How a potato lead to learnings from science (and a feminist rant)

Drinking my coffee this morning I was reading the Australian magazine and a story jumped out at me – an article that could have been about my late teens: about women with recurring UTIs (urinary tract infections) and the debilitating pain this causes.

One in three women will have one of these painful episodes in their lives. One in four women will suffer intractable chronic infection, sometimes for life. And all too often we’re told that it’s “all in our heads”.

Turns out the way UTIs have been medically treated all these years has just been wrong. Plain wrong. The basic premise on which treatment prescribed to me, you and the host of other women suffering this horrid disease has been wrong.

It’s not surprising it took a woman to find out this out. (Personal rant over now)

In a nutshell, an Australian paediatrician discovered that a long held medical truism that the bladder epithelium – the lining around the bladder – is impermeable, is incorrect.

According to the Australian magazine article: “There is widespread scepticism in the medical profession of the concept of chronic UTI as an embedded infection in which bacteria hide and replicate within the bladder wall where they cannot be neutralised by oral antibiotics”.

It may seem from the above that I’m having a rant – in part, yes. UTI’s are debilitating and incredibly painful and there’s very little research money thrown at them despite the toll these episodes take on many women’s lives.

But this story leads to another thing I want to talk about - an aspect of my life as a science-based nutritionist and self-confessed nutrivangelist.

Because one of the frustrations of being a nutritionist is the inevitable “….but, we were told NOT to do that..” or “….I was told to DO that…”. "I read an article that told me that I absolutely shouldn't eat that..." "What about fat, surely it makes us fat?....."

There’s only one answer, and I admit, it’s not very satisfactory…

“Sorry, I know you were told that but that’s ‘old’ science, we’ve learnt more since then”.

This came up at breakfast the other morning when I was discussing with one of the Flyfers (Full of Life -ers) how individuals react differently to different types of breakfasts.

He had eaten a big bowl of overnight oats with fruit and a bit of chia and flax and said he still felt hungry and wanted toast and vegemite.

I suggested several reasons for this. The long and short of it, he has decided to try a roasted jacket potato loaded up with brekky beans, avocado and nutritional yeast. High protein, fat and great carbs, super amounts of fibre and a terrific way to get ready for a big daily bike ride.

“But we were always told not to eat potato because it’s fattening”.

“That’s because of what we do to potatoes in factories,” I responded. “Potato is just fine. It’s a great plant full of good soluble and insoluble fibre and lots of protein. Purple skinned potatoes are high in antioxidants and they’ve all got B group vitamins, potassium, iron, magnesium and amazing phytonutrients”.

“…and it has as much protein as an egg,” I added.

“….but we’ve been told all these years not to eat potato…now you’re telling me I can have it for breakfast? And that it’s good for me! Why are the rules always changing!”

It changes because the science gets better and better, and what we know about how the human body works comes from many different science areas: anthropology, nutrition, biology, psychology to name a few.

“Is the science getting better?” he asked.

The science is getting to know much more about the human body, that’s for sure.

For instance, when the human genome was unraveled 20 years ago scientists thought that would mean we could quickly end disease; all would be revealed and easy.

Like everything, the more we know, the more we realise we don’t know! But the secrets of DNA have lead us to understanding many things we simply did not know about 20 years ago: the main ones being the gut microbiome and epigenetics.

Both these discoveries are turning nutritional science on its head.

For instance, the fact that the health of the microbiome is now implicated in the development (or not) of UTIs in a new and emerging bit of science, but I’ll get to that another day.

Scientific studies underpin everything I write about. Science is constantly changing and the aim of a scientific study is to test ideas. Every time a researcher sets out to do an experiment, they are trying to disprove a theory!  Yep, disprove, not prove.

Science outcomes must be “replicable” that is, other people need to be able to do the same experiment and get the same result. That’s the process that furthers knowledge.

So when Andrew S Freeman wrote an article this week titled “Latest Science Reinforces a Plant Based Lifestyle” he was talking about the ongoing scientific studies into food, nutrition and human health.

Dr Freeman begins his article with a quote from Albert Einstein: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase our chances of survival for life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

Science is always changing – often it’s playing around the edges, and sometimes it’s huge earth-shattering discoveries. Any which way you look at it, there is no disputing that adding more plants makes for a longer health span.

There’s no science study that can disprove that!

So here’s some key take homes from the science of 2023:

1.      There is so much good science that it is impossible to ignore.

The overwhelming conclusion is obvious: plant-based lifestyles improve a variety of health outcomes amongst sobering cardiovascular disease statistics.

2.      Plant based groups beats Mediterranean for weight loss.

In one recent study, 62 overweight individuals followed either a low-fat, plant- based diet or a Mediterranean diet for 16 weeks followed by a 4-week washout period. The plant-based group lost up to 6 kg and experienced a fasting ghrelin increase of 10.5%, which may reflect insulin sensitivity recovery and visceral fat regression. (NOTE from me – this means that the participants felt “full” more easily; their appetite regulation was better).

3.      Life expectancy improves when plants are added

What humans consume has a marked effect on life expectancy. New research asserts they have demonstrated that “a sustained change from a typical Western diet to the optimal diet from age 20 years would increase life expectancy by more than a decade!”  In this study, participants ate substantially more than a typical standard Aussie, USA or UK diet of whole grains, legumes, fish, fruits, and vegetables, and included a handful of nuts, while reducing red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and refined grains.

4.      Living better reduces cancer and heart disease risk

Another study in more than 22,000 participants, indicated that those with the highest adherence to the EAT Lancet diet (###), a mostly plant-based diet, had 24% less cancer mortality, 32% less heart disease mortality, and 25% less all-cause mortality. The bottom line is that living better and eating better has large magnitude reduction in common causes of death.

The evidence is becoming clearer every year!

5.      Dairy gets more thumbs down

new research supported the trend that dairy products are unhealthful. First, in a study of over 26,000 Japanese participants, those who consumed the most milk (and yogurt) had a 37% higher risk for developing prostate cancer than those who consumed less milk.

Further, a study following more than half a million Chinese for 11 years revealed that for every 50 g (~1/4 cup) of dairy consumed per day, overall cancer increased by 7%, liver cancer by 12%, and breast cancer by 17%.

From a cardiovascular disease (CVD) standpoint, 1929 patients (80% men, mean age 62 years) with stable angina pectoris from the Western Norway B-vitamin Intervention Trial were analysed. Those with the highest dairy intake had a 14% higher incidence of stroke and 6% higher incidence of CVD, and the highest consumers of butter had 10% more myocardial infarctions.

6.      AT the heart of it

Speaking of myocardial infarction, 459 adults aged between 22 and 75 without known CVD were put on an 8-week DASH or fruit/veggie diet, both of which are mostly or fully plant-based diets. Both groups managed to drop CVD risk by 10% in as a little as 8 weeks.

The bottom line here is that lifestyle changes improve CV risk fast! The same mechanism behind CVD is also behind cerebrovascular disease.

7.      Diabetes under the microscope

It would not be a year review without a discussion of diabetes. In a study of 3,042 Greek individuals, 4+ servings/day of vegetables per day was associated with a 58% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.  The effect was even greater in women, with a 71% lower risk.

If you want to read the article and follow through on the journal articles I have referenced the story is from the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention. 

https://doi.org/10.22230/ijdrp.2024v6n1a425 

…and here’s a treat for you.

Dr Michael Greger has an article titled “Plant Based Nutrition to Slow the Aging Process”. You can find that at https://doi.org/10.22230/ijdrp.2024v6n1a423