Scientists discover new taste
Researchers say umami is yummy as new taste found.

Milk link to brain disorders
Are scientists finally catching up with Guy-Claude Burger's work?.

The Palaeolithic diet ... and its modern implications
By Loren Cordain

Potassium
The latest instalment in our series on minerals by John Fielder.

Hello,

The article about the Palaeolithic diet—a diet that apparently was quite high in protein and low in carbohydrates—also fits nicely with the tendency of instinctos (not to mention Mr. And Mrs. Average) to eat meat. It also adds weight to Burger's contention that humans have not adapted to eating grains. The article linking milk to brain disorders is yet another confirmation of Burger's research (see Issue 13a).

Finally, just to present a little of the other side of the argument, we have a couple of articles about broccoli. Karl Kruszelnicki says that broccoli is good for you even though it tastes awful. Instinctotherapy tells us that if anything tastes awful, then it can't be good for you. Karl acknowledges this viewpoint and tries to argue his way out of it. But I don't think his argument is very convincing (to be honest, I don't understand his argument). Anyway, I don't think that the argument is even necessary, because I can't agree that broccoli tastes awful—only sometimes, and then, in the best instinctotherapy tradition, I leave it alone. It's best raw and freshly picked. The stalks and leaves are best—don't bother with the flowers. And in small quantities—sure, if you eat enough of it, it tastes bitter.

Cheers,

Andrew Partridge

Researchers say umami is yummy as new taste found.

Culinary tradition has maintained that those four tastes combine to make all known flavours.

In 1908, Kikunae Ikeda, a scientist at the Tokyo Imperial University, was struck by the distinctive taste of Japanese seaweed broth.

Ikeda isolated the molecule responsible for the flavour and called it "umami", which is known in the West as monosodium glutamate (MSG).

The research suggested that umami was a primary taste in its own right, as none of the four textbook flavours could reproduce it in any combination.

Now, a team from the University of Miami's School of Medicine says it has identified the receptor—the part of the cell on the taste-bud—that spots the presence of umami in the mouth and sends a signal to the brain to say that it is there.

The team carried out tests by cloning a truncated molecule, called a G protein-coupled receptor, from the taste buds of rats, and then exposing it to umami to see if it reacted.

Their work is reported in the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience, a British-US journal, published on Monday.

Bernd Lindemann of Germany's Saar University, in an adjoining commentary, said the findings "should add meat to the field of taste research".

International interest in Ikeda's ideas has gained ground because of the increasing popularity of Asian cuisine in the West, Lindemann added. MSG is widely used as a flavouring additive in Eastern and South-East Asian cooking.

Evolutionists have always had a liking for the Ikeda theories, as MSG, an amino acid, is abundant in protein-rich foods, such as meat, milk, aged cheese and seafood.

They say it would make good sense for human beings to evolve the ability to spot something that is an important nutrient.

Dr Robert Cade's research team at the University of Florida found that when children diagnosed with autism or schizophrenia were placed on a milk-free diet, 80 per cent lost their symptoms.

The Florida researchers had earlier shown that the children had grossly elevated levels of morphine-like compounds called exorphins in their urine and serum. In almost all cases, the concentration of exorphins was at least 100 times normal.

Exorphins are derived from undigested betacasomorphin-7, or casein, the most abundant protein in milk—the substance that forms the curd when milk is fermented during cheese making.

The diet most recommended today is the "high carbohydrate, low protein, low fat" diet.

For around 2 million years we evolved on a "high protein, quite high vegetable, very low carbohydrate" diet, as hunter-gatherers.

We know that wild wheat was ground in milling stones around 15 000 to 10 000 years ago. Seven thousand years ago, rice was a domesticated crop in S.E. Asia, India and China; and around that same time, maize/corn was grown in Mexico and Central America. By 5 000 years ago (3000BC) settled agriculture was being practised in the Middle East and Europe.

This general growth of agriculture coincided with an increase in population over the years and a shortage of protein due to the depletion of herds of large animals on which the hunters depended.

The growth of agriculture coincided with an increase in population and a shortage of protein due to the depletion of herds on which the hunters depended.

