Meg Farris / Eyewitness News 6:03 p.m. CST November 19, 2014
NEW ORLEANS — A doctor says we are causing early destruction of our brains with the typical American diet. And he says the science backs him up.
And when a local woman tried the doctor’s diet plan, she lost a lot of weight and changed her health.
A life-changing experience that caused Taslin Alfonzo to nearly lose her life is how she discovered a new way of eating, a diet that’s helped her feel better and lose 30 pounds so far.
“I believe it was a salad. I found out that’s the number one cause of food poisoning are salads, because people don’t wash their hands or they don’t wash the vegetables well,” said Alfonzo.
Taslin was at her leanest as a TV news reporter. At 5 feet 7 inches she weighed 145 pounds. She worked out regularly, but when she changed careers from a fast-paced one, chasing stories in the field, to a public relations office job, her weight crept up. Then the unexpected happened.
“They told me I should have died twice,” she said.
She got food poisoning from a salad at a restaurant, But after that cleared her system, the infection triggered something rare called reactive arthritis.
“Oh it was huge, I mean, 80 to 100 cc drained out of my knees about half a dozen times if not more. And I couldn’t walk. I was in a wheelchair. I was in, I was on crutches, so it was a long journey for sure,” she said.
Being sedentary caused potentially deadly blood clots that traveled to her lungs. She was hospitalized. Her highest weight went to 190 pounds.
“I mean it’s heart breaking from a person who does boot camp three days a week for an hour, very intense. I was even doing CrossFit at one point. Just worked out all the time,” Alfonzo said.
Then a doctor told her about a diet that could help with inflammation. In the book and companion cookbook “Grain Brain,” neurologist Dr. David Perlmutter says all the processed food, simple carbohydrates, sugar, bread, rice, crackers, flour, cookies and the like, are hurting our health, especially our brains.
When your blood sugar’s elevated, you increase inflammation in your brain
“And that is the cornerstone of virtually every brain degenerative condition,” said Dr. Perlmutter, a board-certified neurologist and president of the Permutter Health Center in Naples, Florida. He is also co-founder and president of the Perlmutter Brain Foundation.
He says our bodies didn’t evolve with grain.
“Nothing is worse for our heart health, our brain health, and even immune function, than pounding the body with these resources of carbohydrates. We’ve got to get back to eating more fat,” he explained.
And Dr. Perlmutter said whole wheat is just as bad when it comes to raising blood sugar. Diets should have vegetables, fats, and yes, even saturated animal fats. He said those don’t cause heart disease and older people with higher cholesterol have a lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s Disease.
But there’s one major exception.
“I wouldn’t go near a steak. I wouldn’t go near a meat product unless it’s grass fed,” Dr. Perlmutter said.
He says 95 percent of meat products are grain fed, causing inflammation, So Taslin shops for eggs and meat that are grass fed, makes her own salad dressing and cut out grains. She’s down to 161 pounds.
“And it’s amazing that I just, I eat something and I feel wonderful. I never feel stuffed. I never feel sick,” Alfonzo said.
And all that weight loss is just from diet. When doctors clear her to work out again, it will help her take off another 20 pounds to reach her goal weight. Her cholesterol has dropped 44 points while even eating bacon, eggs, butter and other rich foods.
“All the doctors think it’s wonderful. I went to a specialist who works at the National Institutes of Health, and he said, ‘that is my theory. I agree with that. I am telling all of my patients to go gluten free. I really believe it is a big cause of inflammation, especially arthritis,'” Alfonzo said.
Dr. Perlmutter also said not enough vitamin D can increase many brain and mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression, seasonal affective disorder and a number of autoimmune disease such as type 1 diabetes.
“There’s clear evidence that these healthy fats improve brain function and may prevent or delay dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. And there’s also clear evidence that reducing your blood sugar will do the same thing,” said Dr. Melinda Sothern, of the LSU School of Public Health.
We asked well-published LSU Health Sciences Center weight and exercise expert Dr. Melinda Southern for an independent look at Grain Brain. She combed through the studies on the topic and said Grain Brain is close to the Mediterranean diet, long proven for health and weight loss.
“There are studies that show diabetics, and even those that don’t have diabetes but have high blood sugar, have smaller brains or have brains that don’t function as well,” Dr. Sothern said.
But she says there are only a few animal studies correlating brain function problems with high gluten diets. And she thinks it would be hard for many people to cut it all out.
In the meantime, Taslin did cut grains out and says she never has cravings and doesn’t miss processed foods.
“I feel fantastic. It’s the best I’ve ever felt. I just feel with, like more energy.”