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Obesity is a Disease -
Are Refined Carbohydrates the Cause?

By Patrick Earvolino

Burn more calories than you eat, and you’ll lose fat. This belief, known as the calories-in calories-out theory, is an unquestioned principle of nutrition. We all buy it. And it makes sense—if we assume all calories behave the same in the body, or as the dietitians like to put it, “a calorie is a calorie,” whether it comes from fat or carbohydrate or whatever. The only problem with this seemingly sensible idea is, well, it’s not true.

Back in the early 1960s, Dr. George Campbell was working at a hospital in Natal, South Africa, where he was studying a local population of Indian immigrants. Although the Natal Indians were utterly impoverished, living on as little as 1600 calories a day and toiling for hours on end in the local sugar plantations, many of them were “enormously fat,” as Campbell put it. How could this be, when the calories-in calories-out theory says the Natal Indians should have been deathly thin?

Whole Lotta Carbing Goin' On
Since the caloric theory couldn’t account for what was going on, Campbell looked for clues in the specific foods the Indians were eating. Their diet was very low in fat, so that didn’t appear to be the issue. They did, on the other hand, eat about 80 pounds of sugar each year-or about 25% of a 1600-calorie diet-as well as lots of refined complex carbohydrates such as white flour. One can imagine Campbell wondering whether there was something about sugar and other refined carbohydrates that was messing up the metabolism of his patients and making them store fat they couldn’t burn off.

Now if one is looking for a connection between fat storage and carbohydrate consumption, the hormone insulin is a great place to start. Insulin not only dictates whether fat is to be stored by the body or used as fuel, its production depends how much glucose, the end product of carbohydrate digestion, is in the blood. So we have a connection:
Carbohydrates - > Insulin - > Fat storage

And You Thought Fat Just Sat There
While it’s often said in nutrition that carbohydrates are the “preferred fuel source of the body,” this is incorrect. Metabolism researchers have known since the 1960s that the body gets the majority of its fuel from fat tissue, which continually releases fatty acids that circulate through the blood, ready to be utilized as energy or returned back to the fat cells if not needed. Fat tissue is like “money in the bank” when it comes to fuel production in the body.

If fat cells represent our savings account, then glucose is our ready cash. As soon as it hits the blood, it causes the pancreas to secrete insulin, which in turn moves some of the glucose into the cells for use as fuel. Much of the rest of the glucose is converted to fat and sent to the fat cells for storage, reflecting the importance the body places on having money in the bank.

Glucose and fatty acids work in tandem to keep the supply of energy to the body steady. When glucose in the blood is high, the body’s cells use it as their main fuel and draw little from the fat supplies. When blood glucose is low (like when you’re asleep or haven’t eaten in a while), the cells use fatty acids as their main fuel. In other words, when there’s cash (glucose) in the wallet, we use that to pay our cells. When cash is tight, we draw from our savings account (fat). Yet under certain conditions, as we’ll see, we can’t access the fat in our savings account regardless of how much glucose is in the blood. It’s as if someone took away our debit card and put us on a cash-only plan.

The Trouble With Insulin
The chief regulator of the whole glucose-fatty acid operation is insulin. This hormone is most famously known for its function of moving glucose from the blood into the body’s cells. But here’s the key to this whole discussion: Insulin also prevents fatty acids from leaving the fat cells. So if there is too much insulin in the blood for too long a time-a condition known as hyperinsulinemia-you can’t access your fat savings. This is what we meant about having your debit card taken away. All you can use to pay your cells when insulin is high is glucose.

So how does insulin become abnormally high in the blood? You probably guessed: through the consumption of refined carbohydrates. Something about the way these foods are digested promotes hyperinsulinemia. The persistently high amount of insulin in the blood denies us access to our fat supplies and puts us on a glucose-only metabolism. As long as we continue to get most of our calories from refined carbohydrates, insulin remains high and fat storage continues. “Carbohydrate is driving insulin is driving fat,” in the words of Harvard endocrinologist George Cahill.

Calories In...But Not Out
This carbohydrate-driven dysfunction of insulin behavior explains why the Natal Indians were overweight in spite of eating so few calories, and why the calories-in calories-out theory doesn’t hold for the human body: in eating sugar and other refined carbohydrates as our main fuel source, we shut off access to our fat stores. Calories go in, but they don’t come out. This also explains why a person on a low-calorie, high-carbohydrate diet is often fatigued. The person takes in less fuel than normal yet is unable to access energy from the fat cells to maintain the normal operations of the body’s cells. So the cells respond by slowing down their metabolism, and instead of burning fat, the dieter just gets tired.

