Diets and meaning in medicine

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Diets and meaning in medicine.

Everyone involved in optimum health diet research either points to a plant-based diet or a high-fat diet for CVD: how can this be? How is it possible for two very different diets to have the same healthy outcome?

I suspect that what is going on is that the 400 people involved in the Esselstyne/Ornish groups, for example, which show a major improvement in symptoms on a plant-based diet and even a reversal of the coronary artery pathology, made a major change in their diet from the typical American style diet to really healthy food choices.

Those involved in the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet made a similar shift from a much more unregulated mixed diet to more wholesome food choices with a high fat content. Was it this shift to different healthy food choices that made the difference, rather than the actual food chosen? In other words, it was not the exact diet which made the difference but a shift to a more disciplined way of eating and different combinations of healthy foods. Many of the people involved may have already been on a relatively healthy diet. Nevertheless, shifting to a different diet, the discipline required, and the emotional charge involved in changing a diet, can influence the way the body responds. I will talk more about this later, but I'm pointing now to the fact that changing diet is not just the act of changing the food content. There is an elephant in the room that has not been noticed.

This elephant in the room may be the underlying reason for some of the amazing results reported and not the food choices themselves. Not that the food choices had no influence, but there is always a tendency to narrow the field of investigation to make it easier to get a handle on what is going on. Shifting to a high-fat ketogenic diet does change the way the metabolism will function, but is that what makes the difference? The body's physiology must adapt quite dramatically to this diet using ketones instead of glucose for energy, and perhaps this is important. But my question is whether this shift is just helping a range of other factors function better, and the combination of factors including the shift in perspective, a different idea and conversation with self, reading the science, the excitement of doing something different, that leads to the required outcome.

I personally don't feel that the diet choice is a final answer. It is just part of the journey of life and there will need to be a more balanced diet over time and for the long haul, consisting of fruit, vegetables, grains, meat and fish -- much closer to a Mediterranean-style diet, which in my mind is most balanced.

In writing about food choices, I am reminded about my introduction to healthy medicine when I first started my Integrative practice.

When I returned back to medicine after a seven- year hiatus and decided to become a non-drug doctor, I opened a practice in a farming community. My first patients were farmworkers and the only remedies I knew to use in those early days were Brewer's Yeast and Kelp. I also had a cleansing diet from one of the local naturopaths, which consisted of boiled potatoes, onions and some green vegetables. Just with those three things I began to see miracles happen: diabetes disappeared, blood pressure came down, many painful conditions improved dramatically, and very quickly I was inundated with patients. I realised that what was happening is that I was shifting their diet from processed foods, high-refined sugar products and white bread to something more wholesome, even if not perfect. I knew then that I was onto something that I had not learnt in medical school, that drugs were not always the best way to go, that just a simple diet, Brewer's yeast with all those vitamin Bs, and kelp full of natural minerals could shift the way the body functioned towards health.

Today there are so many different diets, and when I see that, the question that comes up for me is what are the commonalities that make the difference and are there issues that I am not noticing. What other factors could there be besides the choice of food?

My impression over many years is that any discipline that makes enough sense for the person to follow over a long period of time can make a big difference to outcomes. This could be an exercise programme, a new diet, daily meditation, a regular walk in nature. All of these approaches contain deep meaning for the person involved and it is this deep meaning that shifts the system towards healing, more perhaps than the diet.

The nature of meaning

This is the deeper question that few people ask. This question goes to the very heart of so much that we do unconsciously. We say things like 'it just felt right' or 'I just followed my heart or my intuition' and even in those answers there are a whole lot of assumptions that are actually not clear at all. I will try to unpack this space, but it is not straightforward at all.

One way I have tried to understand 'meaning' is by dividing it into what I refer to as superficial meaning and deep meaning. Superficial meaning is what the thinking mind is able to conceive using thinking and combining it with imagination. Meaning then becomes something quite powerful and can have a major influence on body functions. The problem with superficial meaning is that it is thinking-driven, and thinking can never see the big picture and is generally self-centred and judgemental. Thinking has no clue how to run the body and what is most appropriate for a healthy function. This thinking-meaning can therefore be self-destructive and limited, and to my mind may even for example be the cause of autoimmune conditions. That is self-destructive thinking sets up the immune system to self-destruct in a particular way, depending on the underlying meaning the person gives to a situation.

Deep meaning is different. There is the recognition that thinking is limited and that the controls are much deeper. Deep meaning is what the 'being' of the person recognises in the interaction with another person, for example, or changing the diet, the humble recognition that thinking cannot resolve the problem, that the controls are outside the control of the limited, self-centered ego. It is an embodied experience. As an embodied experience there is just the feeling that what is being done or offered is the right thing or the wrong thing.

If you choose a diet that does not 'feel right', but your thinking mind persuades you that it makes sense to follow through, then you are unlikely to get the benefits of the 'meaning response'.

So what exactly happens when deep meaning is invoked

As indicated above this is not a thinking process but an embodied one. This embodied response points to a feeling/gut knowing that seems to initiate a physiological process towards healing. In making food choices that 'feel' right, and add the discipline of following the required regime in good faith and with a sense of achieving something healthy, a cascade of healthy functions in the body are triggered.

So in the end the particular dietary approach, while not insignificant in itself, is just part of a much bigger picture and accounts for the strange outcomes one finds when scientists try and do research comparing one diet regime to another.

Also check out another article I wrote appearing on the website: Meaning and Order in Life

(the opening is free to read; the full article is for members of Looking for Direction and Finding Home)

https://creatinghealth.co.za/library/meaning-and-order-in-life