Does a high fibre diet prevent disease?
All doctors (and probably most non-doctors) have heard of Burkitt’s lymphoma, a type of cancer found primarily in children living in malaria-endemic areas in Africa. Denis Burkitt was the first person to describe the disease, and also the first person to propose that there was an environmental cause (now known to be simultaneous infection by both malaria and Epstein-Barr virus).
Most doctors probably don’t know that Denis Burkitt is also almost single-handedly responsible for the now widespread belief that dietary fibre is an important part of a healthy diet. Interestingly, Burkitt developed his ideas about dietary fibre after corresponding with a less well known doctor called Thomas Cleave (who hasn’t been allowed to give his name to any diseases).
Cleave was interested in the connection between diet and disease, and had noticed how the transition from a traditional diet to a modern diet, rich in refined carbohydrates, was associated with a massive increase in a large number of diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. He even wrote a book on the subject. Burkitt was introduced to Cleave in the late 1960’s by epidemiologist Richard Doll (himself famous for discovering that smoking causes lung cancer).
Burkitt was deeply affected by Cleave’s ideas, and in particular his conception that all the “diseases of civilization” had a single underlying cause, but he took the data and went off in a different direction with it. While Cleave believed that it was the refined carbohydrates in the modern diet that were causing harm, Burkitt came to believe instead that it was the absence of dietary fibre that was responsible. Since refined carbohydrates are by definition low in dietary fibre, the two things track together perfectly, and it becomes almost impossible to say from observational data which is the causative factor and which is the confounder.
There was a big fly in the ointment of Burkitt’s hypothesis from the start, however, and that was the fact that the Maasai tribespeople in Kenya and Tanzania, who lived on a diet consisting almost entirely of meat, milk, and blood, showed none of the diseases of modern civilization, even though they had virtually no fibre in their diet. Burkitt, who spent much of his career in Africa, was well aware of this fact, but seemingly chose to ignore it because it didn’t fit his hypothesis.
The human brain is mostly animal fat. You don’t feed your brain when you adopt the diet of cattle or rabbits.
Ah yes the diseases of civilization. They are much worse than being kicked in the head by a horse, stomped by an elephant, snatched by a leopard, mauled by a pride of lions, gored by a wildebeest, devoured by a pack of hyenas, blinded by tsetse flies, starving from lack of food at a young age. I could go on. Of course one could be beheaded by religious fanatics still living in the Middle Ages as well.
Ha! The diseases of civilization are EVERYTHING we knew nothing about 200 years ago. Many, many, people died of “consumption” 200 years ago … it was actually tuberculosis. Hint: we have DISCOVERED the same old diseases that have ALWAYS killed people … seems as though the worst disease of civilization is knowledge. Medical and scientific knowledge.
Global Warming is a very similar disease of civilization. We suddenly have the capability to measure temperatures from space with pinpoint accuracy … and so we “discover” the planet is being warmed by Co2.
…and decide it must be the fault of lower and middle-class North Americans and Europeans, because they need to be pushed down and trampled underfoot by their moral and intellectual betters.
Hard to know what to believe. All that anti-oxidant helpful advice from a few years ago? Pure crap we’re now told.
Maasai people aren’t eating refined carbs…. mostly protein and fat…
but that has nothing to do with his hypothesis
The Eskimo was similar. The Indians from below the tree line called them, “the meat eaters”.
The only time they ate fiber was when they killed a caribou in the summer and devoured the contents of the stomach which consisted of lichens the ruminant ate.
Well, when your genetic make up does not need fiber, well, you don’t need fiber. Logic is so difficult for people these days. The oils in their diets means they don’t need fiber.
What is left out when considering “diseases of civilization “:
the third leading cause of death is iatrogenic ie medical misdiagnosis, overmedication and simple incompetence.
Insurance companies can predict your demise to the very year. Diet doesn’t factor a whole bunch in their calculations and if it does it’s minimal, at least from the surveys I’ve seen. You’d think it would be pretty intensive questionnaire for the insurance ghouls. Of course some might argue if you’ve Diabetes it may have been a result of your diet along with your weight etc. and I’m not arguing with that.
Smoking, alcohol, family history and exercise regimens on the other hand were pretty big enchiladas.
I’d gladly hear from insurance types if I’m wrong.
ON THE OTHER HAND – We have those strange places on Earth that are designated “Blue Zones”, one of them being Loma Linda, California where residents there outstrip the normies by at least 10 years in the longevity category.
Reason? Scientists reasoned that the area is heavily populated with Seventh Day Adventists who put a strong emphasis on vegetables, fish, grains/lentils, not a lot of red meats and lots of sleep, etc. and don’t smoke or drink a whole bunch if not at all.
Make of that what you will.
when you sit in front of your doctor and he is typing your symptoms into his laptop. What do you think he/she is doing? He is answering a questionnaire set by medical insurancers. Headache, dandruff and earache you have athletes foot says the computer and take this pill. Am I joking? Ask your doctor.
One observation I have is that if I don’t put fiber in, of some sort, I don’t poop. Ya don’t poop life is very uncomfortable.
Try drinking 5 oz heavy cream for dessert. It’s a great lubricant.
Life is a terminal condition. If we add a few more years of existence on an otherwise meaningless life, what is gained?
Diseases of the soul are far more important.
I’m sure we don’t need a diet heavy on roughage, everything doesn’t have to be a colon cleanse.
Some seem to go overboard, they’d probably poop cow paddies if they were to squat in the fields.
Older folks who are not so active do need their prune juice!
I would imagine those Africans who didn’t fit the hypothesis were fairly skinny and walked considerable distances on a regular basis.
The dietary elements identified probably go with a sedentary lifestyle. Becoming overweight or obese is generally bad for health. Staying relatively fit and thin is generally good, no matter what’s in your diet.
There are too many assholes telling people what and how they should eat, and too many more assholes willing to pay for this quackery, and its all quackery.
If you’re too stupid to figure out how to eat, you should die.
‘Constipation’ is not the absence of taking a dump, it’s the inability.
I eat an animal based diet consisting of meat, eggs, dairy, fish and on the rare occasion seasonal berries or honey. Basically zero added carbs.
I shit maybe 2x a week. That’s because fiber is basically devoid of nutrients and 95%+ gets passed as waste. When you eat mostly meat, theres little waste and most gets absorbed.
You don’t need fiber, it’s another medical myth like ‘saturated fat is bad’ and ‘red meat causes cancer’.