Read Food Over Medicine Online
Authors: Pamela A. Popper,Glen Merzer
Food Over Medicine (12 page)
Cut to twenty years later. My old literature professor was retiring, and I flew back to Sarasota to speak at his retirement dinner. I’m hanging around the campus and I meet a young woman from China who is a new student at the college. She tells me she’s studying international relations with Dr. Bates. I say, “Oh, is she still here? How’s she doing?”
She says, “Great. She’s just the greatest professor. But she makes the worst friggin’ coffee.”
SUCCESS STORIES
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GM:
Pam, let’s discuss how the dietary program that you recommend has worked in practice, with specific individuals. I know that, in the view of science, every individual is just an anecdote, but after a while the anecdotes begin to add up.
PP:
Okay, let’s start with a young lady by the name of Darcy (her name has been changed), who came to us after her condition caused her to drop out of college. She had started her menstrual period at about the average time for American girls, sometime around eleven or twelve, but from the very beginning this was just a torturous experience for her. Her periods were irregular and heavy, sometimes bleeding three weeks out of four. Then she developed severe acne and the beginnings of polycystic ovary syndrome, which is a horrific condition for a teenager to have. She graduated from high school and went off to college, but the condition worsened so much that she had to drop out of college and come back home.
Her parents found The Wellness Forum. They called and said their daughter was nineteen years old and effectively can’t do anything—can’t leave the house, go to school, get a job. This is quite a young age to essentially have your life be pretty much over with, so we started teaching her the diet. We cut the dairy out and got her on a low-fat, plant-based nutritional program. Within six weeks, her menstrual periods started to become regular, the horrible bleeding and the cramping started to go away, her skin cleared up, and she returned to school. She’s back in nursing school now and has had a complete and total recovery. She takes no medication. So, just diet—complete and total recovery using our diet.
GM:
Did she experience any other changes? Did she lose weight?
PP:
Yes. She lost fifteen or twenty pounds. It’s hard to know if her original weight gain had been caused by the fact that her life had come to a halt and she couldn’t do anything, but now she runs, she exercises, and her skin’s cleared up. She’s a normal college student.
GM:
Now, do you suspect that dairy had been the main culprit, or do you think it was just somehow the overall diet, all the fat and everything in the standard American diet?
PP:
I think it’s both. First of all, dairy foods are the worst for women with menstrual problems because dairy products by their very nature contain estrogen. Most women who have problems with hormones ranging from irregular periods to infertility are having those problems because their estrogen levels are too high. Taking in more estrogen metabolites in a glass of milk or a slice of cheese just makes the problem worse. In the case of this young lady, her entire dietary pattern was horrific. She lived on the typical college kid fare and, before that, the typical high school kid fare. The whole family, by the way, was in a similar condition. Her mother has also had a miraculous health recovery. After seeing what happened with her daughter, the mother adopted the diet and her health has turned around also. The whole family now eats this way. So a whole family of sick people became a whole family of active people eating a health-promoting diet all because their daughter had reached a crisis point.
GM:
And was Darcy resistant at all, or did she immediately take to the diet?
PP:
She was so anxious to have this behind her that if we had told her to graze on grass in the side yard of her house, she would have gone and done it. When people are really sick, they’re really compliant because they want to heal. Somehow we’ve got to reach people who aren’t so sick and get them to take it just as seriously. If you can make them see their choice, they’d much rather be well than become sick and have to recover.
DARCY IN HER OWN WORDS
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My story started at age eleven when I started my period. By the time I was thirteen years old, I started having severe pain. I thought it was normal, but then it kept getting worse and worse every month. I began to have cramps before, during, and after my period. Some months my menstrual period would last for two-and-a-half weeks.
I went to a gynecologist, and he gave me pain medicine, but it did not help very much. I had a laparoscopy, during which the surgeon found a cyst in my left tube and the beginning stages of endometriosis. The doctors gave me birth control pills, but I decided to stop taking them after two years because I was concerned about the health risks. All of my symptoms returned.
I began seeing a holistic health specialist, who prescribed compounded progesterone. It seemed to help for about six months, and then the symptoms returned. I tried lots of different holistic health alternatives, because I refused to go back to the doctors who never seemed to have a clear answer and always wanted to treat my symptoms instead of the actual cause. But the holistic professionals just ran tests and gave me pills and creams. Sometimes they worked for a period of time, but I usually ended up worse than when I started.
As if all of this was not bad enough, I started breaking out with acne all over my body. My face was pure red. I felt awful and tired, and at this point, the only time I got out of bed was to eat and visit doctors. I was sleeping about fourteen hours per day. I gained twenty pounds and even when I tried eating only lettuce, I could not lose the weight. My mood swings became more severe, my temper was out of control, and I began to develop sugar and thyroid problems. It seemed like I was very young to have all of these health issues.
