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EicosaniodsEicosanoids – Elemental Aspects of Health By Nancy Dunne, MA, ND February 2003 Eicosanoids (eye-kah-sah-noids) are a kind of hormone messenger that tell our cells what to do at a very basic level. People have been making guesses about the function of these cellular instructors since the 1930’s. It wasn’t till the 1980’s however that the technology to see eicosanoids in action was developed. Most of us are familiar with endocrine hormones, like estrogen and testosterone. Those familiar hormones are secreted into the blood to be delivered to their target tissues. Eicosanoids are another kind of hormone. They are born in and never leave the cell. So we can’t study them by looking at the amounts in our blood. Our understanding of how important eicosanoids are is growing by leaps every year. Unfortunately, conventional medicine and nutrition has been very slow to incorporate new information about cellular hormones and health. In the case of eicosanoids, incorporating the growing body of knowledge about how they work means significantly changing the ways we look at health and disease. Eicosanoids explain so much The exciting thing about eicosanoinds is that understanding them explains so much about the chronic degenerative diseases that plague so many people. Most significantly, understanding eicosanoids puts the solution, the power to change, squarely in the hands of each of us. Learning about eicosanoids shines a spotlight on habits we repeat daily that are destroying our health, slowly and silently over many years. Understanding eicosanoids means we can take responsibility for our choices and thus our health, and reverse degenerative processes before they become diseases. This is the heart of naturopathic medicine – education, self awareness, conscious living and prevention of disease before it starts. Conventional medicine is best at crisis intervention. It has little to offer people in terms of prevention and restoration. Everything developed as a phamaceutical or surgical solution to chronic, degenerative disease at best masks the damaging events and ultimately fails to stop the processes of degenerative disease. If we want to truly become well again, or to prevent becoming ill in the first place, we need to learn about and pay attention to eicosanoids. We really are what we eat Eicosanoid production is directly related to what we eat. We make different kinds of eicosanoids when we eat different kinds of food. This is the basic “you are what you eat” idea explained at a metabolic level. There are different types of eicosandoids, We are concerned here with what are called Series 1 and Series 2 eicosanoids. (Please see attached diagram) These two types function ideally as partners, balancing each other to allow our system to respond to a changing environment and shifting demands. For instance Series 2 will cause blood vessels to become narrow and the blood to clot. If this is happening around the heart, it will eventually lead to a heart attack; if it happens in the brain, it’s a stroke. Bad news. But! If a person is in a car accident or slices a finger in the kitchen, we want some veins to constrict and the blood to clot, to stop the bleeding from an injury. Series 2 eicosanoids also trigger cellular reproduction—too much of that, out of control, is cancer. But suppressing it with too much Series 1 type instruction might mean a wound could not heal. The balance between these two is crucial to smooth and resilient physical function. Take Charge With Your Choices One of the most exciting discoveries about eicosanoids is how the balance between them relates directly to our diet. In a nutshell, “good guy” Series 1 eicosanoids are favored by a balanced fresh whole foods diet with adequate protein and healthy fats. Series 2 eicosanoids,the “bad guys”, are created in larger amounts when we eat processed foods without enough vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. Too much carbohydrate, which leads to excess blood sugar and too much insulin, triggers the production of Series 2 eicosanoids. Without sufficient protein and the right fatty acids to balance the biochemistry, we become susceptible to pain, inflammation, restricted circulation, stiff aching muscles, difficulty breathing and suppressed immune function. All of these events, especially restricting the circulation of blood and thus oxygen, leads to ever more complicated problems in our tissues. Our basic physical wellbeing depends on a daily diet, day after day, decade after decade, of fresh, whole foods including good quality protein and fats. The “machine” of our body is not designed to function optimally when fueled primarily by processed foods. The original design, did not include any purpose for refined sugars, flours, chemical colorings and preservatives or meats laden with antibiotics and the residues of herbicides and pesticides. Our body simply has no use for those additives, but once we swallow them, our system has to deal with them somehow. If we mistakenly swallow a poisonous mushroom, our body will recognize this a threat and automatically get to work to get rid of it. We won’t be able to ignore the nausea, vomiting and diarrhea that results! We’ll be weakened and drained by the experience. We’ll have no appetite and have to rest, making it less likely we’ll get up and eat more of that mushroom! The reaction and it’s consequences – it if doesn’t kill us!