Blog

15/Apr/2008

We live in a world where everyone wants to be the same.  Everyone wants to be equal and fair for every race, gender, religion and so on.  There is one problem when it comes to the human body however:  We are not equal!  Commonly when dealing with clinical nutrition and diet issues in my practice, I ask people what their nationality is, not because I judge them, because that sheds light on what they might be deficient in.

Hopefully someone will  read this and learn that just because you bring up differences does not make one a racist.  Some bodies do things better, period.  The great thing of life is that persons body probably does something not as good also.  You might be predisposed towards diabetes and blood sugar problems, however you might also be less likely to get cancer.  It isn’t that any one is better, just different.

Lets start our example with white people vs. black people.  White people all come from northern climates if you go back many generations.  It makes perfect sense that their bodies adapted to their environments.  If there is one ultra common need of the past several decades it is unquestionably Omega 3′s (commonly found in fish oil or flax oil supplements).  Northern soil used to be very high in Omega 3′s.  Not just fish, but plants as well.  It is said that the ratio between Omega 3′s and Omega 6 oils used to be 2:1.  Now that estimate can be 20-25:1.  Hence why most white people need and do so much better when supplementing a high quality EPA/DHA (Omega 3) supplement.

OK, so what does this have to do with race again?  Simple, black people come from more equatorial climates that are higher in Omega 6′s.  Therefore they are not as deficient in today’s world where we can now travel everywhere and eat whatever we want.  Many of my black patients get help with Omega 3 supplements when they have injuries or major hormonal imbalance, but on a day to day basis they commonly do not need to supplement or even need specific Omega 6 products (such as Evening Primrose, Black Currant or Borage Oils).

Next up, Asians!  Asians respond well to soy, in fact much of the good outcome research is on Asians.  They traditionally eat fermented versions and have eaten them for generations.  In America, caucasian women read this, then get suckered into the bandwagon marketing to eat lots of soy.  One problem, soy mimics estrogen in the body.  What does estrogen do?  It makes fat cuddly moms!  Not what most middle age women are looking for right?  So wanting to be healthy but not knowing enough they then sabotage their own goals.

We can go on and on but I hope this gets the point across. Just because something worked for your neighbor doesn’t mean it will work for you.  The best advice on general diet is this:

Eat whole natural foods.  Eat a variety of foods.  Learn to Cook (basic healthy cooking is so easy anyone really can do it).  In future blogs I will delve deeper into some specific diet points mentioned throughout.


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