Understanding Nutrition Related Disease

Many of us think of nutrition as the facts labeled on the side of the package at our grocery store, a collection of fats, sugars, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals that are measured as a percentage of what we should ideally consume in a day. We compare our intake with the FDA Recommended Daily Amounts, without thinking much about what this means.

Most people, especially if they are on a diet, just look at the calories.

Most people have some awareness of vitamins, and other nutrients, without a clear idea of why we need them, or real concern with whether they are getting enough. We think about getting Vitamin C if we have a cold, without knowing what that connection is between that vitamin and the illness.

The fact is nutrition directly impacts health. We need balanced nutrition to maintain optimum health, but there is also a direct connection between nutrition and disease.

The USDA's first nutrition guideline was published in 1894. The guideline, later published in 1904 titled "Principles of Nutrition and Nutritive Value of Food, promoted variety, and moderation. Its primarily focus was toward nutrient rich foods, with less fat, sugars and starch. This information came before the discovery of individual vitamins which began in 1910.

Interestingly, even after defining vitamins, somehow breads and starches found their way to the base, or the foundation of the 1992 Food Pyramid. Since then, the USDA continued to reshape the pyramid, and finally landed on My Plate on June 2, 2011.

A lot of government dollars are going into a defining pictorial representation of a healthy diet. They keep breaking it up into proportions, attempting to show the importance of fruits and vegetables. The current My Plate shows fruits and vegetables taking up half of the plate which shows the importance of making those foods a priority, but the image also seems to suggest that we should be drinking a lot of milk, as dairy is represented as a glass, and no other beverages (fruit juice, water, wine etc) are subsets of that shape. There is also a complete absence of sugars and fats; this may be to indicate that they are not part of any recommended diet. While it is good to show that some fats and sugars are not recommended, having them completely absent from the image also lacks to ability to recommend that we consume them 'sparingly', a concept that came across in previous pyramids.

What the USDA pyramids and plates have lost, is the original focus on 'nutrient dense' foods. It seems to be an over-simplification that says eat variety, without a clear understanding of what variety means, or what foods are healthier choices than others.

Maybe we should go back to the 1904 version.

The makers of foods label the nutrition facts, not out of an altruistic desire to provide us with helpful information, but because the government tells them to. That's not to say that they are all trying to deceive us, it's just that they are solely in the business of producing food.

There is a LOT more in your food than what's on the label.

They label fats, and sugars and calories, because we want to limit our intake of these. What they don't label is whether the food includes GMO ingredients. It may list additives, but we aren't told whether we should limit or avoid them, because they are not part of the required labeling.

In terms of what we DO want nutritionally, it lists a finite number of vitamins and minerals, and their recommended daily values. What we don't know, is whether these vitamins come naturally in the food (the healthiest option), or whether it has been added. A good clue that they are synthetic vitamins added are if the list is consistent throughout, for example: exactly 25% of the RDA of most vitamins listed on a package of cereal. Knowing this confirms that the micro-nutrients and enzymes that help us absorb and utilize important nutrients are also NOT listed.

So, even with nutrition fact labeling required by the government, we can't rely on the labeling of foods to make sure we are, 1) getting enough of the right nutrients, or 2) avoiding any unhealthy ingredients.

Even more confusing is that the nutrition facts on food labels are based on recommended daily values that often change, and are not even consistent from one agency to the next. They are meant to be revised every 5 to 10 years, but it should be revised to reflect our growing understanding of nutrition.

The RDAs, or Recommended Daily Allowances were accepted in 1941. These allowances were set forth as follows: "The standards would be used for nutrition recommendations for the armed forces, for civilians, and for overseas population who might need food relief."

It's a set of minimum requirements.

To understand this in context, the recommended daily value of Vitamin C is the minimum needed to prevent scurvy (a disease that was common among sailors who didn't have access to fresh fruits). That's not exactly ideal for optimum health. In fact, laboratory monkeys are given more Vitamin C in their diets to prevent malnourishment from affecting the outcome of experiments.

To recap: We can't count on nutrition labels to give a complete picture of the nutrients in our food, and we can't go by the recommended amounts - because they're not really a recommended 'ideal' target, they are the bare minimum in many cases.

