Smorgasbord Health Column 2023 – Some interesting information about #Gluten and #Milk to consider by Sally Cronin

Today some excerpts from a book that might be of interest to those of you who are gluten or lactose intolerant or allergic. They come from the book Curing the Incurable: Beyond the Limits of Medicine: What survivors or major illnesses can teach us by Dr. Jerry Thompson. A book that I will be reviewing later in the summer.

About the book

There is a steady stream of articles and books about ‘miraculous’ cures from the chronic illnesses that face us in the 21st century: autoimmune conditions such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis; neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s, MS and Alzheimer’s; and many cancers. But if all these individual cases are brought together and reviewed systematically, something much more practical and less miraculous emerges – a set of principles to guide us to better health and a greater chance of recovery. Dr Jerry Thompson draws on an immense range of case histories and research studies to show how what we eat, the toxic load we carry, the environmental electromagnetic fields we live in, and our beliefs and attitudes to health and illness can change the course of disease.

The result is a practical guide to what we can learn from ‘survivors’ about how to improve our chances of good health and recovery.

Here are the two excerpts from the book that I found particularly interesting

Chapter 2 – Gluten

For anyone with a serious disease there is another important reason why wheat could be an issue. Originally, wheat contained 10% gluten; now, following a switch to mutated forms of dwarf wheat in the last 50 years, the gluten content has risen to 80%.

During this time, the incidence of coeliac disease in the UK has shown a steep rise (from one in 8,000 in 1950 to one in 100 today); this is likely due to changes in wheat and in bread-making. This is no small matter. For instance, 54% of neurological patients have antibodies to gluten compared with 12% of healthy people, and 16% of these previously undiagnosed neurological patients * have been found to have coeliac disease after gut biopsies. For many patients with neurological or autoimmune diseases, removing gluten can be an essential step in their recovery.

*  Hadjivassillou M, Grunewald RA, Davies-Jones GAB. Gluten sensitivity as a neurological illness. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2002; 72(5): 560-563.

Milk and butter

… today milk has changed beyond recognition; it is positively associated with some types of cancer and with heart disease. What has happened? And why has it changed so much?

There are several reasons. Firstly, cows are selectively bred to produce far greater quantities of milk. They naturally produce about 1,000 litres of milk a year, but 30 years ago were managing 5,000 litres a year. Today, the average dairy cow produces 7,000 litres a year, and some high-yielding cows produce 10,000 litres a year*. Secondly, cows are fed on poor-quality grains as opposed to grass.

*  Lymbery P, Oakeshott I. Farmaggedon. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd; 2014: chapter 6.

The outcome of both of these changes is predictable: progressive nutrient depletion. Between 1940 and 2002, the following minerals had all declined in milk: iron, copper, sodium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium and copper. Milk from pasture-fed cows contains far higher levels (50-184% higher) of omega-3 fats and of carotenoids (60-436% higher)* than does milk from cows fed on grains.

*  Pickett H. Nutritional benefits of higher welfare products. 2012. www.compassioninfoodbusiness.com/media/5234769/Nutritional-benefits-of-higher-welfare-animal-products-June-2012.pdf (accessed 27 April 2020)

However, the problems with milk don’t end there. Homogenising and pasteurising milk mean exposing it to very high temperatures and pressures that alter its quality. (While pasteurisation only requires 60ºC, much pasteurisation uses ‘high temperature short time’ (HTST) processes, which go up to double this temperature.) These methods are similar to the process involved in hydrogenating fats.

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Dr Jerry Thompson has been working as a doctor for over four decades, mostly in general practice. He now works part-time in general practice at the Welby Practice, Bottesford, in the East Midlands. He has been a long-standing member of the British Society for Ecological Medicine (BSEM). www.drjerrythompson.co.uk.

N.B. We have an excellent source of dairy here in Ireland. I personally don’t drink much milk as it started to cause me stomach issues some years ago. But we do eat butter and I can buy guaranteed grass fed dairy cows which means it actually contains vitamin K2, which cows who don’t have access to grazing don’t have.

You can buy the book: Amazon UK – And: Amazon US

I hope you have found interesting and I will review the book at a later date.

©sally cronin Just Food for Health 1998 – 2023

A little bit about me nutritionally. .

About Sally Cronin

I am a qualified nutritional therapist with twenty-four years experience working with clients in Ireland and the UK as well as being a health consultant on radio in Spain.

Although I write a lot of fiction, I actually wrote my first two books on health, the first one, Size Matters, a weight loss programme 21 years ago, based on my own weight loss of 154lbs. My first clinic was in Ireland, the Cronin Diet Advisory Centre and my second book, Just Food for Health was written as my client’s workbook. Since then I have written a men’s health manual, and anti-aging programme, articles for magazines, radio programmes and posts here on Smorgasbord.

You can buy my books from: Amazon US – and: Amazon UK – Follow me :Goodreads – Twitter: @sgc58 – Facebook: Sally Cronin – LinkedIn: Sally Cronin