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by
Konstantin
Monastyrsky
Forensic nutrition investigates connections between
food and diseases, while traditional, orthodox
nutrition investigates and promotes connections between food and health.
In practical terms these differences mean the following:
 Traditional nutrition seeks out food to improve health
using a simplistic approach: If one apple is good for you, then more
apples are better. If water is good for you, then more water is better.
If fat is bad for you, then no fat is better.
This kind of seemingly logical and, without a doubt,
well-intentioned deductive reasoning gave birth to what I call
nutritional engineering. It is particularly prominent and dominant in
the United States because anyone with a big mouth, good looks, a top
agent, and a bit of luck can get a fat publishing contract and sell a
ton of diet books. (Not that I lack anything above, but my penchant for
picking up controversial subjects and a proclivity for perfectionism
makes it ten times as difficult as being a copycat or sycophant.)
 In
practice, nutritional engineering boils down to doling out foods in the
ratios that fit personal bias, specialty, and business objectives of
each particular ‘nutritionist’ or 'dietitian.' Thus, USDA promotes
the MyPyramid diet, Dr. Ornish promotes a low-fat diet, Dr. Atkins' estate promotes a low-carb
diet, Dr. Amato promotes a blood type diet, Dr.
Jenkins promotes a low glycemic index diet, Brenda Watson promotes the Fiber35 diet, Shelley Case promotes a gluten-free diet, Suzanne Sommers promotes... Suzanne Sommers, and, not to miss the party, Kim Barnouin promotes the
Skinny Bitch diet (no, this isn't a joke), and so on.
It sounds absurd, and it
is—considering that we all start life with identical stomachs,
pancreases, livers, kidneys, and intestines, and that the genetic
differences between you, me, and all of these ‘foodies’ are less than
0.1%. With this background in mind, our
optimal diets can't be that dog-eat-dog opposite, antagonistic, and
irreconcilable, can they?
On the other hand, forensic nutrition doesn't engineer diets or count
calories, but deconstructs the
core assumption behind presumably “good,” “healthy,” and “safe” foods,
and determines their impact on diseases rather than health. It asks the
following questions: What happens if you consume too much fiber? What
happens if you eat too many apples? What happens if you drink too much
water? What happens if you don’t consume enough fat?
Forensic nutrition is deeply grounded in an existing
well-established, undisputed, and well-settled body of science in human
anatomy, physiology, biology, anthropology, and medical biochemistry —
collectively, fundamental science. This approach precludes personal
biases, which are typical for most medical writers. Hence its answers are exacting
and specific:
If soluble fiber causes diarrhea, then
exclude foods rich in soluble fiber instead of wiping out intestinal
bacteria with antibiotics just because the bacterial fermentation of excess fiber produces
diarrhea-causing substances.
If insoluble fiber causes large stools, large stools cause straining, straining causes hemorrhoidal
disease, and hemorrhoidal disease causes constipation, then exclude fiber
instead of enlarging (bulking up) stools even more in order to overcome
constipation.
If overhydration causes hypercalcinuria
(calcium loss with urine), and hypercalcinuria causes kidney stones,
then consume fluids in moderation instead of drinking even more water to
‘wash’ out the said calcium, and ending up with debilitating osteoarthritis, osteoporosis,
and osteomalacia on top of kidney stones.
If a low-fat diet causes gallstones,
then consume fat in
moderation to facilitate a timely and regular release of bile from the
gallbladder instead of losing your gallbladder to a surgeon’s knife.
Nutritional intervention is the next logical step in
reversing food-borne diseases, or “nutropathies” (nutritional
pathologies). It combines nutritional hygiene (proper
style of eating), nutritional profiling (matching food with age-related
physiological needs), and nutritional augmentation (compensating missing
micronutrients with basic supplements instead of consuming factory-made
foods fortified with iron, folic acid, vitamins A, C, and D, and
calcium).
Nutritional intervention yields particularly dramatic
results in critical nutrition for the morbidly ill, in performance
nutrition for athletes, performers, and professionals, in geriatric
nutrition for seniors, in pediatric nutrition for sick children, and in
many other areas.
Once nutritional intervention is
successfully completed, functional nutrition enters the stage.
