How to promote the destruction of your digestive system:
 

America's love affair with high protein low fiber diets is slowly destroying the digestive systems of the elderly. Some popular diet books that promote this argue that cave men ate a lot of animal protein, therefore, humans were designed by nature to eat this way. But cave men didn't live long enough to develop the slow destruction of their intestines and the gradual depletion of their digestive enzymes.

Most doctors won't recommend colonoscopies after age 80 partly because the colon wall gets thinner and thinner with age. Likewise, the wall of the entire digestive tract gets thinner. Consequently, a diet high in animal protein and low in fiber tends to get packed down hard as it passes through your system and can rupture your intestines. It's called diverticulitis.

And diverticulitis in the elderly may be complicated by a lack of digestive enzymes. This is likely to happen gradually as people age.

Good MORNING!

Best Buy is the place to go for a good Television set. Takes your mind off your digestion and enzymes and and food and doctors, and diet and vegetables and health care and how long we should live.

Good morning! :wave: The only reason it's on my mind is because I heard someone say that the elderly should eat more protein, meaning animal protein. This kind of advice has been going around lately.

No need to worry about me; I'm as happy and healthy as anyone can possibly be because I've been eating a high fiber diet for decades along with adequate plant based protein. It's a wonderful thing that I would like to share with others. It's there for the taking, anyone can do it.

Love it!!!:BigApplause:

Do you prefer electric or gas golf carts?

Dear Villages Pl,
Please recheck your facts before you post info on here about colonoscopies and diverticulitis. I am a RN x42 years and 17 of them were in an Endoscopy unit. In fact I studied and sat for a national exam that earned me a certification in my field. I was honored to write CGRN after my name on charts. If a person is symptomatic, change in bowel habits, bleeding, anemia, to name a few, a doctor will perform a colonoscopy if necessary. Never ever should symptoms be ignored regardless of age. Secondly, it is called diverticulosis. These are little out pouchings on the wall of the colon. Can be caused by low fiber diet, ( infrequent bowel movements, constipation causes build up of pressure in colon, and in turn can cause the outpouchings), our age and heredity. It is when one of these out pouchings gets inflamed, can cause abcess/ infection and this is what causes the abdominal pain. This is called diverticulitis. If this is left untreated it can possibly cause a perforation of the bowel. Usually patient is admitted, IV fluids, antibiotics, bowel rest/ clear fluids diet until symptoms subside. This is all under the care of a doctor. Please, if anyone out there has not had a colonoscopy ever, talk to your doctor. Colon cancer, if found early is treatable and curable, I know from experience. High fiber diet is very important, fruits and vegetables and exercising, walking is good. My apologies for the medical lesson, but I felt I had to expand on the information given by my fellow Villager. Stay healthy!

villagesPL: I made mention of the above but I did not recommend it endorse it or discount it. I only said that experts keep reversing themselves and now people over age 65 ought to eat more meat protein because the elderly have a more difficult time due to the reduction of absorption. My comments were in relation to getting proper nutrition.

I am no experts but apparently neither are "experts", experts when it comes to diets

I believe that gastro problems are related to genes and personality (i.e Type A's have a tendency to blow out their colons.and that the foods we consume then exacerbate the problem At one time experts told people there was no connection between the body and the mind. i told doctor that there was, and described it as a little pacman bacteria type that proceeded to eat away at the colon. A few years later experts discovered pepitides that connected mind/body which bridged stress as a factor

Many people instinctively know what is happening to their bodies but doctors are scientist and science is never settled. It explains why diets keep changing and given we are biological creatures the permutations of health events is astronomical and only the more conceited would stand in front of an audience and claim to have all the answers .

i will continue to follow the advice of the Greeks..moderation.........

The difference between diverticulitis and diverticulosis is a technical point that is not germane to the point I was making in my opening post. The difference being that diverticulitis adds inflammation and is more inclusive.

Also, you stated that if a person is symptomatic they will get a colonoscopy whereas I had not introduced the aspect of symptoms (the ones you mentioned) into my discussion. That means I was referring to regular colonoscopy checkups.

Dude, find another hobby!

rubicon, thanks for your reply. We may have more to agree on than we realize.

I don't see anything in your post that I disagree with off hand. Yes, so called "experts" disagree all the time for many reasons. So how do we know who to believe? The best way is to compare observational studies of large populations. It's because of observational studies that we know free-market capitalism to be the best system in the world. It's not that difficult.

Genes and personality may certainly play a role. It's good thinking to include them. That's why I like the big observational studies like the Okinawa study, the China study and the Seventh Day Adventist study. They look at the totality of their lifestyle. An example of a poor study is when they look at one thing at a time like one group taking vitamin C compared to a control group taking a placebo. Or a test group that doesn't eat red meat compared to a control group that eats anything they want. These small studies are known as "reductionist." They employ the concept of reductionism and this can be the subject of another thread because I find it very interesting.

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I totally agree.