This seemed of interest too


I have written on the subject before but will touch on it again. I will tell of a report in the American Journal of Cardiology (January 1960) by Robert O'Neal et al. of Washington University School of Medicine This study compared the deaths from heart attacks in the black population of Uganda with the deaths from heart attacks in both the black and white populations of St. Louis, Missouri.

Before this study, it was known that this population in Uganda had no deaths from coronary heart disease at all. The hospital at Mekerrere College had been established by the British in Kampala Uganda in 1948 and between then and 1960, there had not been a single admission for myocardial infarction within the black population of Uganda.

In the 1960 study, O'Neal et al. examined hearts after deaths from any cause for signs of infarction. They examined 837 hearts of black Ugandans. Of these, only one slight and well healed infarction was found. The researchers also looked at 1,980 hearts from St. Louis whites and 257 from St. Louis blacks. They found 22% cases of myocardial infarction among the St. Louis white population and slightly less cases of myocardial infarction among the St. Louis blacks. So they concluded that skin color was not a factor in the absence of myocardial infarctions among the Ugandan blacks.

There was another observation of interest in this study. Both populations had about the same degree of atherosclerosis. Both populations--the ones in St. Louis and the ones in Uganda--did have plaques of atheroma to about the same degree. The population of St. Louis had a high degree of thrombi in the hearts and lungs, whereas the population of Uganda were almost free from such blood clots.

I met with Professor O'Neal in 1965 and learned much from him that was not in the 1960 report in the American Journal of Cardiology. The blacks of Uganda had total serum cholesterol of about 150 mg %. As to diet, they were grain vegetarians, and the grains were millet, corn, and barley cooked by boiling in clay pots. Their diet contained many leafy green vegetables, such as collard greens. They were near the Spice Islands and had much spice in their food. They seemed to like their food, and they showed no inclination toward adding meat to their diet.

The report on them was in 1960. In that year, a British surgeon, Denis Burkitt, was spending time in Uganda, and he took note that the black population there was free from colon cancer. Burkitt also took note of the high-fiber content of the whole-grain diet of the black Ugandans, and he decided this was the reason for the population's lack of colon cancer. This concept was widely accepted by orthodox medicine in the US.

It was of great interest to me then when in November of 2005, I heard a news report on a study of over 100,000 patients that showed that adding fiber to the diet will not prevent colon cancer. The freedom from colon cancer among the Ugandan blacks most likely was caused by the absence of red meat in their diet.

In his account in the Townsend Letter, Dr. Zeoli said that the fat in the vegetarian diet that caused him so much trouble was polyunsaturated, the so-called "good fats." In the Lancet (March 19, 1997; 654), Dr. E.A. Newsholne of Oxford University published a report telling how polyunsaturated fats were greatly immunosuppressive. These fats were the product of the new oilseed industry. which began selling their fats in 1930. I made contact with Newsholne in 1980. He said that, whereas the new (as of 1930) polyunsaturated fats were highly immunosuppressive, the so-called bad saturated fats were not immunosuppressive at all. Newsholne said that the polyunsaturated fats should be used to treat autoimmune diseases that need immunosuppressive treatment.

It has been widely suggested that immunosuppression will cause cancer. When renal transplants were first done, it was found that patients needed immunosuppression to prevent the rejection of the transplant. It was also found that these immunosuppressed patients were at a greater risk from cancer.

Helen Coley Nauts in her Monograph on Breast Cancer (Cancer Research Institute; Monograph No. 18, 1984) gives data on deaths from lung cancer among white males in the US from 1930 to 1978. In 1930 in the US, when close to 80% of men smoked cigarettes, the fats in US diet were saturated fats. Nonetheless, in 1930, there was only one death per 100,000 from lung cancer. By 1978, with doctors telling one in all that the polyunsaturated fats were good, their presence had increased by a factor of three in our diet, but deaths from lung cancer had increased by a factor of 60 to 60 such deaths per 100,000 men. It could well have been that adding so much immunosuppressive polyunsaturated fat to diet was the cause of the vast increase in lung cancer deaths in the US.

Then here is one another thought: We have teeth like those of a rabbit, well suited to chew plant food. Our ancestors were vegetarians.

It would be of interest to hear Dr. Zeoli's response to this letter.

Wayne Martin, BS, ChE

25 Orchard Court

Fairhope, Alabama 36532 USA

251-928-3975


Source Citation: Martin, Wayne. "A vegetarian diet for better health.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)." Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients 273 (April 2006): 92(1). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Massey University Library. 16 Sep. 2006
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