Last Updated on 4th February 2022 by Caroline Haye
From super greens to nutraceuticals
Food is the oldest medicine. It provides our hard-working human “vehicle” with the fuel, oil, repairs and maintenance it needs to keep working perfectly. Not only does it do this gently, naturally and (usually) with zero unwanted side-effects, but it also gives us enjoyment. Of course, I’m talking here about wholesome foods, not junk. And, whilst an average diet will provide enough nutrition to keep the average person averagely healthy, it may not be enough to deal with particular conditions… Which is where we get into the realms of using foods for specific therapeutic purposes. Food therapies for vitiligo, and other conditions, take many forms and boast an increasingly bewildering array of ingredients, descriptions and buzz words, which can be confusing. So, I will try my best to shed light on current terminology, and on relevance for vitiligo, of the many food therapies out there.
Dietary manipulation
This is a fancy way of describing the practice of purposely including or excluding certain foods from our diet. Examples of this are:
- Avoiding possible allergens or hard-to digest foods like gluten and lactose
- Not eating meat or animal products, either for health or ethical reasons
- Excluding GMO foods and highly processed products
- Adopting a “paleo” diet to maximise proteins, minimise carbohydrates and eat “clean” foods
- Follow the so-called AIP diet (Autoimmune Protocol) by cutting out inflammatory foods
Dietary manipulation is relevant to vitiligo in several ways. But, put simply, choosing foods that help your digestion to function properly means you absorb more of the nutrients you need to improve health. And avoiding foods that cause adverse symptoms means that you are less likely to aggravate your condition further.
Functional foods (and beverages)
As the name suggests, these are foodstuffs that have a particular function. They have health benefits that go beyond the mere nutritional value of the food itself. And they include whole foods as well as products that have been added to, or enriched, in order to achieve these benefits. For example:
- Live yoghurt or fermented vegetables containing probiotics
- Foods or drinks with prebiotics added (to promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut)
- Milk or bread “fortified” with vitamin D (to help prevent vitamin D deficiency in parts of the world where people do not make enough of this vitamin from sun exposure)
- Breakfast cereals fortified with vitamins and minerals
- Spreads or drinks containing stanols or sterols (to help lower cholesterol)
- Fruits and vegetables that help combat high blood pressure
- Energy bars containing targeted ingredients to boost athletic performance
- Isotonic drinks (to help with re-hydration of the body during vigorous exercise)
Functional foods may be relevant to vitiligo, especially if you are aware of any particular health issues that may be contributing to your condition. For example, if you know your vitamin D levels are low or you have an imbalance of gut flora (both relatively common in vitiligo).
Nutraceuticals
A cross between “nutrition” and “pharmaceutical”, nutraceutical has become a buzz word over the past few years. People often use it interchangeably with functional foods, as described above. But, in fact, nutraceuticals are a subcategory of functional food. Specifically, they are a functional whole food, as opposed to a fortified or enriched food product. Examples of nutraceutical foods are:
- Herbs and spices with medicinal properties
- Fruits and vegetables that help to prevent or treat disease
- Nuts and seeds that have particular health benefits
- Dietary fibre that improves digestion
- Hydrolysed proteins, like collagen, that support bones and soft tissues
- Whole food blends and concentrates, as typically sold by health food suppliers
As part of your intake of functional foods, nutraceuticals can help to ward off chronic disease and ageing at the same time as potentially combatting specific health issues like vitiligo and other autoimmune conditions.
Antioxidants
This is a term our parents and grandparents would probably not have heard mentioned very much, if at all. Yet today it is a familiar part of our language. But do you actually know what antioxidants are and why they are important? Previous generations would simply have said that eating fruits and vegetables is good for your health. And that is correct for a number of reasons, one of which is that they contain high levels of antioxidants. Antioxidants are protective chemical compounds that occur naturally in these foods… Compounds that protect us from free radical damage (the kind of cellular damage that leads to disease and ageing). A wide variety of foods contain high levels of protective antioxidants, including:
- Leafy green vegetables
- Apples
- Grapes
- Blueberries
- Raspberries
- Beans
- Dark chocolate (oh goody!)
Antioxidants are also sometimes added to food items in the form of vitamins A, C and E.
As regards their relevance to vitiligo, they are extremely important, since free radical damage is a critical factor in the de-pigmentation process… Which is why many nutritional (and topical) vitiligo therapies involve the use of antioxidants.
