Health, Wellness, Longevity
Potential Risks and Unspoken Truths About Lectins
A cause of leaky gut and several other ailments from my experience
Risks of Lectins
Plants are great, but some toxins in them in large amounts can harm our bodies and have significant health issues. Oxalates, glucosinolates, phytates, saponins, tannins, and lectins are known antinutrients and toxins if they are consumed in excessive amounts.
My focus in this article is on lectins. Lectins are tiny and microscopic proteins, but their impact and implications on our health are gigantic.
As may sound so small and simple, lectin proteins affect the lives of millions of people. Rest assured, the effects of lectins on digestive health are not hyped anymore. It has strong scientific backing with decades of research by medical scientists and clinical practitioners.
As this Harvard article points out:
“Lectins are an “anti-nutrient” that has received much attention due to popular media and fad diet books citing lectins as a major cause for obesity, chronic inflammation, and autoimmune diseases. They are found in all plants, but raw legumes (beans, lentils, peas, soybeans, peanuts) and whole grains like wheat contain the highest amounts of lectins. Is there truth behind these claims?”
In addition to a myriad of scientific papers, recently, medical doctors such as Dr. Steven R. Gundry wrote an eye-opening book titled The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in “Healthy” Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain.
Suffering from the side effects of plants, believing they are caused by lectin proteins, I read many scientific papers and blogs. I listened to many podcasts and watched many YouTube videos.
So far, the most articulated video from my view is by a medical doctor Paul Mason titled ‘How lectins impact your health — from obesity to autoimmune disease’. I am embedding this outstanding video as an exceptional reference for interested readers.
My Story about Plants and Lectins
Misinformation about plants was ruining my life. It was my fault to believe every claim without questioning them, as I pointed out in this story: 7 Mental Mistakes Made My Life Miserable: How I corrected them and transformed into a better person.
Personally, plant toxins such as oxalates, glucosinolates, phytates, saponins, tannins, and lectins adversely affected me when I overconsumed specific plants. I shared my experience with leaky gut in this story: How I Naturally & Easily Fixed My Leaky Gut: After severely suffering from digestive discomfort, allergies, inflammation, and autoimmune disorders over a decade
One of the worst conditions I experienced was arthritis which is an autoimmune condition. Arthritis manifested as inflammation, stiffness, and debilitating pain in my joints.
Arthritis decreased my motion, so I couldn’t walk properly and had difficulty climbing stairs. This physical condition turned into a mental and emotional issue for me because limping caused me shame at work and lowered my self-confidence.
I am not the only one suffering from arthritis. Millions of people suffer from 100 types of arthritis and related conditions. As arthritis.org highlights, “more than 50 million adults and 300,000 children have some type of arthritis. It is most common among women and occurs more frequently as people get older.”
You can read my experience in an article titled How I Defeated Arthritis: My journey to overcoming inflammation and freeing from pain on Transhumanism. Apart from many self-improvement techniques, the main contributor to identifying my arthritis’s root causes was using an elimination diet, as pointed out in this story: Fixing Allergies And Autoimmune Conditions With Elimination Diet: My personal experience on eliminating offensive food from my diet.
I used to be a vegetarian and even vegan for a while. According to nutrition books and conventional wisdom, I was doing everything right. I was eating six servings of fresh vegetables, including all colors. I was physically active, running and doing weight training. However, I was getting fatter and fatter, and my health was declining. Not only losing my mobilization but suffering from terrible pain.
After learning the anti-nutrients of plants, I temporarily eliminated all plants from my diet. Then, I followed a keto-carnivore diet for two weeks when suddenly and surprisingly, most of my debilitating symptoms disappeared. I never went back.
Just refraining from vegetables, I shed five pounds of fat in these two weeks. I am not saying all plants are harmful, but passing the threshold of toxin levels from plants had a significant adverse effect on my autoimmune conditions. The inflammation and leaky gut syndrome prevented me from losing body fat.
The biggest mistake for me was overconsuming high lectin-including plants. In an article, I shared my lifestyle transformation, moving from a plant-based diet to an animal-based diet: My Unusual Diet Revealed: How a carnivore lifestyle transformed my health and fitness. This transformation has nothing to do with ethics or politics but a lot to do with health, fitness, and wellness.
A Condensed Review of Scientific Literature on the side effects of Lectins
I provide a few helpful papers from my reviews to give a context to research and to establish starting points for my readers about the effects of lectins on our health and performance. As mentioned in this study, “the intake of anti-nutritional factors produce impairment on the intestinal digestive function, impeding the efficient use of nutrients.”