Most of all, hyperinsulinemic weight gain forces us to reconsider the nature of obesity. In most cases it isn’t a matter of gluttony-the inability to keep from the dinner table-but rather a glitch in a basic hormonal system of the human body by which calories are shoved into fat cells and made unavailable. That this should occur isn’t particularly surprising, since refined carbohydrates don’t remotely resemble the foods our fuel production system evolved on. The surprise is we continue to believe “a calorie is a calorie” and “calories in, calories out” in light of all this.

Patrick Earvolino is a Certified Nutritionist and owner of New Basics Nutrition in Louisville, Colorado. He is available for nutritional counseling, writing, or public speaking. You can contact him at 303-513-1996 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Nutrition in the Kitchen

In the old days before probiotic supplements, people kept their intestinal flora balanced with the help of lactobacillus-fermented foods. While cabbage (sauerkraut) and cucumbers (pickles) are the usual suspects, just about any vegetable can be fermented, notes Sandor Katz in his book Wild Fermentation. Inspired by Katz, Kristin Savory, LAc, offers the following recipe.

Fermented Zucchini, Chickpeas and Onions

2-3 zucchini and/or yellow squash, sliced
1 cup cooked chickpeas (canned are fine)
1 medium yellow onion, sliced
1 teaspoon dill
1 tablespoon sea salt
A 1-quart jar
A lid or small plate that fits within the 1-quart jar
Another, smaller jar to use as a weight

1. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl. Using your hands, put a handful of the mixture in the quart jar and then make a fist and press the mixture down in the jar as far as possible. Repeat, alternating between transferring the vegetable mixture from the bowl and pressing it down. When the mixture is within a half inch of the top of the jar, place the lid or plate on top of it. Press the lid down firmly and place the smaller jar on top to weight the mixture down.

2. Set the mixture aside on the counter. Continue to press down on the smaller jar throughout the day. After 24 hours, a brine should cover the vegetables. Allow the mixture to continue to ferment, at room temperature on the counter, for about a week to desired taste. (The longer the fermentation period, the more sour the final product.) Transfer the mixture to the refrigerator.

Variations: Other vegetable mixtures Kristin enjoys include beets, greens, ginger and turmeric; beets, carrots and almonds; and chickpeas, red peppers, onions and garlic.

Kristin Savory, L.Ac., is an acupuncturist in private practice in Boulder, CO. She has studied the work of nutritional pioneer Weston A. Price and believes in teaching her clients how to care for themselves through nutritional basics. While not at work, Kristin spends time cooking, dreaming and playing silly games with her two children.

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Ask the Doc

Each issue, we put readers’ questions to a doctor rooted in the holistic nutritional principles of the great Dr. Royal Lee. If you have a nutrition-related question you’d like our doctor to answer in a future newsletter, please email it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Dear Dr. Gaeta:

Q. Which minerals are important for my joints?

A. Joints are more than just bones. They include muscles, tendons and ligaments. One of the most important minerals for the joints is the trace mineral manganese. Sixty years ago, Dr. Royal Lee described the functions of this essential mineral in joint health. He found that manganese is critical for the strength and integrity of not just bones but ligaments, discs, cartilage and tendons. The common thread here is collagen, a protein that makes up the bulk of each of these and requires manganese for its strength.

Other minerals important for joint health include calcium, magnesium, iodine, zinc, copper and iron. Kelp and alfalfa are especially good sources of these nutrients. In my practice over the past twenty years, I’ve found a kelp-and-alfalfa-rich supplement called Trace Minerals-B12 by Standard Process to be indispensable. This food-based formula provides manganese and many other food-source minerals. Remember that the only source of nutrition for your body is food, so the best supplements for your body are also made of food. A multi-mineral food-based formula like this one is ideal for those who want to keep their joints healthy and strong.

Q. What are some ways I can be stronger and have more endurance during exercise?

A. There are many ways to make the most of your exercise. Drinking plenty of water helps a lot. I recommend drinking half your body weight in ounces each day, and more on a hot or very active day. A sprinkle of sea salt in your water will provide important electrolytes for your system. An underappreciated energy food is raw wheat germ. This is a true “super food” that improves muscular strength, physical endurance and even hormone balance. I take a tablespoon per day in some raw milk or a smoothie and recommend the same for all my patients.