Adaptogens
Adaptogens are a type of nutraceutical that have been used in herbal medicine for thousands of years for their ability to alter (hence “adapt”-ogen) our physiological processes in some way. Typically, the aim of using adaptogens is to relieve stress and bring the body into healthy hormonal balance. Examples of adaptogens, and some of their reported benefits, include:
- Ashwaganda (to reduce stress and anxiety)
- Siberian ginseng (for the immune system and to treat insomnia)
- Goji berry (for antioxidant protection)
- Licorice root (for stress reduction)
- Astragalus (to combat fatigue)
- Turmeric (for brain function and depression)
While adaptogens are a type of functional food, you would certainly not heap them onto your dinner plate as you might cabbage or broccoli. They are powerful medicines in their own right and can be every bit as potent as drugs. So it’s important to know which ones, and how much, to take for your specific needs and to be aware of any side effects or interactions with medications.
Adaptogens are not for everyone
The jury appears to be out on the question of how helpful adaptogenic foods may be for vitiligo. Confusingly, some people swear by some of these herbs, for example ginkgo biloba and also turmeric. [A word of warning here: see Turmeric, Vitiligo Friend or Foe.] Others find no benefit from them and may even experience unwanted symptoms. It’s classic case of “works for some but not for everyone”.
How effective adaptogens are for each person may depend on the specific involvement of an individual’s immune system or hormones in their vitiligo. In theory, one person might benefit from the balancing effect of an adaptogen on their hormones or from the anti-inflammatory or antioxidant properties of a particular adaptogen. But another person who already has an overactive immune response might possibly find this too much of a boost for their system.
Super greens
We formerly described these as green “superfoods” until companies and individuals starting making all kinds of wild health claims about every obscure edible substance imaginable and got the term banned. Whatever you choose to call them, these supplements are a kind of nutraceutical because they are a functional whole food (or often a blend of several whole green vegetables). They are naturally rich in a wide range of vitamins, minerals and amino acids, as well as dietary fibre, vegetable protein and antioxidants. And they usually come in the form of freeze dried powder which can be put into capsules or made into green smoothies. Typical ingredients, and just some of their benefits, include:
- Spirulina (high in plant protein and antioxidants)
- Chlorella (rich in B12, carotene, chlorophyll antioxidants and plant protein)
- Wheatgrass (rich in catalase, cleansing and de-toxifying)
- Barleygrass (high in catalase, calcium and iron)
- Kale (rich in vitamin C)
- Spinach (high in vitamins A and K)
- Cabbage (good source of antioxidants and folate)
- Broccoli (potassium, calcium, selenium, antioxidants and B vitamins)
- Brussels sprouts (high in antioxidants and folate)
The specific relevance to vitiligo of super greens is that they are massively rich in nutrition, especially antioxidants (which are vital for fighting the oxidative stress that forms part of the vitiligo process). Another significant point is the dense concentration of nutrition in these foods… Enabling us to get much higher doses than we could through diet alone. And this is likely to be especially important for those of us who have poorer than average digestive absorption.
Nutritional supplements
This final category is one that we are all familiar with. It is a broad umbrella term that includes all of the above, except for whole foods. And the clue is in the word “supplement”. Nutritional supplements are for supplementing our diet, not replacing real food. After all, real food is the most natural way to get the nutrients we need, which is why we so often hear medical experts say that most people don’t need supplements, as long as they eat a healthy diet. The trouble with that concept is that it makes two unrealistic assumptions:
- that people actually will make healthy food choices at every meal and
- that they are in reasonable health to start with.
If you can tick both these boxes, then a healthy diet is indeed all you should need… in other words, just good old-fashioned food. But if you either do not have access to healthy food every day and / or you have specific needs, then that is where supplements come to the rescue. For example, a good diet is not enough to meet the special needs of an elite athlete. So, that’s why most of them use functional foods. And, similarly, simply eating well may not be sufficient if you have a chronic disease. So that’s where therapeutic doses of appropriate foods and nutrients can make a massive difference.
The proof of food therapy is in the eating
Many of us know, from our own nutritional experimentation, that functional foods and supplements can vastly improve our general health and wellbeing. But, more than that, some of us even recover from specific illnesses as a result of using them (in my case, from vitiligo). A fact that goes to show that man-made drugs are not the only way to treat disease. Often, nature’s own food-medicines – whatever trendy terminology we use to describe them – can be just as powerful and, usually, a great deal tastier too. 😉
[To find out what functional foods and supplements helped my vitiligo, go to the Nutrition Summary page.]