Fossil records and studies demonstrate cooking facilities and methods of the time, and skeletal remains provide evidence of the general state of health. What is coming to light is that, contrary to previous opinion, with the advent of cultivated grains a deterioration in health occurred rather than an improvement in health as a consequence of a reliable food supply. 

The changeover to higher carbohydrate content in the diet plus the reduction of protein and animal fat mean that ingested nutritional ratios had changed. 

We began to consume more Omega 6 (plant essential fatty acids) and less Omega 3 (fish oil EFA), reversing previous ratios. This is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, some types of cancer and inflammatory disease responses. Other imbalances occurred.

In addition, during the last 100 years, cereal grains have been greatly refined and this involves risk in the blood sugar area. We also get less exercise because we don't now go out to hunt and kill our food and dig for roots and gather nuts and berries as required.

Higher gluten content recently introduced into grains to produce higher yield crops may be causing a lack of tolerance and sensitivity to gluten.

When cereal grains provide 70% of dietary intake, health begins to be noticeably disrupted. High phytate content of grain can impair absorption of iron, calcium. The immune system may be impaired. High lecithin (allergen) content of whole grains may interfere with nutrient absorption.

Whole grain cereals contain no vitamin C and beta-carotene is only present in maize. Hypogonadol dwarfisrn is frequently found in Iran where a whole-grain unleavened bread called tanok is consumed, and in Pakistan rickets is induced by their bread. Rickets is also a problem with Pakistani immigrants into Britain where they bake their own bread.

Fossil remains show that early farmers had quite remarkable physical changes. They had a reduction in stature, an increase in infant mortality, reduced life span, increased infectious disease, and increase in iron-deficiency anaemia, low bone density and an increase in dental caries and dental enamel defects.

Today, in countries where no grain products are consumed, there is virtually no multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. IDDM (diabetes) can be induced in animal models when fed high cereal grain diets.

Our economy is such that humanity is now virtually dependent on cereal grains and dairy products, says Cordain, but it is becoming noticeable that many people have not adapted to the high carbohydrate/cereal and modern diet advocated by many authorities every day.

In effect, it now appears that many modern diseases are either caused or exacerbated by high carbohydrate content known to be alien to the immune system. Consideration needs to be given to this aspect of our food intake.

Dr John Fielder D.C., D.O., N.D. continues his series on minerals.

Potassium, like sodium, is a monovalent cation. Monovalent means that it has a charge equivalent to that of one electron (though not necessarily of the same polarity). The term cation means it is positively charged, i.e. opposite to the charge on an electron. It has such a charge because it is effectively missing one electron. Cations are attracted to negative electrodes, called cathodes (By contrast, negatively charged molecules, such as chloride, are called anions and are attracted to positive electrodes, called anodes. To remember which is which, it helps to know that the pussy-tive (positive) ions go to the cat-hode.) 

Potassium, unlike all the other metal ions, does not support the activity of specific enzymes. Another unusual aspect of potassium is that it functions by passing through the plasma membrane. Both sodium (Na) and potassium (K) are electrolytes—they generate an electric charge difference across the plasma membrane of most cells.

The complex functions of potassium are both fascinating and puzzling. Adelle Davis in Lets eat right to keep fit, says:

Just outside the cell wall is sodium, which may originally have come from meat or table salt. In some way not understood, sodium carries on a life-long duel with potassium, largely inside the cell. This mysterious duel is apparently fought over the water supply. When sodium appears to be winning, the cell contains more water, but potassium is withdrawn and secreted in the urine; when potassium wins, much sodium and water are lost. The referee for the duel appears to be a messenger from the outside of the adrenal glands.

For my part, I always picture sodium as masculine—bold, uncomplicated, obeying simple laws and making his presence felt, whereas potassium is a lady, devious and difficult to understand, now advancing, now withdrawing and obeying only her own whims, a veritable Gioconda.

... the potassium in NPK fertiliser is added in the form of potassium chloride, which means a ton of chloride is added along with every ton of potassium [Editorial note: This is not quite true; in fact there are equal numbers of potassium and chloride ions, but since they have different atomic weights there won't be a ton of each.] The high levels of potassium inhibit plant absorption of magnesium (Ensminger et al., 1983). Chloride leaches the soil of magnesium, zinc and calcium (Hall, 1976). 