In terms of vitamins and exercise, my favorite is the vitamin E complex. Wheat germ oil is the richest source of natural E complex in the world. Fifty years ago, Dr. Lee reported on a study with college professors in which taking just a few of his Wheat Germ Oil perles per day dramatically improved how long the subjects could ride a treadmill before fatigue. I find that three or four of these little perles plus the wheat germ sure helps me cycle, hike or climb faster and longer.

Another favorite recommendation for my patients is Dr. Lee’s formula Cataplex E2, a vitamin E concentrate he introduced in 1949 that provides a muscle-oxygenating factor effective in improving high-altitude performance. Mountain climbers and endurance athletes have long used it to improve their performance. Recently, a group of climbers used it to help them successfully reach the summit of Mt. Everest.

Dr Michael Gaeta is a clinical nutritionist, acupuncturist, herbalist and lecturer based in northern Colorado. He may be reached at 917-613-4501, or at www.gaetacommunications.com.

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From the Archives

In each issue of Milk and Honey, we reach into SRP’s Historical Archives—a free, searchable database of seminal works in the history of nutrition-to examine the investigations of nutrition’s great pioneers. While many of the discoveries of these researchers are unknown to conventional nutrition today, their truths continue to be validated through modern research and clinical observation.

Lactic Acid Yeast The First Probiotic Supplement?

By Patrick Earvolino

These days when the topic of constipation comes up, the conversation usually moves straight to fiber. Yet even a cursory review of clinical cases and Internet posts reveals that for many people, fiber does little to relieve symptoms. In fact, for some people it even makes things worse. In his signature work, Applied Nutrition (1947), Dr. Harold Hawkins-summing a lifetime of clinical observations-cites the over-consumption of fruits and vegetables as one cause of constipation.

In 1940, Drs. Chester Lyon and James Hart were not looking to fiber as the solution to the chronic constipation they were seeing in so many of their patients. They focused instead on another possible answer to the problem, one that was decades ahead of its time though it would not raise many eyebrows today: intestinal flora.

“It has been demonstrated time and again,” they wrote in a January 1940 study published in the journal Clinical Osteopathy , “that the stools of patients who are constipated are, in a very large majority, highly alkaline....” Acidifying the alkaline environment of the colon “destroys or inhibits the growth of many of the pathogenic bacteria thriving in an alkaline medium. The normal nonpathogens are [then] permitted to return and nourish in this newly acquired acid medium, which is normal in healthy individuals.”

In other words, if you’re constipated, it’s likely your colon needs more than just fiber. It needs to be acidified-a process that promotes the growth of good bacteria and creates a deadly environment for bad bacteria, resulting in normal bowel evacuation.

In their study, Lyon and Hart tested, with great success, a special type of “mycelium” yeast that acidifies the GI tract by converting carbohydrates into lactic acid. Importantly, they found the yeast did not start feeding until 12-15 hours after being ingested, meaning it waited until it was in the colon before it started producing acid. As it passed through the bowel excreting lactic acid, it also doubled in size, providing bulk, like fiber does, to stimulate bowel movement. Through this one-two combination of bulk formation and acidification, the yeast helped restore normal bowel function both immediately and in the long term (unlike fiber, which only works-if at all-in the short term).

The doctors also concluded that the special yeast produced beneficial vitamins and enzymes as it moved through the patients, many of whom observed the disappearance of “vague pains” and other symptoms not directly associated with constipation. In essence, Lyon and Hart had conducted one of the earliest investigations of a probiotic.

While today the probiotic of choice is lactobacillus bacteria, the mycelium yeast Lyon and Hart investigated remains a remarkably effective probiotic-perhaps the most effective. In his research of all probiotic supplements, the renowned Dr. David Williams found mycelium yeast-in the form of Lactic Acid Yeast, developed by Dr. Royal Lee-to be the most successful in reestablishing the natural balance of flora in the intestines. One reason for this may be that mycelium yeast feeds on a broader range of carbohydrates than lactobacillus, allowing it to turn essentially any carbohydrate into lactic acid while simultaneously stimulating the colon and supplying nutrients to the body.

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Published by Selene River Press

Stephanie Anderson, Publisher
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