I have been 100% raw for one year now and have lost 55 lbs. I feel great and am so glad to have found this lifestyle. Recently I had tests done in preparation for a physical. My cholesterol is 170 with the LDL at 96! I'm proud of that, but I have other results that are puzzling and I can't seem to find much in my searching on this. Most levels were in range, but my PH was 8, with 5-7.5 listed as the normal range. Carbon Dioxide was 31 mmol/L with 22-30 listed as the normal range. My TSH was 4.050 ulU/ml. The urinalysis revealed TRACE protein.

I would like to correct these by food choices. I am wondering if I have had too much spinach and peaches (smoothies) for my throid. We have a family history of low thyroid, but mine has never tested this high. I read about certain foods interfering with the thyroid.

Also, I am wondering if any of these results are actually normal for a raw vegan.
I would appreciate any insight on these test results. I want to be informed before I see my doctor.

Remember, with regard to your pH, that the "normal" general range encompassess diseased populations as well, and acute alkalosis is almost impossible to achieve through diet, so your doctor shouldn't even mention this. Your blood should be alkaline, by the way. It means, and this is ovesimplifying, that it's properly oxygenated. Your hemoglobin and MPV counts should corroborate this.

Leafy greens do have substances that disrupt thyroid production, as do peaches and pears, and brassicas. Perhaps limit these and switch to thyroid promoting foods, like lettuces, green herbs[including watercress--high in iodine], apricots dates, and raw seeds.

As for carbon dioxide pressure values: this measurement indicates the ratio of exchange in acid regulation(I don't mean actual acid, I mean level of tissue acidity); carbon dioxide is a component of the body's mechanism for increasing alkalinity by contributing base substances to acidic ones. As alkalinity goes up, carbon dioxide levels go up, to stabilize pH. On another level, the more alkaline your blood becomes, the more carbon dioxide by-product expulsion occurs into your lungs, because it is being expressed in favor of oxygen. I'm really simplifying the process, but that's more or less it. I would be worried if I were eating raw and my carbon dioxide values were consistently low. It would mean something is wrong with maintaining acid/ base equilibrium.

As for protein: if you're pregnant, if you have a urinary tract infection, and/or your liver and kidney values are OK, I wouldn't worry about this. And your doctor shouldn't be either.

Good luck discussing this with him or her, and with correcting any problems the natural way!

I wouldn't go so far as to say what is normal is only relatable to a diseased population, man.

you should just try to vary your diet as much as you can, not necessarily eliminating certain things for good, but having something of different things way more often? Just an idea; I've been thinking about variation a lot lately.

But I'm no doctor or analyst for those things...so i can't state how to help these levels or anything, and I don't quite know much about how they are taken and what may effect them.

diet should definitely be considered for the problems though. It may not necessarily be the evil doctor or the mainstream diseased numbers..haha. Even raw foodists aren't perfect.

iLIVE,

What I am saying is that the ratio for "normal" pH includes those in a state of disease, like heart problems, diabetes, incipient cancer, etc., who are certainly not "healthy." Healthy and normal are not clinically interchangeable. And clinicans don't just sample blood from super healthy people to get these extrapolations! That would take forever! The lower end of the range, a pH of 5, if not an acute condition[such as a severe TEMPORARY infection] is a serious base imbalance and indicative of real CHRONIC disease in the body. Maybe it would help if I wrote it dis-ease?

Yeah, a urine pH hovering around 5 over the long term would be quite acidic imo.. but a urine pH of around 8 deserves another pat on the back.. that's just mildly alkaline in a good way, and indicative of exceptionally (abnornally ) good health..

And what I'm saying is that not everyone is diseased and unhealthy that isn't on a raw diet..haha. You also can't assume that an accepted range of healthy pH is only from the study of people that are unhealthy. You would think someone who wants to help people or test pH would want to know what a healthy range is...I think they would try pretty hard to find out, you know?

iLIVE,

Mathematically, we may assume that there is a higher incidence of chronic dis-ease among non raw than among raw, due in part to raw's being more alkalizing. To put it into simple terms: everyone I know to have had serious disorders has been cooked. For example, not a single patient in my mom's oncologist's care, nor in the hospital's cancer ward, was a rawist. I checked. And everyone I know that's been raw hasn't had serious disorders. Almost certainly, these populations may overlap at times, but not in my limited experience. Almost all the foods that one eats on a raw diet leave an alkaline ash in metabolization. That is, they have an alkalyzing[oxygen potential increasing] effect on tissues. Our tissues thrive in an oxygen-rich environment, and mutate or die in a carbon dioxide-rich one. A consistent blood pH well into the acidic range is never NOT a sign of disease. Optimum blood pH[in a healthy individual with no diagnosable dis-ease] is at least 7, consistently. Basic bio chemistry, this. To sum up, rawkay should try to keep his/her pH range in the higher end of what is normal to be safe. Which I trust he/she "got" from my original response. I hope so anyway. I can't be more clear than this. But I hope I've been helpful.

