Lisa's Journey: Diet

When I say 'diet,' I don't mean a temporary change in eating habits; I mean the lifestyle choices we make for sustaining life. I have never yo-yo dieted; neither have I believed that either deprivation or gluttony is healthy.

I adopted a Paleo-type diet for my irritable bowel in 2011, nearly three years before my Hashi's diagnosis. Gluten-free, low carb, high-quality protein, nutrient-dense foods, healthy fats, fermented veggies and beverages. After my diagnosis, I retrieved copies of my lab reports dating back to 2009, wondering how long the condition had been evident in my lab work.

When I saw that my liver enzymes had been chronically elevated, and not a single doctor told me, I was not only angry with the medical sysytem, I also wondered if my low-carb diet contributed to liver stress... The body's preferred form of energy is glucose. It can convert fat and protein into glucose for fuel, but this requires extra effort on the liver's part as well as twice as much oxygen and thyroid hormone.

Are advocates of vegan diets correct? We don't have carnivore teeth; neither do we have long digestive systems like ruminants. What about protein? Do we need the high amounts advocated by many people in the low-carb community? Cows make muscle meat from grass. Can we get all the protein we need from plants? Maybe Dr John McDougal is right, that we need to eat starches.

Paleo advocates say that muscle meats from animals that have a natural grass diet do not produce or contribute to acidosis when consumed, whereas those raised on corn in caged-animal feeding operations do. While I find logic in the argument that the quality of fats produced by them may have differences in their inflammatory properties, I'm not sure we can conclude that there are differences in the pH of digested meat or amount of stress placed on the liver.

I learned a real factoid about canine livers becoming more toxic with age due to their high animal protein diets from a criminal-drama television series. Does this suggest that all meat, wild or not, strains and poisons the liver, even in true carnivores? Can meat be addictive? Might you crave it because the microbes in you want it? Does a craving for meat suggest deficiency in plant nutrients?

Who's right? Is there a diet that suits all humans, regardless of genetic ancestry? On one side of the debate we have Terry Wahls, who has MS and makes a compelling argument for a ketogenic diet, and Dean Ornish on the other side who has reversed heart disease in thousands of patients with a vegan diet. Why does it seems that more autoimmune patients find relief from their symptoms on a ketogenic diet than on a vegan diet?

My theory is that the answer has to do with our individual microbiomes. ...More to come in my next entry.