New England Journal of Medicine: Going Nuts for Nuts: Another Break from CLL, but for Healthy Reasons

Any casual reader of my blog knows that I am a committed vegan.

I love what I eat. Often only raw veggies, but sometimes a plain salad just isn't deeply satisfying. But add some nuts and I get some crunch, some grit, some surprises and some increased nutrition to boot.

Nuts are my "meat".

I just bought 20 pounds of raw organic nuts: cashews, brazil nuts, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, macadamia, and pine nuts which are really seeds. Actually all nuts are fruits that have a hard shell and a seed.

Though they vary from nut to nut, most are rich in an antioxidants and other nutrients. Walnuts are especially high in the healthy omega-3 and have been shown to lower our LDL cholesterol. Pistachios are full of lutein and zeaxanthin that may help prevent age related macular degeneration.  Each one has its set of particular nutritional assets, and mixed together are delicious.

See this sweet article for a review of some of the nutritions in a few common varieties.

A special shout out and warning to fans like me of brazil nuts ( BTW, more come from Bolivia than Brazil). The USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 25 tells that as few as 6-8 brazil nuts may contain as much as 10 times the daily recommended dose of selenium, though the amount may vary widely. Getting the right amount of selenium is healthful and I believe may lower cancer risk, but my levels were toxic when I was eating too many tasty brazil nuts. I now restrict myself to 5 or less a day and occasionally check my blood selenium level.

I try to eat only raw nuts because they generally have better nutritional profiles, especially in regard to their fatty acid contents. (Except for chestnuts that only I eat when singing Christmas carols and after they have been roasting in an open fire.)

And I choose organic when possible. And never salted or honey coated or spiced or anything. Just raw organic nuts.

I avoid peanuts (not actually a nut but a legume and schizocarpic to boot as I recall from high school biology) because the raw ones are at risk for aflotoxin, a potent poison from the mold aspergilllus flavus that likes to grow on peanuts if they are not properly stored.

I also avoid raw almonds. "Raw" farmed almonds in California may not be actually raw but "pasteurized" usually with the toxic propylene oxide or PPO to prevent a recurrence of the past Salmonella outbreaks. And besides too many of the raw almonds taste awful with a sickly bittersweet aftertaste that I have heard described as "Amaretto gone bad".  Not sure why, but spitting out a foul mouthful of nuts is not always possible and is never pleasant, so I sadly just skip them.

The remaining members of the nut are my boon companions when I wander, mixed and packed with great care right next to my other precious travel commodities including my medications and my organic green teabags in my carry-on. I would be lost or more actually hungry without them, especially in the southern US where being a vegan is pretty similar to being some exotic visitor from a faraway planet.

There are too often my breakfast and lunch and late snack snack when I am far from home. They are my manna.

So I was very pleased when the prestigious and very conservative New England Journal of Medicine published this:

Association of Nut Consumptionwith Total and Cause-Specific Mortality 

concluding:

"In two large, independent cohorts of nurses and other health professionals, the frequency of nut consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality, independently of other predictors of death."

Read the whole article here.

The news about reducing vascular disease was not a surprise, but the lower risk of cancer and all cause mortality was a happy finding.

As with all retrospective studies, there is the potential for many confounders. Do nuts eaters tend to avoid more junk food, do they make better health and food choices overall and that is the reason for their improved survival?

The researchers tried to control for some of that Again, quoting from the research:

"Multivariate analyses were adjusted for age; race; body-mass index; level of physical activity; status with regard to smoking, whether a physical examination was performed for screening purposes, current multivitamin use, and current aspirin use; status with regard to a family history of diabetes mellitus, myocardial infarction, or cancer; status with regard to a history of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, or hypercholesterolemia; intake of total energy, alcohol, red or processed meat, fruits, and vegetables; and, in women, menopausal status and hormone use. "

Moreover, the fact that there was a linear inverse relation between nut consumption and mortality indicates that it is a valid correlation, if not necessarily a cause and effect.