Bare minimum values, listed on foods with synthetic vitamins added to 'enrich' an otherwise depleted food, is far from ideal nutritionally.

The initial purpose seems to have been lost. Government guidelines have devolved into mis-information. Our nutritional needs are far greater than the recommendations, and we need to obtain nutrients from natural nutrient dense foods (green leafy vegetables) rather than highly processed, chemical ridden, packaged foods.

Why is this important?

With an obsession about dieting and calories, we have an obese culture, that is on a steady diet of low-fat, low calorie foods. People are starving, and getting fat. How can that be? Because their body is craving nutrients that it's not getting.

Aside from our desire to lose weight and look good, there's another concern: when we don't get the right foods, we get sick.

There is plenty of information available that shows that a deficiency of nutrients can lead to disease. In the winter months, we don't get as much Vitamin D, and that can increase our vulnerability to colds and flus. Not enough Vitamin C causes scurvy, but also not getting enough Vitamin C means our immune system may not have all it needs to fight off diseases when they come. Not enough iron can cause anemia, and low energy. Not enough calcium can cause Osteoporosis and bone loss.

These are extreme deficiencies, but not getting enough of all of the required nutrients will take its toll on the system.

For example, a deficiency of Vitamin D can affect the development of cells, teeth, and bones. It affects the regulation of hormones which can lead to hormone related cancers, such as breast cancer. It affects the immune system and nervous system.

We are still learning about nutrients and how they help the body function. The fact is, people are eating more, but are under-nourished.

Getting enough Vitamin D helps reduce your risk of certain cancers and autoimmune diseases, arthritis, and diabetes. Since we've been seeing an increase in these chronic conditions, I would suggest that the increase is related to a general nutritional deficiency.

We are not getting the nutrients we need. Chronic illnesses are on the rise. Our diets are out of balance, and it shows. We are over-fed, and under-nourished.

We are provided with Nutrition Labels and not getting the nutrition we need to prevent illness.

There is also a risk from over-nourishment.

An excess of calories, fats and sugars leads to obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It also clogs the system and can reduce the absorption of nutrients needed for proper immune function.

But, even individual nutrients can be problematic in excess.

Vitamin A, for example, is stored in the body, so we want to make sure we don't consume toxic levels of this vitamin. That is pretty hard to do, since it would be difficult to consume toxic levels of carrots or other yellow fruits and veggies. The upper limit of Vitamin A is set at 10,000 IU a day, and such an excess can lead to hair loss, confusion and liver damage. That said, your body makes all the Vitamin A it needs from beta-carotene which the body can handle up to 100,000 IU a day (although these levels may cause an orange tint to your skin, this side effect is innocuous).

Too much Calcium can cause fatigue, depression, and confusion. That said, I have never heard of someone suffering from Calcium poisoning.

Too much Vitamin C can cause diarrhea that leads to dehydration. Again, it is hard to get an excess from diet alone. For example, a medium orange contains about 50-70 mg of Vitamin C. You would need to consume close to 10 grams, or 10,000 mg, up to 200 oranges a day to get diarrhea. One hopes that a varied diet will prevent this particular illness.

There are a growing number of diet-related diseases. Some of these are diseases related to excess, and some proliferate because we aren't getting what we need from our diet.

How do we make sure we are getting optimum nutrition?

We can't assume we will get useful information from nutrition labels. We have to be our own guide. Look back at the origins of nutrition guidelines:

1. Eat Nutrient Dense Foods: this means have a focus on foods that provide for our nutritional needs: a colorful variety of vegetables and fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, quality grass-fed beef, or meats from small local farms.
   
   
2. Minimize Starches, Fats, and Sugars: The purpose of this was to avoid foods that have low nutritional value, but fill us up, preventing us from getting the nutrition we need. The modern version of this are the highly processed packaged foods. Our population is filling up on empty calories.

This is a great start, and better than My Plate as a guide to meet your nutrition needs. We need to add to this the need to minimize the chemical additives in packaged foods, which are still not fully understood.

Many, if not most, diseases relate directly to diet.

Good quality, nutrient dense, whole foods reduce that risk.