14/11/2024
GAPS for the Elderly: A Case Study
An 87-year-old Mrs Smith (the name has been changed) was suffering from high blood pressure and angina attacks. During an attack she would have severe pain in her chest, panic and a feeling that she was dying. Doctors provided her with medications, but they were not really helping: the angina attacks were happening practically every day and her blood pressure was unstable. She called an ambulance so often that the local ambulance staff got to know her very well and would joke that she was practically family to them. With her high blood pressure and angina, she spent many days in bed feeling miserable and taking pharmaceuticals.
She was eating a standard diet and did not believe that food had anything to do with her health. But she agreed to follow the Full GAPS Diet ‘for a while’ to see if it helps. A magnesium supplement was offered to her to lower her high blood pressure. Her family were happy to help her with shopping and cooking.
In the first two weeks after introducing the Full GAPS Diet she had to use her magnesium supplement daily, but gradually she was able to stop using it and her blood pressure stayed normal. The angina attacks have reduced in frequency in the first week, and by the second week they stopped altogether, never to return. As long as she adhered strictly to the GAPS Diet, her blood pressure was normal and she felt well. In four months of following the diet even her arthritis started to melt away. Today, she is very active in her garden, looks after her chickens, cooks her own meals and looks after her house without any help.
Her diet consists of eggs, bacon and/or sausage for breakfast with a small salad, a homemade soup for lunch (with meat in it and made with homemade meat stock), and fish or meat with vegetables for dinner. She has homemade sour cream with cottage cheese with her cup of tea and she uses honey and dried fruit as her sweeteners. She consumes plenty of animal fats every day and has homemade liver pate a few times per week. She drinks raw organic milk daily.
Mrs Smith is very happy with her diet and has no intention of changing it. A guest brought her some chocolate once which she ate. An hour later this transgression led to high blood pressure and an angina attack. Since then, she decided to never cheat on her diet again.
Let us see what happened with Mrs Smith.
It is a clinical fact that consumption of processed carbohydrates is the cause of our high blood pressure epidemic in the population. Things made out of sugar and flour (as well as vegetable oils and soy) are the major cause of every chronic disease in the world. Mrs Smith was fond of her bread, biscuits, pasta, rice and used sugar in cooking and sweetening her tea. These processed carbohydrates cause magnesium deficiency in the body. In order to contract, our blood vessels need calcium, and there is always plenty of this mineral in the body. In order to relax, our blood vessels need magnesium. Your body needs about 56 molecules of magnesium to process 1 molecule of sugar! After eating sugar, large amounts of magnesium in your body are bound by processing that sugar and are not available for your organs and tissues to use, causing magnesium deficiency. Bread, buns, biscuits and other things made from flour digest and absorb as simple sugars, also demanding large amounts of magnesium to be processed. After eating sugar and bread, Mrs Smith would get severe magnesium deficiency, so her blood vessels would contract but could not relax. As a result, her blood pressure would go up. Having good quality magnesium supplement helped to lower her blood pressure, but removing processed carbohydrates, namely bread, biscuits and sugar out of her diet, normalised her blood pressure permanently. Now she has stable, normal blood pressure.
The episodes of high blood pressure used to trigger her angina attacks. Magnesium is also essential for the heart muscle to function properly and to be able to relax after contracting. Mrs Smith used to eat bread and sugar every day, so her magnesium deficiency was chronic leading to high blood pressure and angina attacks. She could not believe how quickly and easily these debilitating health problems have left her after introducing the GAPS Diet!
Magnesium deficiency is one of many health problems that the GAPS Diet removes. The GAPS Nutritional Protocol heals the gut improving digestion and absorption of food. As a result, not only magnesium deficiency gets corrected, but all other nutrients are supplied to the body in the right amounts. Nutritional deficiencies disappear, so all tissues and organs in the body are able to heal themselves and function to their best ability. Mrs Smith used to suffer from painful arthritis for many years, but now her joints are much more supple and comfortable without pain. Human body heals itself all the time! As long as we do not poison it with toxic ‘foods’ and man-made chemicals and feed it with good quality natural food, the body is able to heal itself at any age. Aging is not a disease! It is a natural stage in our lives and should be just as comfortable as youth and childhood. Of course, we slow down as we age which is appropriate: old age is supposed to be time for more contemplation and less action, a time for building wisdom.
Following the mainstream dogma drilled into the population for decades, many people are afraid of eating animal fats, eggs and meat because they were told that cholesterol and fats ‘cause heart disease’. Please, read my book Put Your Heart In Your Mouth. What Really Is Heart Disease And What We Can Do To Prevent And Reverse It. Real honest science all over the world has proved conclusively that dietary cholesterol and animal fats do not cause any health problems in the body whatsoever. Just the opposite: they are essential for the human body to be healthy, robust and full of energy. They are needed by the body to be able to heal any damage, protect itself from infections and repair after any trauma. And they are absolutely vital for our brain to function normally and to maintain its physical structure. It is a scientific fact that the major cause of Alzheimer’s epidemic in the world are anti-cholesterol pills, called statins. They deprive the brain from one of its major building blocks – cholesterol. About 40% of the dry weight of the human brain is made from this substance. No wonder that dementia follows prescription of statins: the brain is starving. Mrs Smith had the sense to never take statins in her life. She loves reading, discussing life and politics with her friends and family, and has a sharp mind.
Far from ‘clogging your arteries and causing atherosclerosis’, dietary cholesterol and animal fats keep your blood vessels clean. The buildup in human blood vessels is largely made out of calcium salts, which accumulate there in the first place because of deficiency in fats and fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2. Animal fats from bacon, butter, eggs, meats and fish provide all these essential nutrients to keep your blood vessels clean and supple. When you consume enough fat-soluble vitamins, the calcium in your body is stored where it is supposed to be – in your bones and teeth. Without these vitamins and saturated fats, calcium is stored in inappropriate places in the body – in your blood vessels and soft tissues, you start suffering from bile stones and kidney stones while developing osteoporosis and tooth decay. It is dangerous not to eat butter, cream, eggs and fat on your lamb chops or pork belly! These foods provide you with those vital fat-soluble vitamins and good fats. And the older we become, the more we need those nutrients! Liver is essential to eat at least once a week. A nice homemade liver pate is delicious and will provide your body with all the iron and B-vitamins you need. Elderly people must eat liver twice a week at least, preferably every day!
For all of us a time comes when we must look after our elderly parents. It is a joy to see them age comfortably and gracefully without taking handfuls of pills and suffering from diseases. They can be valuable members of our families looking after grandchildren and providing life-long wisdom and comfort to their grown-up children. But, to be able to do all that they need to be well and healthy. Keeping them on the Full GAPS Diet will do all that and more!
