The concept of a “healthy diet” was described by the early nutritionists starting in the 1930’s and 1940’s. There were two B vitamin deficiency diseases that did come from a poor diet. Pellagra and beriberi both resulted from very limited diets, pellagra from cornmeal only, beriberi from rice only. Clearly a “diet” made up entirely of a daily serving of a single starch is not a “healthy diet” but when they added back meat and vegetables they were able to cure the disease, so from then on we’ve been taught that “the B vitamins come from food”. ( See the blog “Healthy Bacteria Healthy Sleep” to learn why the B vitamins come from the intestinal bacteria, not from the food.)
At the time that the first “healthy diets”, (the five food groups etc.) were proposed, in the 1940’s and ‘50’s, most people still lived outside and the term “irritable bowel syndrome” had not come into common use. Most of the population still had the healthy bacteria living inside them. All of the primitive diets that are described as a solution for our modern ills were also eaten by humans who lived outside and had a healthy gut! Therefore, all of us who have unsuccessfully tried to find the “right diet” really need the “right bugs” and probiotics alone are not successful. In order to live inside us the “healthy” bacteria need our vitamin D and the “B vitamin soup” that they create to support each other. When we lose them our digestion suffers, our immune system suffers and even our sleep suffers.
Though I would agree that a diet of hamburgers and donuts is not a healthy diet, I do not agree that our eating habits alone have caused the epidemic of obesity and sleep apnea. Many of my patients tried so hard to lose weight by following a healthy diet, and were unsuccessful. There is really much more to this picture! Remember what I said about hunger being involuntary, it’s run by your brain, it’s also affected by the bacteria inside you. The bacteria in our intestine are now known to have very important effects on our appetite. Certain bacteria make chemicals called short chain fatty acids that are absorbed into our blood, go up into our nose and make donuts smell very good! In the past a change in the intestinal bacteria that promoted hunger in the winter, when the D was low, would enhance our survival, it made us try harder to find high fat, high calorie foods to sustain us until the winter ended. But this change in bacteria and increased appetite was not supposed to continue through one’s whole life while abundant food was all around. After converting the intestinal bacteria back to the healthy foursome most of my patients found it easier to be successful with a healthy diet. The diet was easier to follow, their hunger was less and their weight loss was more successful. Because the bacteria that live inside us affect our diet, our sleep and our pain level most patients also found that they had enough energy to start exercising and suffered less pain afterward. Thus, even those who do not have gut complaints still need to have the right bacteria in order to live the healthy life we were meant to have.
The cells in the brain that help us sleep correctly need B vitamins too, to do their job. At least one of them, pantothenic acid (B5), is not in any of the foods we eat. I will explain in a later blog why the statement “pantothenic acid deficiency doesn’t exist because it is in every food” is not true, despite being widely accepted. And, why this one mistake produced a global change in our sleep and our health.
Dear Sandro: Look at the For Clinicians section and read articles 3 and 4 listed under publications.
Dr. Gominak,
You’ve said that some of your patients didn’t lose weight even though their Vitamin D levels were good-do you feel that the pantothenic acid could be the missing link and could facilitate weight loss after the D level is sufficient and the other B’s are being supplemented?
Hi Laurie: Good question. I think based on the literature coming out about the microbiome, it’s the microbiome not specifically B5 that helps with weight loss. The Economist article Me Myself and Us: Economist is an excellent summary of the literature about the microbiome and documents that the bacteria who live inside us control our appetite and our weight.
I hope you still look at comments! I’m very much wanting to find a B50 that has a methylated version of the vitamins instead of the mostly synthetic form. Not all of us can process the synthetic versions. Are you aware of any brands that are methylated with their B’s? Those of us with the MTHFR genes will not do well with synthetic versions.
Hi Laura:
I don’t have a specific brand to recommend to you but there are several with methylated forms on the market. Keep in mind that we are supplying two “people” with that B50. We are supplying the bugs, who do not have that MTHFR snp, and they’re not picky, and we’re supplying you (who has that snp). Once the bugs return in your belly they actually probably make several forms of vitamins (in fact it’s never been carefully studied) and if there are so many people walking around with the MTHFR snps it likely that it had a survival advantage in the past that made it spread throughout the population.There had to have been a ”natural” supply of that form of vitamin before supplements existed (? the bacterial supply). So I don’t mind if you use a special form but it’s my guess that saying that you ”can’t use” that form is a little too simplistic and misses the bigger evolutionary picture. Once your bugs are back you are, in fact, receiving what your body was meant to use.
Dear Dr gominak
What if the b50 makes you jittery and disturb your sleep ?should you push through or stop it?
Hi Jay, some people are so D/B deficient that they do not do well with starting at the recommended doses in the Workbook of D or B. You can think of it as my body has been so deficient that it is using special ”work around” processes to keep me functioning and when I add the real stuff in normal doses it can’t handle it. You will still be able to handle those doses later, but you will need to let your body accommodate to the normal doses.
If the B’s make you jittery follow the separate boxed directions that are given for B’s causing nausea on page 19 that tell you to back way down and add the B’s much more slowly at lower doses over time.
Scenario Two: If your microbiome is already normal and your sleep is also normal then taking B50 will make you jittery and make your sleep worse.
Hi Jay: if you feel jittery you should stop it wait a few weeks just on the B’s in the multivit and try to restart a couple of weeks later at 1/2 B50. Then wait a couple more weeks and try adding back the other half to get to B50. Some bodies are so deficient that they can’t really cope with a ”normal” dose at first and have to slowly add things in watching what their body says about it. Everyone eventually tolerates D and B50 but it may take some weeks to feel good on that combination.
If you have already converted your microbiome with large dose B’s and D in the past you may not need to add B50, that’s the second setting in which the body doesn’t like the additional large dose B’s.