The numbers were significant too.

The hazard ratio for those us eating nuts 5 x a week was 0.83 compared to those who never had a tasty nut touch their palate. That means almost a reduction of 1/5 in the chance of dying during the study period.

The reductions for heart disease was even bigger, 29% and for kidney disease it was a whopping 39%. Cancer deaths were cut by respectable 11%.

I fully expect that soon we will be able to buy nut extracts to add to our juices or cereals. Or nut pills to avoid all the hard work of buying and chewing those delicious seeds.

Don't fall for it. We have proved over and over again that there a huge danger in assuming that eating the essence or extract of a particular food is the same as eating the food itself.

A de-orderized garlic capsule is not garlic.

Vitamin C is not OJ is not an orange.

Nut extracts are not nuts.

Remember my mantra. Stay close to the soil. The more packaged and processed, the worse it is for you.

Enjoy your simple raw nuts, guilt free

I sure do.

As I have said before, I don't for a minute believe eating nuts or any particular diet will cure me or anyone else of cancer, but I do believe that conscious eating can keep us all stronger for the health challenges we face.

Diet and Supplements

So I guess my raw diet isn't going to cure me, despite Dr. Gabriel Cousens admonishments about the evil of all things cooked and sweet.

Nevertheless, it is a healthy way to eat, and eating right can change you from the guts on out.

My plan is just to be a little less precious about my diet- a little more full of self forgiveness if I eat the occasional organic apple, or even take a bite of vegan triple chocolate cake.

No flesh food though. That is where I draw the line. If I could say no to smoked salmon in Vancouver, I think it would take some mighty impressive savory snack to push me to eat meat again.

Cheese is a whole other issue. But that is on hold for now too. All dairy is literally off the table.

It is just going to be a kinder gentler broader and sweeter diet. Still mostly raw.

Not changing much else.

Still on the Budwig diet- cheap and easy and safe- Flaxseed oil and essential fatty acids. I believe it has helped some cancer patients and it has no down side.

Still taking Zeolyte in powder form though I am underwhelmed by its detoxifying magic. The powder is much much cheaper than the liquid and makes more sense to me, but I suspect its main advantage is that I am just wasting less money than those who take Natural Cellular Defense.

Still drinking a pot load of green tea, but I am having my doubts there too with my low platelets. Spoke to Dr. Neil Kay of the Mayo Clinic ECGC study. He didn't think it was a factor, but some other CLLers have seen their platelet counts climb when they stopped the tea or the supplement.

Added a touch (2 mg) of copper) to balance out the zinc tablets which I now am biting in half to reduce my intake to 25 mg a day. That's what Dr. Andy Weil recommends, and he knows his vitamins and minerals. Trying to keep my immune system happy and well nourished.

Increased my Vit. D3 to a whopping 10,000 units a day to try to get my blood test into the high echelons of normal. Don't try this at home. Levels must be monitored. Blood must be tapped. (Sounds like the patriot act.) There is good evidence of the protective effects on the sunshine vitamin, but way less about it as a cure for anything other than rickets. I am hoping I am not starting too late on this one to get some benefits.

Also take magnesium because I am on a diuretic for my blood pressure, and Culturelle, a probiotic, just because.

And like all good vegans, I need some B12 supplementation (sublingual in my case). No B12 in the veggies grown in our depleted soils, even the organic ones.

A new friend is exploring LDN or low dose naltrexone to treat her mother's CLL. Looks non-toxic and no multi-level-marketing craziness. Kinda makes sense in stimulating immunity and might help in early disease. The literature is pretty thin, but it is interesting. I am thinking about it.

Still meditating. Still working out. Still being positive in thought and action.

Still welcoming all prayers. (please read my prior post) Still asking for forgiveness. Still trying to forgive myself.

My real hope lies in a redo transplant and not much else. This time for keeps.

Next post on my allopathic medical plans.