Lectins and their benefits

[TheresaB]

It would be very difficult to avoid all lectins, as they seem to be in everything even avocados and salmon https://www.superfoodly.com/foods-high-in-lectins/

That's true, when we say foods with lectins, we really should be saying foods high in lectins, which are:

• All grains
  Nightshades including tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant
  Gluten from wheat, rye, barley, malt, and maybe oat
  Legumes – All beans including soy and peanut. Cashews are part of the bean family and are not allowed. People with an enzyme deficiency that increases oxidative stress can’t eat certain beans such as broad beans (R).
  Dairy including milk and milk products as cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, and kefir
  Yeast (except brewer’s and nutritional)

For more: https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/elimina ... dance_Diet

[alangreenmd]

Hi Everybody.
As regards Dr Gundy, some friends recently positively recommended I look at "The Plant Paradox". My quick search of medical/science literature was I found nothing to support Dr. Gundy's claims.

So question: Any high quality science papers to support Dr. Gundy's numerous claims.

Telling people need to worry about or avoid this food or that food due to lectins would be an extreme disservice if all just made up nonsense. The E4 community tends to be more vulnerable to various toxins; but they need high quality facts. not junk science.

As a general rule, if a physician writes stuff not supported by high quality research, in my opinion, they are a Quack, not a brilliant physician. Generally, this kind of question is settled by review of science literature.

So aside from what Dr. Gundy, himself says; Is there any scientific evidence ? Can anybody provide Dr. Gundy's list of science references.

I try to be very open minded; just not so open minded that anybody can threw in a bunch of crap.

[Stavia]

Hi Alan
Many members have found Gundry's approach to optimise their basic and advanced biomarkers and their general well being.
I don't personally limit fresh veggies containing lectins (I eat no grains whatsoever), but I have watched these member's biomarkers improve remarkably from a baseline of what I consider to have been an already very, very clean diet, in lean individuals. Over a few years now. I was extremely skeptical to begin with but I put aside my bias and looked at the clinical evidence. Numbers don't lie.
Gundry's approach is far more nuanced than just lectin avoidance. It's high in veggies, limits animal protein and total protein, avoids sugars, limits starchy veggies. It's in my view an acceptable option for those who do well on it and wish to follow it.
We as a community support all viable options and strive to remain unbiased.

I personally have offered this option to several of my own patients with problematic autoimmune diseases who wished to explore adjuvant dietary options (with my usual caveat that published evidence is lacking but it might be worth a 3 month trial and at worst would be harmless) and those that have followed it have been able to reduce their thyroxine (Hashimotos - the first patient went thyrotoxic after 6 weeks to my utter suprise and I had to halve her dose smartly) and rescue courses of prednisone (Ulcerative colitis - the latter went from three courses a year to zero for 18 months now).

Please refer to our community guidelines
https://www.apoe4.info/wp/community-guidelines/

Respect. All posts and private messages should be courteous. Disagree with ideas, not people. You may not attack, insult, undermine, or belittle anyone. This broad prohibition extends beyond other members and this community to the world at large.

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[apod]

Is there any scientific evidence ?

Looking at lectins in general:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28087670
"Our findings indicate that plant lectins can act as an exogenous "danger signal" that can activate the NLRP3 inflammasome and suggest that dietary lectins might promote inflammatory diseases via the NLRP3 inflammasome."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15302522
"One of the most nutritionally important features of plant lectins is their ability to survive digestion by the gastrointestinal tract of consumers. This allows the lectins to bind to membrane glycosyl groups of the cells lining the digestive tract. As a result of this interaction a series of harmful local and systemic reactions are triggered placing this class of molecules as antinutritive and/or toxic substances. Locally, they can affect the turnover and loss of gut epithelial cells, damage the luminal membranes of the epithelium, interfere with nutrient digestion and absorption, stimulate shifts in the bacterial flora and modulate the immune state of the digestive tract. Systemically, they can disrupt lipid, carbohydrate and protein metabolism, promote enlargement and/or atrophy of key internal organs and tissues and alter the hormonal and immunological status. At high intakes, lectins can seriously threaten the growth and health of consuming animals. "