Potassium chloride also alters the mineral balance so that selenium becomes bound in the soil and cannot be absorbed by plants (Ensminger et al., 1983).

Potassium ions are required by a variety of enzymes (Suelter, 1970).

Numerous researchers have found that there are a number of well-known conditions which are associated with low levels of potassium. J. L. Rodale and staff in The complete book of minerals, pp125, write: 

In diabetic patients when blood sugar rises in the urine, potassium is lost. Ulcerative colitis patients may have too little potassium. It has been found that the level of potassium in the blood is very low in leukemia and polio patients. No one knows why.

In Addison's disease the level of plasma potassium rises. It has been supposed that the lack of the hormone of the adrenal cortex (and it is this lack that causes Addison's disease) changes the cell membranes so that potassium is able to escape from them into the tissue fluids.

To reduce the quantity of potassium needed from outside, and the energy required to extract it, the body re-absorbs it in the renal tubule. Tom Brody in Nutritional biochemistry, pp716-717, writes:

About 70% of the filtered Na and K is reabsorbed in the proximal kidney tubule.... Most of the K appearing in the glomerular filtrate is reabsorbed by the proximal convoluted tubule. Here K is absorbed through special channels in the tight functions between the cells. This pathway is called a paracellular pathway. Some of the K in the glomerular filtrate is reabsorbed in the thick ascending loop of Henle.

Deficiency of potassium is a very serious problem. J. L. Rodale and staff in The complete book of minerals, pp124, describe the conditions under which it is most likely to occur: 

Chronic illness, malnutrition, extensive surgery, vomiting and diarrhoeal conditions, or as one M. D. puts it, 'as a result of lengthy abuse of pergatives'.... What doctors call s 'hypermotile intestine' can result in loss of potassium.... 

In addition to these conditions you lose potassium when you are taking hormone products—cortisone, DCA, aldosterone, and so forth.... Liquorice extract also causes the body to lose potassium.

One cause of potassium deficiency is stress (that is, illness, surgery, trauma), resulting in an increased activity of the adrenal gland. Severe deficiency leads to periodic attacks of paralysis.... The use of laxatives and diuretics also may lead to excess potassium secretion.

Dr. Daphne A. Roe in Drug induced nutritional deficiencies, pp84, writes on the effects of surgery: 

Nutrient losses after surgery vary with the age of the patient, the disease condition for which the surgical intervention is required, as well as with the site and magnitude of surgical trauma. In the days immediately after major surgical injury, not only is there considerable nitrogen loss, but also urinary loss of potassium, magnesium and zinc (Walker, 1974; Walker et al., 1968; and Hill et al., 1973). The extent to which such nutrient depletion prejudices recovery is variable, risk being greatest if the patient has been nutritionally exhausted before the operation.

Dr. Roe, pp131-132 describes the effects of cathartics:

Malabsorption due to phenolphthalein may be associated with loss of structural integrity of the intestinal mucosa.... Heizer et al. (1968) consider that there may be a disturbance in the integrity of the intestinal epithelial cells due to potassium depletion.

Paul Bergner in The healing power of minerals, pp127, describes the symptoms of potassium deficiency: 

Potassium deficiency is a serous problem because it can interfere with the normal rhythm of the heart and trigger a heart attack. An early symptom of inadequate potassium intake is muscle weakness. Cramping, shallow breathing, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, confusion, and increased urination are also possible symptoms.

There is no actual recommended daily allowance for potassium, but it is considered that 1600 milligrams per day is required to maintain bodily stores and normal concentration in the blood and bodily fluids. Paul Bergner, pp127, writes: 

Males and females 11 and older should have 2 grams of potassium daily in their diet. It has been found that if a person eats just one serving of fruit or vegetable per day (not even the recommended three), he or she reduces the risk of heart disease or stroke by 40 per cent (Hendler, 1990).

The uptake of potassium by plants depends on the presence of sufficient boron. In soybeans, potash fertilisers often depress the growth and yield, but with the addition of boron soybeans can grow with any quantity of potassium that is likely to be supplied. 