Functional nutrition isn’t a diet per se, but a lifestyle of eating
fitted to an individual’s social, cultural, and ethnic preferences, and health- and
age-related objectives.
Functional nutrition provides essential nutrients for
the seamless functioning of body and mind. These nutrients come from
natural foods in season, which are high in nutritional content and
consumed with minimal processing. These can be meat, fowl, fish,
seafood, unprocessed dairy, fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and
nuts.
Carbohydrates in moderation are perfectly acceptable
and even necessary to prevent lean tissue (protein) wasting. Foods that
may cause allergies to particular individuals are excluded.
Obviously, functional nutrition avoids highly processed commercial foods
because they harm digestion.
As you can see, functional nutrition is neither a primitive caveman-style diet, nor a chimera of a balanced diet. Rather, it is a prudent style of
low-fuss, low-impact nutrition that reflects our physiological and
emotional needs,
our era, and our individual realities.
The key principles of functional nutrition are described in great depth
in my Russian-language book
Functional Nutrition. In the final chapters,
Fiber Menace gives a fair
representation of functional nutrition and nutritional intervention in
the context of low-fiber diets.
The principles and benefits of forensic nutrition,
nutritional intervention, and functional nutrition are nowhere as
self-evident as in obesity, and, inversely, weight loss. My current
groundbreaking work in the field of diabetes reversal deconstructs this
complicated and controversial subject with the same rigor as Fiber
Menace deconstructed the aftermath of fiber addiction on digestion and
longevity [link].
At this point I can only share with you anecdotal evidence
based on the input from my readers and clients. Yes, all of these
“miracles” were unexpected (by readers and clients, not me),
spontaneous, and undocumented. And, yes, none of them may be
representative or repeatable for anyone else. And, yes, there have yet to be any
controlled studies to prove or repeat any of these successes. And, yes,
all of this flies in the face of conventional 'science' and medicine,
but here are some of the outcomes of nutritional intervention:
— It helped a former world champion athlete to return
to the pinnacle of professional sport after a ten-year hiatus—a task
considered improbable;
— It helped a child with type I diabetes to get off
insulin and become healthy again;
— It helped a 60-year-old physician to become a movie
star with over 60 roles to his credit, and still going on strong eight
years later;
— It helped a talented student with attention deficit disorder
to graduate from medical school without a major burnout;
— It helped a young couple with idiopathic
infertility to conceive a child without resorting to IVF;
— It helped a young professional woman with a history
of miscarriage to finally deliver a healthy baby;
— It helped my wife and a long-term client to fully recover from kidney
stone disease—a condition considered irreversible;
— It helped my wife's mother recover from a devastating
heart disease. She was bedridden for over fifteen years because of
numerous cardiac events and several heart attacks. Then, in 2002, at age
76, she resumed normal life again without medication or a pacemaker.
— It helped me to overcome undiagnosed diabetes,
recover from debilitating carpal tunnel syndrome, and become a medical
writer and the author of this site;
— It helped a young woman with cerebral palsy to
sleep an entire night for the first time in 20 years;
— It helped a five-year-old boy, whose mother is a
surgical nurse, to fully recover from ulcerative colitis;
— It helped a prominent attorney to save his eyesight
and continue his practice;
— It helped a 16-year-old obese boy to overcome the
stigma of being “fat,” and enjoy the perks of his age without
depression, harassment, and loneliness. I hadn’t even seen him—his
mother attended one of my weight loss seminars.
— It helped an 'exotic dancer' in her late thirties
to 'eat' her way out of cellulite and keep on dancing along with women
half her age. Her objective wasn’t losing the cellulite, but overcoming chronic
fatigue. Getting rid of the cellulite was an unexpected bonus. And she isn’t
alone.
— It helped a successful businessman to overcome
otherwise irreversible hepatitis C (that feat isn't based on subjective
feelings, but blood tests. Try to deny that...).
— It helped a swimming coach in his early forties to
recover from early stage Parkinson’s disease, resume his work, and
continue to care for his child. When he first approached me back in
2000, he wasn’t crying because he was afraid to die, but because he was
afraid to “let down” his young daughter.
These are all true accounts. Sure I may be
accused of opportunism, exploitation, and God only knows what else by
those who don't want to find out these truths because it may kill their
windfall profits.
But...