Thank you, Tamukha. You have been very helpful. I did get what you meant in your original response. Thank you for simplifying the PH and carbon dioxide tests. I found an old lab result in 2006 when I was not raw that said my carbon dioxide was 31, but it listed 32 as the top end of the range. Either way, I am not worried now.
I have experienced wonderful health benefits from 100% raw and I recommend it to all who inquire. Few are moved to take it up, always thinking of what they will give up. I find that view irritating after a while. I miss nothing but feeling like crap. Sorry, could not think of a better word. I see people in the grocery stores bulging out of their clothes, carts full of refined, processed foods and I think to myself that they are killing themselves.

I think there are less raw-foodists, which is why it seems safe to say cooked food causes most of the problems. But most people that eat cooked food, in america at least, and are unhealthy, are probably eating some pretty bad-for-you cooked food, and highly processed. Simply grouping everyone who eats cooked food into a category is not sufficient. There are plenty of raw-foodists with health problems. Like say someone on raw food eats nothing but salty dehydrated food, and a bunch of nuts. Then they get really sick or deficient and blame it on "raw" foods (maybe not diseased, as I'll explain in a second) --but we all know it's not that simple.. Maybe the reason why not a lot of people you see that get into raw food get diseases is because either it's by chance, or because the obvious fact that you pretty much can't get as much unhealthy things on a raw-food diet as you can on a cooked food one...not as easily or conveniently anyway. It's also I would think, easier to balance your vitamins and minerals and help your body function when you're eating natural foods, which also increases your immune system. BUT you can do that with cooked food..

As for pH, you would want the blood to be at a normal range. Anything too acid or too alkaline is bad. Like, bleach isn't any better then nitric acid.

there's more to my thinking, but it's really hard to recall everything I've read about; i'm sure that's the case for everyone though, which is why discussing is good

iLIVE,

I don't disagree with most of what you say; we're kind of saying the same thing but I'm more focused on rawkay's specifics. I would only say that, concerning limited raw diets re: disorder incidence: where I come from we say, a vegetarian who eats nothing but cheesy poofs and apple juice isn't a vegetarian. They're an idiot. The same goes for a rawist who eats nothing but salted dehydrated food and nuts! When I refer to a "raw diet," I mean a varied and sustaining one.

and when you say cooked diet, does that imply that that is also a healthy diet, too then?

No, the average cooked food eater does not eat healthy. Depending on vegan or omni, they are probably lacking at least 8 (omni) nutrients or 2 (vegan) nutrients.

how do you know the average raw foodist is not ill in some physical or mental way?

and average cooked food eater is extremely wide-ranging. extremely. most of the human population eats cooked food, and strangely enough, there are people who are not unhealthy like the rate of decreasing health in america. you have to consider different regions. i mean why label "them" ..do you want to be called a raw foodists in a demeaning tone? actually a lot of raw foodists probably have nutrient deficiencies just as bad..

iLIVE,

Please understand, and I think I speak for everyone, when I refer to the average cooked diet, I am refering to the SAD of North America, not the centenarian diet of Okinawa. I think you've agreed elsewhere that the SAD is very unhealthy, right? I think we generally believe that, on these boards. Most health associations going on empirical data do, anyway . . .

I agree with ilive....to lump all people who eat cooked food together as diseased and unhealthy is not using sound logic. You have to look at your sample group in detail before you can determine a "baseline" for anything.

When someone says average cooked food eater are we referring to the average cooked eater in Kansas, Seattle, Maine? I think a better way to say what many are trying to, is that some who eats unhealthy, highly processed food, not the average cooked food eater. After all what is average you is not average to me.

Utopian life if an omnivore someone who eats everything is deficient in 8 mystery nutrients....how many would someone who only eats raw things be deficient in? All in a balanced manner of course.

I also agree with iLive on the extent of labeling that goes on within raw food circles. I have experienced it first hand as well. People trying to make you feel like you are inferior or an idiot for your diet choices. We have enough labels in our lives why bring what eat into it. Bottom line is we are human and we eat food, sure many different kinds, some with varying degrees of nutrients or not, but it's all food.

I bet if the world fell apart and it went back to survival of the fittest, the ideas about food/non-food, raw/cooked, healthy/unhealthy etc. would all disappear. Or at least the ones who were stubborn enough to hold onto to their beliefs would perish along with their beliefs. I know I would give up mine to survive.

Have a nice day from a heterosexual, french/italian, omnivoristic, sagitarian athlete...