Nutritional deficiency causes most disease (1)

In this insane age of vaccine obsession it is worth remembering a proven medical axiom: ‘nutritional deficiency causes most disease’. You can readily avoid most common illnesses by ensuring you supplement your diet with a range of off-the-shelf supplements. It’s a workable ‘health insurance policy’ most of us overlook.

Our modern western diet is causing many people to suffer with nutritional deficiencies. We too often eat food which doesn’t contain enough proteins and nutrients needed by the body to be healthy. In fact, modern diets could be killing us, as suggests a major study published in the Lancet medical journal.

The Covid-19 pandemic is waking up very many more people to the notion that popping a pill or two each day can be a prophylactic effect against coronavirus. Our bodies need quality food that contains vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and fats. In an ideal world, a balanced diet would provide those nutrients in your meal. However, our craving for convenience, fast food, obsession with added sugar and salt means we too often fail to eat a balanced and nutritious diet which often leads to deficiency of nutrients that, in turn, may lead to certain diseases.

There are several diseases caused by nutritional deficiencies. There are no fewer than 10 known diseases where nutritional deficiencies are a proven cause – see below.

A good nutritional source is a fundamental right of every human being to maintain good health. Many minerals are essential for maintaining good health and it is possible to get most of them from balanced diet.

Well, these days many people suffer with nutritional deficiencies, because most of us eat the same regular food everyday, which doesn’t contains enough proteins and nutrients needed by the body to be healthy.

Your body requires food that contains vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and fats. A balanced diet provide those nutrients in your meal, if you fail to eat such nutritional food then it leads to deficiency of nutrients that may lead to certain diseases.

10 diseases caused by nutritional deficiencies

1. Pellagra

It is a disease caused by the deficiency of vitamin B3 (niacin) in the body. It affects the skin and immune system which leads to many other issues like diarrhea, dermatitis and dementia. Sometimes in severe cases it even leads to death.

Niacin and niacinamide, also known as nicotinic acid (NA) and nicotinamide (Nam), are the better known forms of vitamin B3. Along with tryptophan (trp), they are biosynthetic precursors to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP+) and their respective reduced forms (NAD(P)H), altogether referred as the NAD(P)(H) pool. Altogether, these cofactors are central to cellular homeostasis and growth. The NAD(P)(H) pool is intimately implicated in all essential bioenergetics, anabolic and catabolic pathways in all forms of life. Since NAD+ seats at the cross-road between cell metabolism and cell signaling, manipulation of NAD+ bioavailability through vitamin B3 supplementation has become a valuable nutritional and therapeutic avenue.

Sub-optimal intracellular levels of these cofactors yield to cellular dysfunction, while acute vitamin B3 deficiency leads to pellagra, a debilitating and deadly disease still endemic in some regions of the world where malnutrition is common place. In more affluent countries, clinical vitamin B3 deficiency is due to poor food choices, adverse drug reactions, alcoholism and infectious or autoimmune diseases.

– Correcting the deficiency: whole grains, peanuts, mushrooms, food enrich with niacin are the rich sources of vitamin B3. These ingredients should be consumed regularly to get rid of this disease.

2. Beri Beri

This is caused due to lack of vitamin B1 (thiamin/e) in the body. It affects the nervous system, digestive system and even blood circulation in the body.

Vitamin B1 is one of the eight B vitamins. Because thiamin can only be stored in the body for a short time before it is readily excreted, a regular dietary intake of thiamin is necessary to maintain proper blood levels. The recommended daily intake (RDI) for adults over age eighteen is 1.2 mg/day for men and 1.1 mg/day for women. For children, adequate intake levels are lower.

Thiamin (vitamin B1) deficiency occurs if the recommended daily intake (RDI) is not maintained. However, deficiency may also occur due to impaired intestinal absorption or high excretion rates, such as in people with alcohol dependency, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and malnutrition. Individuals with certain medical and non-medical conditions are more susceptible to vitamin B1 deficiency, e.g., alcohol dependency, older age, diabetes, post-bariatric surgery, malignant disease, gastrointestinal disease, pregnancy, lactation, fasting, starvation, use of unbalanced diets, hyperthyroidism, renal failure on hemodialysis, and systemic infections.

– Correcting the deficiency: the natural sources of thiamine are whole grains. More specifically, for vegan and vegetarian people, thiamine can be found in beans, lentils, green peas, enriched cereals, breads, noodles, rice, sunflower seeds and yogurt.

3. Scurvy

Scurvy is due to vitamin C deficiency in the body. Without vitamin C collagen made by the body is too unstable to perform its function and several other enzymes in the body do not operate correctly.

Early symptoms of vitamin C deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding from the skin may occur. Scurvy is characterized by spots on and bleeding under the skin, spongy gums, ‘corkscrew’ hair growth, and poor wound healing. The skin lesions are most abundant on the thighs and legs, and a person with the ailment looks pale, feels depressed, and is partially immobilized. In advanced scurvy there are open, suppurating wounds, poor wound healing, loss of teeth, bone abnormalities, personality changes and, eventually, death.

Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a vitamin found in various foods and sold as a dietary supplement. Vitamin C is an essential nutrient involved in the repair of tissue, the formation of collagen, and the enzymatic production of certain neurotransmitters. It is required for the functioning of several enzymes and is important for immune system function. It also functions as an antioxidant. Most animals are able to synthesize their own vitamin C (for example, polar bears). However, humans and monkeys (but not all primates), most bats, some rodents, and certain other animals is necessary to acquire it from dietary sources, because their organism cannot produce vitamin C.

In humans, vitamin C deficiency leads to impaired collagen synthesis, contributing to the more severe symptoms of scurvy. Another biochemical role of vitamin C is to act as an antioxidant (a reducing agent) by donating electrons to various enzymatic and non-enzymatic reactions.

– Correcting the deficiency: everyone is necessary to ensure a daily consumption of vitamin C by eating fruits like kakadu plums, acerola cherries, rosehips, chili peppers, guavas, sweet yellow peppers, blackcurrants, thyme, parsley, mustard spinach, kale, kiwis, broccoli, brussels sprouts, lemons, lychees, American persimmons, papayas, strawberries, oranges.

4. Rickets

Deficiency of vitamin D along with potassium and calcium causes the formation of rickets, a condition that results in weak or soft bones in children. It affects bones in children and leads to mild deformities such as bowlegs, symptoms include also stunted growth, bone pain, large forehead, and trouble sleeping. Complications may include bone fractures, muscle spasms, or an abnormally curved spine.

The most common cause of rickets is a vitamin D deficiency. This can result from eating a diet without enough vitamin D, dark skin, too little sun exposure, exclusive breastfeeding without vitamin D supplementation, celiac disease, and certain genetic conditions. Other factors may include not enough intake of calcium or phosphorus. The underlying mechanism involves insufficient calcification of the growth plate. Diagnosis is generally based on blood tests finding a low calcium, low phosphorus, and a high alkaline phosphatase together with X-rays.

– Correcting the deficiency: vitamin D can be found in dairy products, egg yolks, mushrooms, fortified foods (cow milk, soy milk, orange juice, cereal and oat meal). Vitamin D is produced by our skin from sunlight (taxfree). People with darker skin color need a loger sun-bath sesion (around 2hours/day), compared to light-colored skin people (15min/day).

5. Night blindness

Night blindness is caused due to deficiency in vitamin A. If it worsens, night blindness leads to complete loss of vision. Vitamin A is responsible for growth of retina and cell membranes.

Vitamin A is an essential nutrient for humans. Vitamin A has multiple functions: it is important for growth and development, for the maintenance of the immune system, and essential for vision, where it combines with the protein opsin to form rhodopsin, the light-absorbing molecule necessary for both low-light (scotopic vision) and color vision.

Vitamin A status involves eye health via two separate functions. Retinal is an essential factor in rod cells and cone cells in the retina responding to light exposure by sending nerve signals to the brain. An early sign of vitamin A deficiency is night blindness. Vitamin A in the form of retinoic acid is essential to normal epithelial cell functions. Severe vitamin A deficiency, common in infants and young children in southeast Asia causes xerophthalmia characterized by dryness of the conjunctival epithelium and cornea. Untreated, xerophthalmia progresses to corneal ulceration and blindness.

– Correcting the deficiency: the best way to get rid of this disease is by consuming natural food sources rich in vitamin A like carrots, green and leafy vegetables.

6. Goitre

This disease is caused due to iodine deficiency in the body. Lack of iodine leads to swelling of thyroid gland and causes goiter which is accompanied by hypothyroidism, poor growth and under development of infants in childhood and even mental retardation.

Iodine is an essential element for life and is the heaviest element commonly needed by living organisms (iodine atomic number Z = 53). It is required for the synthesis of the growth-regulating thyroid hormones thyroxine and triiodothyronine (T4 and T3 respectively). A deficiency of iodine leads to decreased production of T3 and T4 and a concomitant enlargement of the thyroid tissue in an attempt to obtain more iodine, causing the disease known as simple goiter. Iodine is essential for normal cell metabolism in body.

The daily levels of intake recommended by the United States National Academy of Medicine are between 110 and 130 µg for infants up to 12 months, 90 µg for children up to eight years, 130 µg for children up to 13 years, 150 µg for adults, 220 µg for pregnant women and 290 µg for lactation. The Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) for adults is 1,100 μg/day.

The thyroid gland needs no more than 70 μg/day to synthesise the requisite daily amounts of T4 and T3. The higher recommended daily allowance levels of iodine seem necessary for optimal function of a number of body systems, including lactation, gastric mucosa, salivary glands, brain cells, choroid plexus, thymus, and arterial walls.

– Correcting the deficiency: the natural sources of dietary iodine include seaweeds (such as kelp, ascophyllum nodosum etc.), dairy products and eggs so long as the animals received enough iodine, and plants grown on iodine-rich soil.

Read the second part of the article

 

yogaesoteric
February 9, 2022