But it didn't cost trillions of dollars either to pay
for substandard health care that ranks, quality-wise, below that of Cuba.
Health scare more than care, really... And it didn’t cause
countless deaths from medical errors, mistreatment, or lack of treatment
during the same time frame. Let time and God be the judge...
THE FUTURE OF FORENSIC NUTRITION
Following my own recovery from undiagnosed type II
diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, and related complications, I wrote
five books: Functional Nutrition
(2000), Reversing Metabolic Disorders
(2002), Fixing Up The Atkins Diet
(2003, unpublished because of the controversy over Dr. Atkins' death and
weight), Fiber Menace (2005), and
Gut Sense (released in its entirety on this site in March of 2008).
All five books present a clear-cut, detailed working
strategy for preventing, reversing, or substantially improving the
following major conditions:
 Type II diabetes
(NIDDM2). A constellation of primary symptoms and complications
behind the diabetic syndrome. Most are fully reversible with medium-term
nutritional intervention. Recovery is measured objectively by the
abatement of primary symptoms and normalization of fasting glucose,
HbA1C, and C-Peptide markers based on ADA and WHO criteria. Individuals remain diabetes-free for as long as they follow the dietary
protocol described in my Russian-language book Reversing Metabolic
Disorders and partially elucidated in Fiber Menace (Chapter
12, The Low-Fiber Advantage).
Type I diabetes (IDDM1).
In 2002 I described the most probable pathogenesis (causes and
evolution) of type I diabetes among juveniles, which is still considered
unknown. Based on my analysis, the prevalence of Type I diabetes can be
reduced from the existing 5% to 10% to less than 1-2%. In many cases,
early stages of Type I juvenile diabetes can be completely reversed.
Obesity prevention and
weight loss management. Back in 2003, while researching the
shortcomings of the Atkins Diet, I identified the most common side
effects of weight loss diets, and their implications on clinical and
self-administered weight reduction protocols. According to my
unpublished book “Fixing Up The Atkins Diet,” these side effects — not
the will to diet or lack of compliance with the recommended diet — are
the primary cause behind diet failures.
These findings equally apply
to other dietary protocols, such as high-carb (Ornish), high-protein (Eades),
and the balanced diet (Sears, Agatston, USDA). The application of these
findings to actual weight loss practice may finally allow millions of
committed Americans to reverse the onset of metabolic syndrome and
normalize weight.
Autism Spectrum
Disorder (ASD, autism). In 2007 I described the probable
pathogenesis of ASD. I believe autism can be prevented and wiped out
from the population by following my nutritional guidelines for
prospective mothers, infants,
and children. Early intervention may reverse and ameliorate certain
aspects of pre-existing autism. Because this subject is so complex, the
final publishing of these guidelines requires their validation in a
clinical trial, and the development of comprehensive day-to-day
instructions for parents and doctors.
Inflammatory Bowel
Disease (IBD). I put forth a hypotheses that gastroenterocolitis
— not just localized enteritis or colitis — plays a key role in the
pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis and
Crohn’s disease). Acute patients, who follow my recommendations to
ameliorate gastroenterocolitis rapidly enter remission. Regretfully,
resuming an unrestricted diet is unattainable for patients with a
long-term history of IBD — affected persons develop an autoimmune
response to numerous triggers found in common foods. It may take five to
seven years of a compliant diet to reduce and/or eliminate an autoimmune
response.
Hepatitis-C Virus (HCV).
A reader who followed a long-term, self-administered, nutritional
protocol described in my Russian-language books to alleviate and reverse
type 2 diabetes (NIDDM2) and fatty liver (steatorrhoeic hepatosis),
accomplished a complete clearance of HCV antibodies measured by serum
level of IgM anti-HCV.
Primary Hypertension.
I put forth a hypotheses that hyperinsulinemia (elevated levels of
insulin) and hyperlipidemia (elevated levels of triglycerides) are the
core causes of primary hypertension. The readers of my books, who follow
my recommendations to reduce hyperinsulinemia and hyperlipidemia, report
a high success rate in reversing primary hypertension.
Bone disease. I
believe I am the first researcher who identified a methodological error
in the diagnosis and treatment of age-onset osteoporosis. It’s generally
accepted that osteoporosis is a calcium deficiency disease, and that a
low level of calcium is the primary cause of osteoporosis.