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705319/
"Because of their ability to bind to virtually all cell types and cause damage to several organs, lectins are widely recognized as anti-nutrients within food"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25599185
"Approximately 30% of our food contains lectins, some of which may be resistant enough to digestion to enter the circulation. Because of their binding properties, lectins can cause nutrient deficiencies, disrupt digestion, and cause severe intestinal damage."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153292/
"Lectins isolated from black beans can produce growth retardation when fed to rats at 0.5% of the diet, and lectin from kidney beans causes death within two weeks when fed to rats at 0.5% of the diet. Soybean lectin produces growth retardation when fed to rats at 1% of the diet. The castor bean lectin ricin (one of the most toxic natural substances known) is notorious for causing deaths of children, and has been used as an instrument of bioterrorism."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2517680/
"We have shown that two lectins can alter pancreatic growth in vivo. This was achieved using low doses of the lectins, which could easily occur when eating a normal diet. This has worrying implications, as increased growth can be a promoter of carcinogenesis."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4780318/
"Carbohydrate-binding protein toxins are known to survive and traverse the gut intact, as an acutely toxic substance and can induce serious life-threatening illness in humans and animals. Distance pathogenicity of botulinum toxin, as well as cholera toxin, impairs the CNS (70). The present study was aimed at a new, surprising property of lectins based upon the hypothesis that lectins may be transported directly by gut absorption to local neurons and transported axonally to distal neurons where they have an anatomical and potentially a physiological pathophysiological effect."

Or looking at one random lectin, like peanut lectins.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9727614
"The data suggest that peanut oils' endogenous lectin may contribute significantly to its atherogenic properties."

Or wheat lectins:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8399111
"As a result of their binding and endocytosis by the epithelial cells of the small intestine, all three lectins were growth factors for the gut and interfered with its metabolism and function to varying degrees"

Or, looking at avoiding lectins:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10884708
"By eliminating dietary elements, particularly lectins, which adversely influence both enterocyte and lymphocyte structure and function, it is proposed that the peripheral antigenic stimulus (both pathogenic and dietary) will be reduced and thereby result in a diminution of disease symptoms."

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/129/Suppl_1/AP354
"Eight hundred pts (80%) related some history of autoimmune disease (AID) personally or among family members, including Hashimotos thyroiditis, IBS, arthritis, RA, Lupus, Crohns, colitis, GERD, CAD, Type 1 DM. TNF-alpha levels were elevated in 760/800pts with AID hx. When the lectin and gluten free diet was instituted, all TNF-alpha levels became normal in all 1,000 pts (<3.0 pg/mL), within 6 months and remained normal, if the diet was followed, for up to one year of study."

Dr. Gundry probably has a better collection of these sorts of articles than what I can bring up with a quick spin around Google.

[Tincup]

Hi Everybody.
As regards Dr Gundy, some friends recently positively recommended I look at "The Plant Paradox". My quick search of medical/science literature was I found nothing to support Dr. Gundy's claims.

So question: Any high quality science papers to support Dr. Gundy's numerous claims.

Telling people need to worry about or avoid this food or that food due to lectins would be an extreme disservice if all just made up nonsense. The E4 community tends to be more vulnerable to various toxins; but they need high quality facts. not junk science.

As a general rule, if a physician writes stuff not supported by high quality research, in my opinion, they are a Quack, not a brilliant physician. Generally, this kind of question is settled by review of science literature.

So aside from what Dr. Gundy, himself says; Is there any scientific evidence ? Can anybody provide Dr. Gundy's list of science references.

I try to be very open minded; just not so open minded that anybody can threw in a bunch of crap.

Alan, I've been a Gundry patient since 2015. Quite a bit of is program is based on his clinical experience. He treats all his patients as study participants and gives each of them a standardized extensive set of lipids. In July 2017, our went to ~20 pages from 3 different labs. Just had bloods drawn a week ago and the number of laboratories increased to 4. My wife and I have documented all our 5 consults with Dr. Gundry, linked here. Our most recent results are linked here and the following posts. You can judge for yourself the efficacy. As a teaser, my HbA1c = 4.6%, my wife's <4.25%.

Many of his recommendations come from 17 years of gathering this data on all patients and iterating.

[TheresaB]

Telling people need to worry about or avoid this food or that food due to lectins would be an extreme disservice if all just made up nonsense.