This study published in Biochemical Society Transaction informs that “Lectins constitute an abundant group of proteins present throughout the plant kingdom. Only recently, genome-wide screenings have unraveled the multitude of different lectin sequences within one plant species. It appears that plants employ a plurality of lectins, though relatively few lectins have already been studied and functionally characterized. Therefore, it is very likely that the full potential of lectin genes in plants is underrated.”
Plants protect themself using various chemicals which are toxic to insects that stress them. As pointed out in this paper, “one of the most important direct defense responses in plants against the attack by phytophagous insects is the production of insecticidal peptides or proteins. One particular class of entomotoxic proteins present in many plant species is the group of carbohydrate-binding proteins or lectins. During the last decade, a lot of progress was made in the study of a few lectins that are expressed in response to herbivory by phytophagous insects and the insecticidal properties of plant lectins in general.”
This study makes an eye-opening statement: “Legume lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins of non-immune origin. Significant amounts of lectins have been found in Phaseolus vulgaris beans as far back as in the last century; however, many questions about their potential biological roles still remain obscure. Studies have shown that lectins are anti-nutritional factors that can cause intestinal disorders. Owing to their ability to act as toxic allergens and hemagglutinins, the Phaseolus vulgaris lectins are of grave concern for human health and safety.”
Nutrition literature points out the undeniable benefits of plant foods. I agree. However, not all plants are equivalent. Some anti-nutrient phytochemicals can be a concern for some people. In addition, an excessive amount of good things can be harmful, as I touched on in this article: Striking Health Risks of Running: Science says too much of anything could be bad for humans. What could we do?
For example, this scientific review mentions that “plant-based diets are associated with reduced risk of lifestyle-induced chronic diseases. The thousands of phytochemicals they contain are implicated in cellular-based mechanisms to promote antioxidant defense and reduce inflammation. While recommendations encourage the intake of fruits and vegetables, most people fall short of their target daily intake. Despite the need to increase plant-food consumption, there have been some concerns raised about whether they are beneficial because of the various ‘anti-nutrient’ compounds they contain. Some of these anti-nutrients that have been called into question included lectins, oxalates, goitrogens, phytoestrogens, phytates, and tannins. As a result, there may be select individuals with specific health conditions who elect to decrease their plant food intake despite potential benefits.”
One of the risk factors for lectins is binding to carbohydrates. This study points out that “lectins are carbohydrate-binding (glyco) proteins which are ubiquitous in nature. In plants, they are distributed in various families and hence ingested daily in appreciable amounts by both humans and animals. One of the most nutritionally important features of plant lectins is their ability to survive digestion by the gastrointestinal tract of consumers. This allows the lectins to bind to membrane glycosyl groups of the cells lining the digestive tract. As a result of this interaction, a series of harmful local and systemic reactions are triggered, placing this class of molecules as antinutritive and or toxic substances.”
As pointed out in this Harvard paper, “Animal and cell studies have found that active lectins can interfere with the absorption of minerals, especially calcium, iron, phosphorus, and zinc. Legumes and cereals often contain these minerals, so the concurrent presence of lectins may prevent the absorption and use of these minerals in the body. Lectins can also bind to cells lining the digestive tract. This may disrupt the breakdown and absorption of nutrients and affect the growth and action of intestinal flora. Because lectin proteins bind to cells for long periods of time, they can potentially cause an autoimmune response and are theorized to play a role in inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes.”
Conclusions
There is sufficient evidence on the impact of plant anti-nutrients such as lectins on digestive health. I provided a brief overview of the growing scientific literature.
If you are experiencing digestive discomfort and have symptoms of leaky gut, lectins could be the culprit, as they were in my condition.
Obtaining advice from your health care professionals and using an elimination diet with the help of a nutritionist and a dietician can help you control your situation.
All health is the most precious thing in life. We need to take personal responsibility by questioning the norms, leveraging science, and obtaining support from qualified healthcare professionals.
Here are three types of customizable diets for herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores.
How to Benefit from Ketosis in a Keto-Vegan Diet
How to Enter Ketosis in a Keto-Omnivore Diet Safely and Quickly
How to Benefit from Ketosis in a Keto-Carnivore Diet
Diet is a personal matter. It is not an ethical or spiritual one, in my opinion.
A New Clinical Trial Found a Low-Carb Diet Better Than the Dash.
Here’s How Amy Entered Ketosis without Following a Ketogenic Diet.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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