QuestionI have Celiac Sprue, Gout, and High Blood Pressure. I need some guidelines to develop a diet plan that provides me with a opportunity to lose weight, increase my metabolism, get the appropriate nutrients (i.e. fiber)not increase my uric acid levels, reduces my sodium intake and is gluten free. Thanks
AnswerDear Alonzo,
Your information is not entirely sufficient for me to be terribly specific. But it is clear that your conditions have an inflammatory nature in common. This leads me to advise first and foremost a vegetarian and alkaline diet. You have to limit your protein intake quite drastically to keep the uric acid levels as low as possible (indeed the source of your inflammations). So you will have to cut out meat and fish, limit eggs, and all dairy. Also go easy on pulses and nuts.
It depends a bit on the severity of your celiac condition how much you will have to steer clear of certain food products. Probably your diet is already entirely wheat free, or indeed entirely gluten free in general. If you have been told to steer clear of wheat, this will also include barley and rye, and most likely oats, leaving you with corn, millet, quinoa, rice and buckwheat for grains to choose from. And of course, gluten free products. Not all of them may be suitable however for you, since you will need to check for fat levels and cut out added all salt where possible.
An almost salt-free diet is necessary for the blood pressure problem - which is related, from an alternative view point, unmistakeably to the other pathologies by way of impaired kidney functioning (if not the organ, then the kidney radiation, which influences the digestive/metabolic processes).
You list weightloss as a main priority, and while excess weight can contribute to health issues, it very much depends on how much we are considering here, if we are to make it your main priority. The formation of excess uric acid, which in turn causes inflammation, is the result of a prolongued execessively rich protein diet in combination with not enough self-command or self-knowledge. Often the conditions are, misfortunately, best formed in stressful lives with little room for calm reflection and genuine appreciation for the finer and miraculous things in life. Instead too many external impulses imprint themselves upon the nervous system and make for a restive metabolism, which eventually will no longer be able to cope with the more basic demands of digestion. Maladies are quick to ensue.
Important: avoid sugar, use honey or maple syrup instead. No animal foodstuffs, or only a little sour milk products (yoghurt, kefir, buttermilk etc).
Aside planning in fresh food, veg and fruit, seeds, beansprouts, you need to focus on warming foods. This includes soups and drinking a lot of hot herbal tea which may well raise your temperature and help induce healing fevers from time to time. Think of herbal/flower teas such as elderflower or limeblossom. You also need diuretic drinks made with warming seeds: aniseed, fennelseed, caraway. If you are not intolerant to oats, they are recommended for gout (try the drink). Berry juices and apple juice are good too.
Eat raw vegetables only in moderation (takes too much inner warmth out of you), leafy salads and fruit-veg (tomato/cucumber etc) but always cook root veg (carrots, celeriac etc). In general root veg is good for you. Sweet flavours helps strenghten your inner awareness in a newly balancing manner: camling down the inflammation. Make very sure this sweetness does not stem from artificial flavourings or refined sugar, but also not dextrose and fructose.
Often irritable bowel syndrome is improved once all pre-processed and refined products are scrapped from one's diet and all meat is forsaken and after a while grains can be reintroduced, especially variants of wheat such as spelt or kamut, are often then well tolerated. A fully blown wheat allergy or more advanced intestinal disorders will require a more extensive and stringent gluten free diet for life. There are, however, many special diet cookbooks which offer lots of delicious and inspiring alternatives.
Alcohol is the worst ingredient in a diet against gout: it's energetic properties counteract the work you need to be doing on strenghthening your metabolic processes. You will benefit from drinking plenty of mineral water. One mineral water is not the next, and the type recommended (for gout) is rich in calcium (30.4 mg/l) especially, and potassium (6.6 mg/l) and sulphate (22.6 mg/l).
Birchleaf elixer or a tonic of horsetail can be very cleansing on the kidney system, especially in Spring time a 6 week course (for the Northern Hemisphere: start after St. Peter, the first day of cosmic spring, 25th Feb.)
As long as you are not in an acute stage of inflammation, it would be wonderfully therapeutic to take hot baths and mud packs at a spa. During an initial detox phase, regular saunas might also work: sweat helps eliminate uric acid. Make sure your high bloodpressure can take extreme variations in temperature, though. Otherwise have a very warm bath with rosemary oil or essence. This will stimulate you in the right way (activate inner organisation). In any case, ensure you are always wrapped up warmly enough. Use a hotwater bottle in the bed (after a bath, to induce a sweat you can easily control).
Finally, you may benefit much from exercises or (creative) activities which enhance your sensory perception and train your self-awareness on a new level. Engage with nature, let her scents and colours charm you. This will have a healing effect. Go on walks, sit and listen to the birds. Take up yoga or tai-chi or listen to good (harmonic) music. This type of meditation in combination with the discipline a vegetarian and preferably organic diet will work through multiple layers of your being - not only on a physical level. The body and state of mind just reflect deeper underlying matters of the soul.
Wishing you much fortitude on your path to improving your health,
with best wishes,
Evelyn.
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