Establishing a nutritional base that works for your genetics
Nutritional deficiencies are likely the cause of, or a major contributing factor to, your illness or low energy. Therefore, shifting your diet to one that delivers the nutrition that your genetics require is one of the first steps to solving your health problem.
Diets to consider
Starting with four observations about diets
Determining the diet for your genetics
Determining what you need through intuitive eating
Determining your nutritional deficiencies through symptoms and blood work
Getting nutrition through food versus supplements
We argue that it best to use both healthy food and dietary supplements effectively, rather than to get overly ideological about what is and is not natural or what should be the sole solution for good health.
The advantage of nutrition through food
Considerations when getting nutrition through food
The advantage of nutrition through dietary supplements
Considerations when getting nutrition through supplements
Diets to consider
- Carnivore diet: Focus on fresh meat and eggs. Some carnivores eat organ meat (e.g., liver and kidneys) whereas others do not. Avoid deli meats (e.g., salami and ham) as they contain preservatives and other additives linked to cancer. Avoid canned meats due to their preservatives and the lining of the can. The diet can include dairy in moderation if it proves not to be a problem. Keep an eye on electrolyte issues. Saturated fat and cholesterol are not inherently bad despite some sources still promoting this narrative. The diet is a potential option for diabetics. See Dr Anthony Chaffee's channel for a place to start.
- Ketogenic diet: Focus on high fat, controlled protein intake, and low carbs. The diet can be difficult to maintain and may require initial guidance. Avoid processed 'keto' snacks with artificial sweeteners. The diet is a potentially optimal option for diabetics.
- Paleo diet: Focus on whole, unprocessed foods. The diet can provide a high level of nutrition and get you off processed food. Avoid overindulging in 'paleo treats'.
- Low-carb diets: These are a range of diets that can be meat or vegetarian based and include less grain, sugar, starch and processed food. Avoid highly processed high-protein snacks and drinks with artificial sweeteners. Eat meat or beans for protein. The diet must comprise real food.
- Vegetarian diet: The diet must be varied. Include healthy fats, such as avocado oil, olive oil or coconut oil. Avoid processed food and corn, soy, peanut and canola oils. Eat organic grains whenever possible due to the pesticide load of most grain products. Eat food in season. Avoid pesticides and foods high in oxalate.
- Mediterranean diet: A varied diet from Europe. Focus on making meals rather than buying processed foods. Keep to olive oil and avoid seed oils. Eat organic grains whenever possible due to the pesticide load of most grain products.
- Ayurvedic diet: An ancient Indian diet. The diet classifies people into three groups, which need to eat different foods. The diet focuses on eating food that is in season, eating natural foods as opposed to processed foods, eating and drinking food and water at warm temperatures, being mindful when eating, and avoiding certain combinations of foods.
- Low-oxalate diet: Oxalates form hard and sharp deposits in the body, causing much pain. Although the most well-known example of an oxalate issue is the formation of kidney stones, oxalates at least partially contribute to some autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, and joint pain. A low-oxalate diet attempts to limit the consumption of oxalate found in plants. See the Trying Low Oxalates Facebook page for a place to start.
- FODMAP diet: The diet restricts foods that are high in certain carbohydrates and then reintroduces them in a structured way to identify which foods trigger symptoms. The diet was developed by Monash University for people with gut problems, such as irritable bowel syndrome and other digestive disorders. See the official website for the FODMAP diet.
- Intermittent fasting: Intermittent fasting involves eating each day within a time window of no more 8 hours and/or removing breakfast or dinner. This does not necessarily mean eating less food but eating within a shorter time window. It is a straight-forward diet that is one of the best options for weight loss. It is not suitable for pregnant or breast-feeding mothers, or type-1 diabetics. See Dr Jason Fung's channel for a place to start.
- Fasting: Fasting is extremely effective for healing disease and weight loss. It requires research to understand the process. The aim is to enter autophagy, a process that occurs naturally within the body whereby the body breaks down and recycles damaged or dysfunctional parts of cells. Fasting is not suitable for people with a history of bulimia or anorexia, pregnant or breast-feeding mothers, or type-1 diabetics.
Starting with four observations about diets
- The quality of food in developed countries is worsening such that we are becoming unhealthier.
- Most recommended diets work well because they tend to reduce your consumption of processed foods and/or encourage you to prepare and cook your own food. Hence, raw vegan, carnivore, keto and other diets all have their supporters despite being very different from one another.
- However, these diets work only if done properly. For instance, a carnivore might need to eat organ meat for its nutrients, and a vegetarian cannot exist on potato crisps and bread.
- The idea that there is one diet that works for everyone is beyond ridiculous. We have very different genetics. One person might have been born to eat raw meat and liver, whereas someone else might have been born to eat fruit and fish. Think about what you do best on.
Determining the diet for your genetics
- Determining the ideal diet for your genetics is not difficult. Think about what you love to eat. However, we must exclude flavouring. You are a born carnivore if you like eating raw or rare meat, not if you like to cover your steak in sauce.
- You should find that you do better, health-wise, on your genetically aligned diet.
- The diet most suitable for your genetics often aligns with your blood group. For instance, natural vegetarians tend to be A blood type whereas natural carnivores tend to be O blood type.
- There are occasions that you might not be able to follow your genetically aligned diet, such as if you have a gut bacterial imbalance that makes it difficult to properly digest certain foods.
Determining what you need through intuitive eating
- Ideally, we can determine the nutrients that we need by paying attention to what we want to eat. A food rich in a needed nutrient will be appealing to us, until we have consumed enough of that nutrient.