Forced to go back to medical doctors, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome; I had cysts all over my ovaries. This time the doctors put me back on birth control and added an antidepressant and metformin for the sugar problem.
I was absolutely desperate at this point and I continued to pray and pray, until one day a miracle came. A wonderful lady shared with me her personal recovery story with Dr. Pam Popper and The Wellness Forum. I decided to get in touch with Dr. Popper and see what might happen. By this point, I was about seven years into my journey and I would have probably tried anything. Amazingly, with Dr. Popper’s diet and the exercise she asked me to do, in just six weeks my period returned——the first one in six months! I think I had the biggest smile on my face that I had had in the past three years. I was so thankful and joyful and I felt so much better. I truly felt relieved. My body was starting to work and fix itself, and, little by little, things started adjusting.
I have been on this diet for about two years and I am almost fully recovered from everything. Most of my pimples are gone, I lost the twenty pounds I had gained, and I have a lot more energy. I am able to function like a normal person. I will continue to stick to this diet for the rest of my life and I am so grateful for the transformation it has caused in my health. When things were the worst, I never thought I’d have a regular menstrual cycle or be able to get out of bed again. It is an amazing feeling to have my health restored.
GM:
Now, most people come to The Wellness Forum only when they’re sick.
PP:
Yes. Maureen Yatwa actually came to me through my work with Rip Esselstyn and Whole Foods Market. She showed up at one of the Immersion programs last fall.
GM:
That’s the program that Whole Foods funds for employees with weight problems or health challenges, right?
PP:
Right. Maureen, from Jacksonville, Florida, is in her forties and she had Crohn’s disease—that’s past tense. She qualified for the program because she also had high cholesterol and was overweight.
At the first night of Immersion, during the introductions, she stood up and said, “I’m overweight, I have high cholesterol, and I also have Crohn’s disease. My daughter, who’s a teenager, also has Crohn’s disease, and I want both of us to get better.” So I went up to her after the opening-night dinner, introduced myself, and said, “In order to fix the Crohn’s disease, you’ll have to accept a little bit more dietary restriction than the others because gluten is contraindicative for Crohn’s. So the oats and some of the other things we have here, you’re not going to be able to eat. But there’s plenty of food here; you’re not going to starve. There are just some things you can’t have.” Everybody at the Immersion is on a whole food, low-fat, plant-based diet, but she would have just a little bit more restriction.
There are all kinds of activities planned at the Immersion, canoeing and field trips and so forth. Maureen didn’t sign up for any of it because if you’re a Crohn’s patient, your disease is not under control. You can’t go anywhere because you have to be by the bathroom. It’s a debilitating disease. The forty-five-minute bus ride into town—you can’t do that. You can’t be out on a canoe. Life revolves around locating the nearest bathroom.
By the time the midweek came, she was well enough to do those things. She showed significant improvement within in a matter of days. Today, she not only doesn’t have Crohn’s disease but she doesn’t take medication for it, she’s lost the weight, and her cholesterol is down. And her daughter, who was on her way to duplicating mom at the age of seventeen or eighteen, also no longer has Crohn’s disease.
GM:
So in just a few days the Crohn’s was gone? Crohn’s often stays with people for how long?
PP:
Their whole lives. The trajectory of Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis and these inflammatory bowel diseases is discouraging. There may be periods of some remission, where it gets a little bit better, but it always progresses, and the drugs get stronger. It’s not unusual to use Remicade infusions, which are immunosuppressants, very strong drugs. And when that fails, they start taking portions of the bowel out; they remove the inflamed portion. And obviously, there’s an end point to that; there’s only so much you can take out before you don’t have a GI tract or intestines anymore. That’s where Maureen was headed, and her situation was obviously pretty acute. If you’re afraid of a forty-five-minute bus ride because you’re not going to be near a bathroom, you’re pretty far down the road. So she totally recovered. She talks about it very openly, as she should since she can be a real inspiration to others who have this condition.
MAUREEN YATWA IN HER OWN WORDS
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I met Dr. Pam Popper while participating in a program sponsored by my employer. There were several reasons why I wanted to participate in this program, and one of them was that I had Crohn’s disease for nineteen years. During that time I was medicated with steroids, antibiotics, and other medications; would have flare-ups; and was even hospitalized a few times. In 1993 I had my gallbladder removed. My Crohn’s had advanced so much that I was hospitalized with toxic shock syndrome and had twelve inches of my intestines removed in an emergency surgery. The infection was so severe that the wound was left open to heal; I was left with a horrible scar. From that point, I routinely had visited the bathroom between six and fourteen times per day, and my stomach was always sore and bloated; I just accepted that this was my fate. I had to always be near a restroom. The anxiety I experienced would cause me to shake, sweat, and feel guilty because I was always making my family wait while I found a bathroom. A class trip with my children was a heinous experience.
