceride
levels. It could be one of those that is the culprit. It could be that
I am misinterpreting results. I haven't stuffed anyone full of rice
cakes again. Nobody wants to be a guinea pig after they hear what high
insulin levels do to them.

:
: >> Insulin is the only thing that makes your artery wall cells
: >> swell up and choke off the blood supply requiring your heart to
: >> pound harder.
: Wrong. The Renin-Angiotensin II system has powerful vasoconstrictive
: effects, along with increasing ADH and aldosterone levels, all of which
: will lead to elevation of blood pressure.

There are all kinds of things that will spike your blood pressure.
There are all kinds of disorders that can produce higher blood
pressure. Most of these have obvious causes. Granted, my statement
was not COMPLETE in that I didn't list the various vasopressin, niacin,
aldosterone, and other things like that that can have effects on
blood pressure.

But how many of these are chronic? Artery wall muscles are not
designed for constant contraction. You list Angiotension II, that
is a potent vasoconstrictor, yes but it is not a part of a chronic
mechanism unless you are dying of thirst or experiencing renal
disorders. Its primary role is stimulating aldosterone secretion,
which acts to increase sodium retention and the interstital fluid volume.

I have gotten mail back from a number of people who appear to be
researches who say that "yes", blanket blaming of virtually all forms
of hypertension on grains and grain products is dead on.
Even found some research articles that ask not be be quoted on the net
in their copyright notices.

My point was not wrong, at least not as far as I know. Hyperinsulin
is the only thing that makes arteries swell up. Short of organ failure,
malnutrition, or aldosterone inducing tumours, hyperinsulin is the
ONLY thing that results in chronic hypertension.

: Look at China, the peasants have the worst health of
: >> any national group, and rice is a traditional staple food there --
: >> mandated by the communist government. For them, rice aggravates
: their health problems.
: This is not true. If you look at studies comparing urban Chinese with
: their rural counterparts, you will find the rate of heart disease much
: lower in the countryside, where meat and fat consumption is lower than
: in the urban settings. In fact, urban Chinese have demonstrated CVD
: rates similar to those found in the United States.

You have got to be kidding me. "Not true"? Chinese peasants have a very
high rate of heart disease. I can understand that the cities might be worse,
but the peasants have it pretty bad. And it's because they are not allowed
to grow the food they want to eat. The communinists demand that they
grow rice. Admittedly their health problems are not all to be blamed on
rice consumption -- but it does lower their immune systems and create
a large number of problems.

: >>
: >> There are three factors at play in Japan:
: >> 1) These people are genetically not predisposed to insulin resistance.
: >> Over the years those who were insulin resistant could not make
: >> it on the staple foods that were availiable and thus had a tendency
: >> to get sick and die, pruning their gene pool.
: DO you have data to support this claim?. Are you suggesting that over
: the past several centuries the majority of premature deaths in Japan
: were due to NIDDM (Type 2 Diabetes) complications? And that each of
: these people died before they reached child-bearing age so they could
: not pass on their lousy genes???

For the moment, since I can't find the reference, I am going to downgrade
this statement to the level of speculation. Ingesting rice with GI's
ranging from 80 to over 100 as staples could not have helped anyone
who was prone to sharp insulin reactions or to insulin resistance.
Considering that they eat a low fat diet, they are basically running
their bodies on pure glucose sugar.

You don't have to have diabetes to die from a high carb diet. You just
need to be overwhelmed with insulin and die from anything from a
weakened immune system, strokes, hypertension, heart fatigue
(hypertension), blocked arteries, or etc. Childhood mortality rates
were pretty high, and there aren't exactly records of the dead peoples
insulin responses. It's probably a guess.

:
: >> 3) Their diets do not contain the BUILDING BLOCKS for
: cholesterol.
: This is silly. Acetyl CoA is the building block of cholesterols and
: unless one is on a totally fat-free diet (and the Japanese diet is by
: no means FAT-free), there will be no deficiency in building blocks to
: synthesize cholesterol. Saturated fats (those found in meat are NOT
: required for humans to synthesize cholesterol).

Whew. Scratch this. It's totally wrong. I have no explanation why I
remembered it this way. Corrected explination of cholesterol operation
found above.