- However, such intuitive eating requires us to first overcome our addictions, particularly our addictions to sugars and carbohydrates as well as flavourings. Are you really wanting the nutrition in that apple or are you addicted to the sugar in the apple? Typically, we become satiated after eating enough of a nutrient that we need, whereas we cannot stop eating or drinking something that we are addicted to.
- Eating one food at a time, such as just carrots or just broccoli, gives us a better chance of working out what the body needs.
- Adopting intuitive eating means that there is no sauce or dressing on the food.
Determining your nutritional deficiencies through symptoms and blood work
- Determining your nutritional deficiencies from symptoms alone is challenging. First, different deficiencies can have similar symptoms. Second, the symptoms of a nutritional deficiency can be similar to the symptoms of an excess of the same nutrient.
- Therefore, in addition to paying attention to your symptoms, consider getting blood tests. But first, do your research. Learn the adequate level of a mineral or vitamin. Find out what is specifically being tested in a blood test; e.g., in the case of iron, is the test measuring the serum iron or the ferritin or the transferrin or the hemoglobin or the iron-binding capacity or something else, and what does that matter? If you are involving your doctor, present yourself as someone who has symptoms that justify the blood work that you want, rather than presenting your doctor with a list of desired blood tests.
- In saying the above, blood tests themselves are not the holy grail to health. They provide limited information for you to work with. Ultimately, it is how you feel that guides you.
Getting nutrition through food versus supplements
We argue that it best to use both healthy food and dietary supplements effectively, rather than to get overly ideological about what is and is not natural or what should be the sole solution for good health.
The advantage of nutrition through food
- The advantage to eating nutritious food is that it provides us with a wide range of nutrients. Food includes nutrients that we do not know much about from a scientific viewpoint but may well be important to our health, in addition to substances that help us digest and absorb nutrients and maintain the health of our gut. Furthermore, if we are free from food addictions, we are attracted to foods that contain the nutrients that we, as individuals having different genetics, need at a particular time. We can let our bodies guide us in our consumption of nutrients.
Considerations when getting nutrition through food
- Do plants and livestock even contain the nutrients that they are supposed to? Owing to changes in farming practices, plants have less access to nutrients in the soil. Specifically, we have destroyed much of the microbiome in the soil, and it is this microbiome that makes nutrients available to plants. Crops and animals do not make minerals, rather they get minerals from the soil. Our food can thus be deficient in minerals. Moreover, food is now stored for long periods and transported over great distances, during which time the levels of nutrients such as vitamins decrease. We cannot solely rely on what an information sheet tells us is supposed to be in a particular food. Rather, we must also consider how our food is being grown and where it comes from.
- Modern versions of fruits and vegetables have been modified such that they are often very different from what the fruits and vegetables were just a few decades ago. These modifications have often been at the expense of the nutrition that the fruits and vegetables contain.
- The processing of food typically removes nutrition.
- Few foods in the health section of the supermarket are healthy.
- Even a natural food can be a poor choice. For instance, spinach contains a high level of oxalate, which is a substance that many people, if not all people, should avoid. Many people should be treating potatoes, tomatoes and capsicums as poisons as they can bring on an arthritic episode. Others will react to the sprays applied to fruit.
- How can we consume the EPA and DHA forms of omega 3 if we can no longer afford to buy fish regularly?
- Can we consume enough of a nutrient to have an immediate therapeutic effect? For instance, a single ordinary tablet of vitamin C might have 20 times the vitamin C content of a lemon and thus be a better solution for treating an illness.
- Can we consume enough nutrients from food to address a nutritional deficiency that we have had for decades? Addressing chronic deficiencies typically requires high-dose supplementation.
- Are we overeating because our food is no longer nutritionally dense and we are therefore unsatiated by consuming a normal volume of food? That is, can we eat a more suitable volume of food and maintain better weight if we also take dietary supplements?
- Do we have a diet that sounds good on paper or suits our beliefs about what is healthy, rather than a diet that actually suits our genetic package? Are we caught up with an ideology of what constitutes a good diet?
The advantage of nutrition through dietary supplements
- The advantage to taking dietary supplements is that they provide nutrients in far higher doses than food. Moreover, we can use supplements to fill specific nutritional gaps in our diet. Furthermore, we can take supplements in high doses as medicines, either to address nutritional deficiencies that we have suffered for years or decades or to supply our immune system with what it needs to work optimally when fighting infections.
Considerations when getting nutrition through supplements
- Do we know what the body needs? Do we know how much of a nutrient to take? Unlike consuming food, there is no taste feedback guiding our consumption of a nutrient.
- Are we taking the nutrient in a high enough dose? In many cases that a dietary supplement is ineffective, the issue is that the dose is too low. Regulators often limit the dose of a vitamin or mineral that a dietary supplement can contain, sometimes for good reason but usually not.
- Even in the case of a high dose, are we absorbing much of the nutrient? Many dietary supplements are not well absorbed or utilized, although nutrients do tend to be better absorbed and utilized when the body needs them. For instance, when you are in good health, your body might be able to handle the consumption of only a few grams of vitamin C whereas it handles many times this amount when sick. Furthermore, in premium supplements, the minerals are chelated with amino acids such that they are absorbed similarly to minerals naturally occurring in food and the vitamins are encapsulated in liposomes so that they can be absorbed in doses many times higher than vitamins in food.
- Are we taking a multivitamin dietary supplement so that we can excuse ourselves when eating poorly?
- The high dosing of one nutrient can reduce the absorption of another nutrient.
- The body typically uses a nutrient in combination with other nutrients. Do we have all the co-factors that we need to properly use the nutrient that we are supplementing? For example, we might want to take vitamin K and magnesium when supplementing vitamin D.
- Are we feeding our infection through supplementation? Our body's immune system uses a wide array of nutrients to work optimally, and it benefits from supplementation, but a bacterial or other infection might feed off the same nutrients.