Actually, this is wrong. A low
level of calcium causes rickets in children, scoliosis in teenagers, and
osteomalacia in older adults. Unlike osteomalacia, osteoporosis is a
connective tissue deficiency disease. It is caused by an inadequate
intake of primary proteins and related co-factors of collagen synthesis,
such as copper, ascorbic acid, and essential fatty acid. No amount of
calcium (a secondary outcome) can reverse the resulting diminution of
the underlying bone matrix.
This analysis opens the path
to prevent an osteoporosis onset in younger patients (<55), and may help
to reduce the ravages of osteoporosis in healthy seniors.
Overhydration.
As far back as 2000 I sounded an alarm regarding the incorrect advice to
routinely consume eight glasses of water, and explained the common
health side-effects of this bad advice. Eight years later, in 2008, my
findings are finally becoming “officially” accepted, and other prominent
physicians are raising similar concerns. Unfortunately, the public at
large is still not well informed about the perils of overhydration.
Adverse role of dietary
fiber in nutrition. I was the first and still the only research
and medical writer to denounce fiber’s adverse role in health and
nutrition. The ‘benefits’ of fiber are so entrenched, a major clinical
trial is required to prove the digestive benefits of a reduced-fiber
diet.
This partial list doesn’t
include my discoveries in the field of major digestive disorders, which
are discussed in detail in the Gut Sense section of this site.
Considering the staggering costs of treating digestive disorders — from
common GERD to the almost commonplace colon cancer — the implications of
these discoveries are equally deserving of thorough review and
examination by epidemiologists and gastroenterologists.
I do realize the profound implications of my findings
and theories. My own recovery from diabetes and IBS reminds me each day
just how lucky I am to know what I know.
Since I am a full-time medical writer, not a practicing
clinician, I obtained confirmation for the effectiveness of my theories
and recommendations primarily from the accounts of numerous readers of
my books, from the experiences of my family members, and, obviously, my
own.
The feedback from my readers is particularly moving —
an autistic toddler talking with his mother for the very first time, a
young boy, whose ulcerative colitis is in remission, a diabetic girl who
no longer needs insulin, and the examples I cited above.
Still, I realize that positive, personal, family, and
readers’ feedback, however unique and laudable, is anecdotal and not
representative. For this reason I have always been reluctant to
disseminate my theories more assertively or recommend them to
medical professionals.
To be truly effective, these theories and methodologies
must first be tested by properly organized and medically-supervised
clinical trials. And to be accepted — their results must be
peer-reviewed, and published in the mainstream medical journals.
For these reasons — to turn my discoveries into safe
and repeatable medical protocols — I am in the process of establishing The Institute of
Forensic Nutrition (IFN), a not-for-profit medical research and
education organization. The Institute’s charter — to authenticate,
refine, and disseminate medical protocols in the field of digestive and
metabolic disorders.
Henceforth, the primary goals of The Institute of
Forensic Nutrition are:
Apply the core principles of
forensic nutrition to the prevention and treatment of metabolic and
nutritional disorders;
Sponsor clinical trials to
establish the effectiveness of nutritional intervention for the
prevention and reversal of metabolic and digestive disorders;
Develop and disseminate
research and educational information to patients, public health
educators, and medical professionals;
Without clinical trials, ensuing peer review, and
the resulting detailed protocols, this research may remain inaccessible to
most people at tremendous social and economic costs.
If you are interested in
assisting the Institute by donating your time and professional expertise
(legal, medical, scientific, editorial, pubic relations, web), or if you
would like to pledge a donation, please contact me
here.
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Author's note:
If you are confused over the
onslaught of terms, quotes, and italics on this page, I owe
you an explanation: I can't escape medical lingo in places, even though I try hard
to use it sparingly.
Italics here and elsewhere denote definitions, particularly new or
rare ones. I use 'single' and “double” quotes liberally to
signal non-literal or ironic use of quoted words, otherwise
I'll stand accused of ignorance, incompetence, or sacrilege. This may
get me flagellated or worse by self-appointed mullahs of medical purity.
Considering just how incendiary and controversial some of my views are,
I have to, as they say, 'cover my ass' with quotes.
Konstantin Monastyrsky
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