: >> Their bodies want to make it to produce eicosanoids according
: >> to genetic programs. However, lacking the building blocks that
: >> are found in beef, chicken (cage raised), some game animals,
: >> and other sources of cholesterol -- cannot. In a sense, they
: >> have a dietary deficiency which starves their own bodies
: >> cholesterol production mechanisms and protects them to
: >> some (small) degree.
: ????

You're right: ????. I really blew it here. Really... blewit..here...
I am not even sure what I got it confused with. Just ????
Next time I'll go buy a smaller shoe when I put my foot in my mouth.

: >>
: >> Combine the 3 so that you have a group of people with relatively lax
: >> insulin responses as compared to americans and this yeilds an anecdotal
: >> illusion that humans can eat all the rice or other carbohydrates they
: >> want without heart problems. As a gene pool, we are more
: susceptable to insulin resistance, meaning that we are more likely to
: have much more insulin in our systems, and we eat meat. Combine high
: insulin with cholesterol sources and you get a population with a lot of
: clogged arteries and hypertension.
: >>
: >> Our medical "guru's" here tell you not to eat cholesterol because it
: >> "produces blood serum cholesterol that causes hardening of the
: >> arteries". This is a serious deception. Cholesterol is digested to
: >> form readily availiable building blocks for cholesterol, which your
: >> body then uses if it wants to. If you ate cholesterol and it went into
: >> your bloodstream as they claim, you would go into anaphylactic shock
: >> whenever you ate any kind of food. Human cholesterol is produced in
: >> response to insulin levels as a building block to build eicosanoids.
: Production of cholestoerol is by a completely different pathway, and
: therefore plays no role, in the production of eicosanoids.

ACK. Foot in mouth. Rewrite:

Our medical "guru's" tell you not to eat cholesterol because it
"produces blood serup cholesterol that causes hardening of the
arteries." This is a serious deception. On a high protien, low
carbohydrate diet, your body cells will absorb almost all of this
cholesterol and use it to build internal parts such as cell walls.
On a USDA diet with lots of starch and resulting high insulin levels, the
LDL cholesterol you eat will not get taken up into the cells because
the high insulin levels tell the cells to make their own cholesterol.
The dietary cholesterol just floats around in the bloodstream and
eventually settles on the artery walls, hardening the arteries.
In otherwords, if you eat lots of grain, sugars, fruit juices, or
other forms of high GI carbohydrates then you can't eat cholesterol
or your arteries will harden. If you refuse to eat insulin producing
foods, and you eat lots of protien, you can eat all the cholesterol
you can physically gag down, and you won't have excessive cholesterol
levels.

: > You should be going out of your way to limit cholesterol PRODUCTION. Do that by inhibiting insulin by
: >> avoiding large quantities of carbohydrates, and especially avoiding
: >> starches. Fruit juices and soda pop are basically sugar and water and
: >> also are a culprit in this because of the sheer quantities in which we
: >> consume them. So incidently is the quantity of lactose in milk in
: >> people who drink a lot of milk (assuming that they have the genes
: for lactase enzyme to break down the lactose into glucose).

OOPS.

: Not necessarily.
: Milk is basically a "balanced" food. It has sufficient protein (casein)
: to offset an insulin spike resulting form the disacchardie lactose.

Milk is not a balanced food. It's glue, trans-fats, dissacharide,
and water. The casein is at a level 300 times that of human milk.
There just isn't enough renin in the digestive system to make a dent
in the casien protien, and so it sits there as little more than glue.
The casien wads itself up into curds, and the majority of the
lactose sugar sits outside of those curds. Casein takes so long to
digest (the part that does digest) that it doesn't act fast enough
to trigger glucagon production to match the insulin produced in
response to the broken down lactose. There is no balance there at
all. I don't understand what you mean by "offsets" the dissacharide.
In stomach acids, the dissaride and the protien seperate. There is
nothing to slow down the decomposition of the lactose sugar. And
the lactose has a GI that varies quite dramatically from person to
person depending upon the quantity of lactase produced by that person.
Some people get quite an insulin spike from it, some people get
literally nothing but diarhea because they can't split the dissacharide
it.

: I agree with you that overreliance on grains has increased our
: susceptibility to hyperinsulinemia, and quite likely, to the risk of
: hypertension. It is unfortunate that you undermine your argument with
: so many scientific misstatements.

My style probably is non-optimal. Basically, cholesterol and hypertension
problems are caused by high carb diets.

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