Dr. Pam told me the very first time we met that I could get better and that she would help me figure out what to eat and what not to eat. The program I attended lasted for five days; by the end of this time, my Crohn’s disease was better. I maintained a plant-strong diet after the program and my Crohn’s disease completely went away!
For the first time in nineteen years, I am not running for the bathroom and I have the freedom to do anything I want to do. I can watch my daughter’s whole soccer game without running to a restroom. This has totally changed my life.
Getting rid of the Crohn’s disease is not the only positive change: I’ve lost nineteen pounds and my blood pressure and cholesterol dropped to ideal levels.
I wish I’d known about this earlier, but I’m grateful to have my life back.
GM:
I take it that The Wellness Forum attracts a lot of people with digestive or bowel disorders?
PP:
We do. Jill Collett is a yoga teacher at our studio who had ulcerative colitis. She’d been on and off medication for it. Her ulcerative colitis had progressed to the place where the inflammation in the bowel started to affect other parts of the body; she developed some inflammation in her eyes and her vision became a bit impaired, something that can’t be fixed. Jill had been a student at our yoga studio for a long time, but I didn’t know, until she started our yoga-training program and spoke with me about it, that she had been suffering for twenty years with ulcerative colitis.
Jill didn’t eat a terrible diet, but it wasn’t perfect. Remember the combination lock theory; you know, you’ve got to get all four numbers right. You can’t do 75 percent. We helped her make that additional 25 percent of dietary improvement; it took only three weeks for her stools to become solid and for her to stop suffering from ulcerative colitis—off the meds and everything’s fine. And she’s been fine ever since. She actually made the comment that her energy level was so high that she was starting to scare her husband. This had been a twenty-year problem for her; after only twenty-one days on the diet, she was in great shape. You could really see the difference, too. Her face, her complexion changed a lot after this period of time; now she just looks phenomenally great.
JILL COLLETT IN HER OWN WORDS
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When I talked with Pam Popper regarding my gut issues for the first time, I thought I was faring well with my ulcerative colitis. I thought I felt as good as possible given my condition. For nearly twenty years, I had accepted stomach cramps, bloating, and occasional sprints to the toilet as part of who I was. I learned to breathe through cramps, dress for the bloat, and I could tell you where the nearest restroom was in any public venue, including the Roman Colosseum (across the street in the train station). I also accepted the fact that once every few years, I would wake up in the morning and a bit more of my eyesight would be gone. All these symptoms were due to the disease diagnosed in my twenties as ulcerative proctitis and then the progression to ulcerative colitis as the years passed.
When I first mentioned something to Pam about my condition, I was taking a maintenance medication that I had been on for several years following my last vision loss. I took it to stave off any systemic inflammation and to preserve my remaining eyesight. I had been through all sorts of drugs beginning in my twenties with the sulfas, using suppositories for flares and muscle relaxants for cramps. I had had colonoscopies, MRIs, spinal taps, tons of blood work, flown to see top doctors, all with the same outcome: use the maintenance drugs, try to minimize stress and known triggers, and hope for the best. I ate fairly well, didn’t drink caffeine, had the occasional glass of wine, and exercised regularly. So why did I still wake with cramps, deal with the “food baby,” and have irregular BMs?
Through Pam and The Wellness Forum, I learned that I could soothe and even cure my inflamed system with just a few changes. She said, “You can get rid of this.” Those were the game-changing words; well, those and, “You can never let dairy or gluten pass your lips again.” I had minimized my direct dairy intake in the past, but never had I been told so bluntly that what I ate had such a profound effect. It wasn’t just minimize or try to avoid——it was an absolute. No gluten, no hidden dairy, nothing baked in, melted, sprinkled, etc. It makes perfect sense now. Stop annoying the intestines and they will stop annoying me. While I had always eaten what I thought was a “healthy” diet, I cleaned it up even further to become more plant-centered.
Since that first meeting, I have been careful to stick with the absolutes, and my system is functioning amazingly well. No more cramps, no more runs to the nearest bathroom, and, best of all, my energy level is through the roof. I find it easy to stick with the plan since I feel so much better as a result. I do not miss greasy cheese, ice cream, or the aftermath of indulging. Not worth it at all. Feeling good is an amazing motivator.