- is a pretty effective way to get us to stop the sickening behavior and learn to not repeat it. When we swallow other things that aren’t good for us, that have no real function in our body—like pounds and pounds of sugar, other sweeteners and other refined foods, our body has similar, if less dramatic reactions. In order to make us stop swallowing things that are bad for us, our body always sends signals. Symptoms like foggy thinking, irritability, fatigue, skin rashes and headaches are a few of the common experiences that result from eating a poor diet. Understanding what food causes these experiences can be tricky. Usually we eat the same things day in and day out, for decades. Most of us eat wheat every day of our lives. How can we know whether a cookie or pasta or that bagel we love is causing these mild persistent headaches? We never experience a wheat-free month, we never give our poor head a break from the trigger food. Over decades the same internal mechanisms that cause these seemingly mild symptoms on a regular usually daily basis, are leading to those silent killers, like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Americans are dying primarily from diseases that don’t make themselves known until they are well advanced. All these diseases and others as well, like asthma, arthritis and colitis for instance, are directly related to how we eat. How we eat determines what hormone messengers are active in our cells and our blood, as well as what raw material our body has to work with to repair and maintain our tissues. The vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and fatty acids that make up the raw material for all the internal functioning of human biochemistry, come from the food we eat. When we look at the typical diet of most Americans, we can see how many of us fall behind in our ability to supply enough nutrients for our basic upkeep, never mind extra for processing all the extra chemistry, the food colorings and preservatives we swallow with our refined diets. Even those of us who make a concerted effort to eat a healthy organic diet are frequently facing hard choices due to busy lives, finances or the often confusing, frequently changing claims of various experts regarding “the best diet”. Many of us, women in particular, are further challenged by the stresses that result from social pressures about appearance and body type. Americans have been dragging their food choices through many changes in the past half century and the result is a lot of misinformation, and a lot of unhealthy people. There is no single, ideal diet that is right for everyone. But there are some fundamental truths about food- the best food is fresh, organically grown, varied and eaten in amounts appropriate for one’s body size and activity level. Food can’t be divorced from the rest of life, so things like muscle mass, exercise, emotional life, and events like conception, pregnancy, breastfeeding, illness and accidental trauma, or extreme physical demands like training for a sport, require special attention to diet for the best results. If you want to begin to make changes for the better, by adjusting the balance of eicosanoids in your body, the simplest starting place is to stop eating sugar and to really limit starches. This means all simple, refined sweets – sugar of all kinds, honey, all syrups, malts, and alcohol which is also pure simple carbohydrate. It also means refined flour products like white bread, bagels, crackers, white rice, pasta, chips and most prepared, packaged foods. If you eat a lot of these things regularly you may experience intense cravings for them. You can control these cravings and help restore balance in your system by replacing sugary foods with whole, unrefined grains and cereals and good quality protein and fats. The best fat is found in olive oil and canola oil, fresh, un-roasted nuts and seeds and avocados. Eggs, fish, lean poultry and lean meat should be eaten every day, at each meal. Some people benefit from eating soy foods like tofu, tempeh and soy milk as part of their protein intake. Round out this diet with 2 or more cups a day of fresh or frozen vegetables and 2 or 3 pieces of fresh fruit, and 6 to 10 glasses of water or herb teas and your have the basis of a dietary and health transformation. You can get more specific food advice, and support for making these rewarding changes, from your naturopathic physician. Changes like this should be something you are curious about and excited to try—if it feels like loss, drudgery or restriction, you have not been helped to be happily excited yet! That means you need more information and support. A commitment to try a new dietary element for 6 weeks is usually what is needed. In order for a person to learn the new way of eating, and for the change to take effect in their body it takes at least a month and a half. Only then can a person understand, from the inside out, whether the hassle of the change is worth the effort or not. Actually experiencing for instance, life without sugar, and all the ways you are changed by this choice, is necessary in order for you to be in charge of, and have the pleasure of the accomplishment of, choosing how you will live. The balance of protein, fat and carbohydrate and how this mixes to create the internal chemistry of our body, in both very complex, and fundamentally simple. Think of yourself as if you were an ancient human—your great great ,great, many times great grandparent, living in the world before refrigeration, before farms even. You live off the land and eat EVERYTHING- bugs, bark, and stuff even more unmentionable, because the food is uncertain and most often not abundant. This is the situation our bodies are designed to thrive in. We are fortunate and don’t have to eat bugs. There is no reason not to enjoy a glass of wine or a bowl of ice cream on special occasions. “Special”, by definition, is not every day. It’s not even once a week! If we eat a simple, fresh, and deliciously whole food diet 80% of the time and indulge in modern extravaganzas like Snickers bar and margaritas the remaining 20%, we would all see a dramatic improvement in our Series 1 and Series 2 eicosanoid balance, and thus in our total wellbeing. © Nancy Dunne, MA, ND 2003 |
