Joel Fuhrman - Eat To Live

166 Joel Fuhrman, M.D.

Feeling better can mean becoming sicker. Feeling worse (temporarily) may

mean getting well.

In medical school my classmates and I learned from a researcher

that animal protein places a detoxification stress on the liver and that

the nitrogenous wastes generated are toxic. These metabolic toxins

(about fourteen of them) rise in the bloodstream and accompany the

rise in uric acid after a meal rich in animal protein. Withdrawal from

these toxins can cause uncomfortable symptoms in susceptible indi-

viduals, symptoms that many call hypoglycemia.

The word hypoglycemia means "low glucose in the bloodstream."

It gives people the impression that the low glucose level itself is the

cause of the problem.

Certain uncommon medical conditions (such as insulin-secreting

tumors), excessive diabetic medication, and other rare illnesses can

cause hypoglycemia and even hypoglycemic coma, but I am refer-

ring to those people with reactive hypoglycemia. They feel ill when

they delay eating, but they do not have a serious medical condition,

nor do their blood sugars drop dangerously low. Most people carry-

ing this diagnosis do not have fasting glucoses below 50; when their

blood is drawn when they delay eating and feel extremely ill, the

blood sugar is usually not low enough to account for their feeling so

ill. There seems to be no correlation between the severity of the

symptoms and their low glucose levels, but they feel uncomfortable

if they try to stop treating themselves with high-protein diets.

It is a massive oversimplification to think that a lower level of

glucose in the blood is the sole cause of this problem. I find that the

people with the most troublesome symptoms do not even have low

glucose levels.

Many doctors learn during their training that if the liver is com-

promised, such as in cirrhosis, the patient cannot effectively remove

these toxins and may consequently feel mentally affected, confused,

and even psychotic unless they are fed a low-protein diet, generating

a lower level of nitrogenous wastes. For this reason, it is standard

medical care to feed a patient with advanced liver disease a low-

protein diet.

Most Americans are protein-toxic. Like the patient with cirrhosis

(but less so), they are toxic because their body detoxification system

struggles under the excessive nitrogen load in addition to all the salt,

caffeine, sweets, trans fats, and other noxious chemicals we consume.