Alan,
Dr Gundry does not wholesale tell everyone to avoid certain foods due to lectin content. What he has observed is that:

• 1. Leaky gut, aka intestinal permeability, increases sensitivity to lectins (irrespective of ApoE status). This condition appears to be on the rise, likely due to current western eating habits, food preservatives, food additives, introduction of NSAIDS, Stomach Acid Reducers, plastic food packaging, petrochemical fertilizers introduced after World War II, herbicides, biocides, skin care products, hand sanitizers, etc. He goes into the whys and wherefores in his book, The Plant Paradox.
  2. Lectin content in food is increasing. Genetically modified grains are higher in lectin content. Intake of carbohydrates, therefore lectins, has also increased since the dietary guidelines changed in 1980.

So to use a technical term, we have a double whammy. We’re more sensitive and our intake is greater. This is producing autoimmune issues and as ApoE4s we need to be concerned about inflammation.

Earlier in this thread I referred to an interview Dr Joe Mercola conducted with Dr Gundry. In the interview Dr Gundry said that he didn’t hate lectins, he was just reporting what he’s observed from thousands of patients in very distinct, reproducible patterns. In the interview they also discussed about how to REINTRODUCE lectins in a person’s diet AFTER all leaky gut issues are addressed, which I also addressed earlier in this thread.

Lastly, I would like to thank the moderators enforcing the community standards in these forums. Denigrating comments not only degrade a person’s credibility, but, even if accurate, make the comments impossible to even consider. I want to consider all possibilities regarding my genetics, but I will admit I’m human and have a bias in listening to certain posters more than others because of HOW they post. If we are to hear all the angles of an issue they need to be presented with respect.

[floramaria]

Cashews are part of the bean family and are not allowed.

For more: https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/elimina ... dance_Diet

Hi Teresa, I followed the link below and saw that the author says that cashews are part of the bean family; that did not sit well with me since I have seen cashews growing, and they do not resemble beans at all. They are classified as drupes, not beans (and not nuts either) .
This is from the Cashew entry on Wikipedia

The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a tropical evergreen tree that produces the cashew seed and the cashew apple.[1] It can grow as high as 14 m (46 ft), but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 m (20 ft), has proved more profitable, with earlier maturity and higher yields.

I did more reading and saw it listed as related to Sumacs. Also looked at a few lists of high lectin foods and they were not in the few lists I looked at. But I know you are quite well-informed when it comes to lectins. Not posting this to nit pick but rather because
this is of particular interest to me since I make cashew milk as a "healthy" substitute for dairy.
Sometimes it seems that my attempts at healthy substitutions are yielding less healthy alternatives, and this may be such a case. I have never noticed particular lectin sensitivity, but still am trying to reduce lectins in my diet, or at least be aware of them, as a general precaution.
I'd appreciate your sharing source other than the one above, if that is easy for you to get your hands on. Otherwise, i'll just keep on reading. I did notice references to avoiding cashews because of potential mold problems. Ooof.

[TheresaB]

I'd appreciate your sharing source other than the one above, if that is easy for you to get your hands on.

Are you asking about lectins in general or nuts specifically? I follow Dr Gundry’s Yes/No list as my guide to avoiding lectins. If you want to know more about nuts, SusanJ seems to be a nut, seed, and drupe “nut.” Earlier in this thread she wrote (referencing Dr Gundry)

But, I have yet to see where he gets his references for the yes-eat-this, no-not-that lists. For example, he keeps calling cashews a legume (to be avoided) when they are a drupe, and recommends walnuts, which are high in aglutinins, one type of not-so-nice lectin. I think that his use of lectin is somewhat imprecise, but probably just helps to make it easier for people to accept his food recommendations.

Susan also posted a wonderful article SOMEWHERE about the difference between nuts, seeds, and drupes, which, of course, I can’t find right now. I guess an appropriate exclamation to this would be NUTS!

[SusanJ]

...which, of course, I can’t find right now.

Posted that on Facebook, so no wonder you couldn't find it here.

https://theskepticalcardiologist.com/20 ... mortality/

On the other hand, I think I read somewhere that cashews are higher in carbs than other "nuts."

[floramaria]

Thanks to both of you. As I was reading about cashews yesterday, I did see that they are high in carbs which I had not realized. I tend not to eat them so much as use them to add thickness, whiteness and flavor to water. Then I pour it into tea or coffee and pretend it is cream.