Food as medicine

This is a follow up to my previous post about my weird popcorn craving and anemia.

I’m not against working with a doctor or a nurse practitioner; however, I refuse to simply put my life in their hands without educating myself about what they suggest. Ultimately I’m the one most responsible for my own health. Doctors and NPs are not infallible. They can and do make mistakes the same as anyone else. Not every doctor or nurse practitioner graduates in the top 10 percent and I’d bet not many spend their spare time reading medical journals and scientific case studies for the newest treatments.

I thought I would post some of the things I’ve learned in my own research. I don’t blindly trust the blogs I read or the videos I watch when researching. No one else should either. Not even mine. The information you find on the web is usually very contradicting from one to another. That’s why I like browsing the websites that will often contain medical research data. It can be dry, boring reads unless you’re looking for specific information. I was looking specifically for information about strange food cravings. I was not wanting to become my own doctor. Simply put I want to educate myself so that I can hold an informed conversation with my doctor. My research led me to information about the causes and eventually to a study about the body’s reaction to Metformin in combination with vitamin B12 shots. The NP had either never read the research about the side effect of anemia or she had felt it unnecessary to explain the side effects to me.

I became a little excited when I read how being anemia can also cause false abnormally high blood sugar readings. I learned there is a direct link between iron deficiency and having higher amounts of glucose in the blood. This increases the A1C in people with diabetes. Why does this happen? I’ll explain what I learned.

The blood has both red and white cells. The body uses iron to make and replenish the red blood cells but it can’t store iron. Iron in the body must be replaced regularly with iron rich foods. Red blood cells are what glucose sticks onto in order to be carried to various parts of the body as fuel. If the body doesn’t get enough iron rich foods to make more red blood cells then the body is said to be anemic. Glucose molecules can’t travel around the body by themselves. They must attach themselves to red blood cells for traveling. Anemic people have fewer and fewer red blood cells for the glucose to latch onto. As a result the blood becomes thick with unused glucose swimming around searching for a red cell to attach itself. That’s what results in a higher A1C number in anemic people.

When a body becomes anemic it doesn’t have enough healthy red blood cells or “hemoglobin” to carry glucose to the lungs where it exchanges it for oxygen. Hemoglobin is the protein stuff found inside the red blood cells that carries that oxygen from the lungs to other organs in the body. The lack of oxygen will make the body feel tired and weak along with various other symptoms.

People age 65 and older are more likely to have certain chronic diseases that increase the risk of becoming anemic. People on low & fixed incomes are more likely to have iron-poor diets because mostly they just want “to fill the belly” within the limits of the income. The healthiest foods are also the most expensive foods. The cheapest foods are those with all the fillers and ingredients we can’t pronounce or spell. They are also the most addictive foods filled with empty calories of sugar and hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenated oils are also a culprit in increasing blood glucose levels.

Food bank foods, whether from an outdoor drive through or inside a building, are meant to keep people alive, but not healthy. I’ll continue to get the drive through foodbank fruits and vegetables to supplement my food storage but my goal is to use both store bought and home grown vegetables as my pathway to better health. We consumers are all being manipulated to be unhealthy and dependent on those who supply our food and our medicines. The cheap but healthy foods our ancestors ate before the 1950s are no longer sold. We can’t eat what we can’t purchase. Beef bones made great vegetable soup. Chicken backs and necks made delicious dumplings. Rocky Mountain Oysters or tounge were very good sources of iron but aren’t in stores anymore. I could go on and on about the cheap healthy foods we can’t find in stores anymore but that’s for another post another time.

Stay healthy, stay safe,

Anita