Present day society puts much emphasis on the need for salt (sodium chloride, NaCl), especially where heavy physical activity is undertaken and there is heavy sweating. It has been forgotten or overlooked that the body's needs for mineral salts covers the whole range of vital elements, and that supplying only one of them may lead to further imbalance. J. L. Rodale and staff in The complete book of minerals, pp125, illustrate this well: 

What happens in diabetes in regard to potassium and sodium is most interesting and proves beyond a shadow of doubt that both minerals are very important to the functioning of the glands—for of course these are badly out of order in diabetes. In a normal person whose diet does not contain enough potassium, an excessive amount of sodium causes the blood pressure to rise. Substitute potassium for sodium and the blood pressure goes down. In the patient with severe diabetes, giving excess sodium causes the blood pressure to go up and the sugar in the blood to go down.

Giving potassium to patients with mild diabetes causes a fall in blood pressure and in blood sugar too. As the amount of potassium in the blood increases, just at his same rate the blood sugar falls. There can be no doubt that potassium is very closely related to the function of glands that are disordered in diabetes. In a diabetic coma, fruit juice and broth are given, partly because they contain so much potassium. And the potassium apparently helps to bring the patient out of the coma.

As with all other elements there is an optimal level of potassium in the body. Excessive variation from that level can be lethal. Paul Bergner in Minerals in health and disease, pp128, writes: 

People with kidney damage and hypertension... must maintain special watch over their potassium levels. 

Early signs of potassium toxicity are nausea and diarrhoea. More serious symptoms include irregular heartbeat, paralysis of the arms and legs, a sudden drop in blood pressure, convulsions, and even coma or cardiac arrest (Griffith, 1988).

Tom Brody in Nutritional biochemistry, pp727, confirms our earlier comments on the excessive emphasis placed on supplementation by sodium chloride: 

Research to date indicates that Na and K supplements are not required during running races of short (1 hour or less) and moderate (5 hours) duration. The salts provided by the diet are sufficient to maintain Na and K balance during repeated days of competition at moderate levels. With moderate duration exercise the kidneys enhance their efficiency by Na and K reabsorption. Because of this adaptation any Na and K supplements taken during the course of exercise would be superfluous and would result in the excretion of amounts of Na and K equivalent to those supplements.

Weakness, fatigue and muscular pain are common among the aged. But it is not necessary to experience these symptoms as one ages. In a random study of the population of Rugnorglen, Scotland, Drs. Nairn R. Cowan and Thomas G. Judge of the Department of Geriatric at the University of Glasgow reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 6 October 1969: 

a good part of the muscular weakness usually accepted as a symptom of 'Old Age' may be simply a lack of potassium in the diet.

Such an authority as Dr. Chauncy D. Leake, the editor of Geriatrics, has spoken out for the growing need for potassium in maintaining good health. He said in an editorial in that magazine in May 1969 that the heart, the body's most important muscle, depends upon potassium in order to relax properly between contractions. According to his editorial, the importance of potassium goes even beyond that. He says that potassium ions are needed to balance sodium ions in relation to nerve conduction and muscular activity and probably are needed for many healthy glandular functions also.

Potassium depletion is often overlooked or mistaken for sodium depletion. Our sweat consists of sodium chloride, potassium, ammonia, and urea. J. L. Rodale and staff in The complete book of minerals, pp135, say: 

When exposure to high heat is continued, the sodium and chloride content of the sweat decrease, but mysteriously the outpouring of potassium goes up to as much as three times normal.

At the Forty-Eighth Annual Session of the American College of Physicians in San Francisco (April 10 to 14, 1967), R. M. Vertel and J. P. Knochel pointed out the possible relation between potassium depletion and the high incidence of heat stroke among otherwise healthy soldiers in basic training and football players in pre-season conditioning.

They warned strongly against the indiscriminate use of salt tablets.... They said the peasants of Indonesia and Nigeria consume daily diets high in potassium but quite low in sodium, still these people resist heat injuries characterised by electrolyte disturbances, fever, etc.

Sources of potassium include: avocadoes, dried apricots, potatoes, cantaloupe, lima beans, parsnips, raisins, sardines, flounder, oranges, soy beans, winter squash, broccoli, tomatoes, pinto beans, bananas, milk, sweet potatoes, salmon, Great Northern beans, cod, liver, beef, artichokes, peaches.

Editors: A. Partridge, Al Gallo, E. Sapphire

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