The father of the high-fibre diet

Dr Denis Burkitt 1911-1993 is one of the unsung heroes of the healthy lifestyle.

He gave his name to Burkitt's lymphoma, a previously unknown facial cancer, which he observed in African children. It’s an unusual cancer because it’s linked to a virus. It came to the attention of Western doctors many years later, when cases started cropping up in patients whose immunity was compromised by AIDS.

His other claim to fame is at the other end of the medical spectrum - the importance of fibre in the diet. Before he published his book in 1979 there was little awareness of this. After its release there was a positive surge in the consumption of wholemeal bread, bran and muesli.

Dr Burkitt observed that Africans rarely suffered from constipation or - more significantly - diseases of the digestive system that were common in the West. He concluded that the African diet, which was very rich in fibre, prevented constipation and so helped to prevent many “diseases of civilisiation” including bowel cancer. 

He would have been fascinated in some recent research in which African-Americans swapped diets for just two weeks with some black South Africans. Several significant changes were observed in gut bacteria and molecules associated with colon cancer.

Don’t Forget Fibre in Your Diet, Denis Burkitt pub Martin Dunitz 1979

African diet swap http://bit.ly/1AcdC0J

Acid reflux - alkaline diet?

The growth of the Internet has enabled health myths to spread around the globe like a virulent strain of flu, infecting websites, books and the beliefs people hold about their health.

One of the most prevalent is the alkaline/acid diet myth. This seems to have come about as a result of an unfortunate marriage between Western alternative ideas about nutrition and Oriental concepts about the medicinal effects of foods. There is no evidence to support the idea that following a diet dictated by these notions can prevent any illnesses, cure any diseases or improve health in any way. The pseudo-scientific explanation of those who preach this doctrine talks about acid-forming and alkaline-forming foods (sometimes referred to as acid and alkaline foods for short).

One of the most confusing aspects is that an apparently arbitrary list of foods that supposedly makes your blood more acidic or alkaline. If you take fruits for example, citrus fruits are considered “alkalising” while cranberries and plums are considered “acidifying”.  This leads to statements like “lemons alkalise the blood”. In reality the chemistry of the blood is self-regulating and can withstand people consuming pints of orange juice or several antacid tablets in a day. These dietary recommendations have nothing whatsoever to do with whether the food has an acidic taste or contains any actual acids, such as citric acid or ascorbic acid. Or indeed, whether they a high or low pH.  An important scientific word has been seized and shaken it until it is unrecognisable.


This belief system is doubly confusing when it is used to advise people suffering from acid-reflux. Someone taking medicine aimed at neutralising their stomach acid, or reducing its production by the glands of the stomach, really does not need this muddle-headed pseudo-science thrown into the mix. Yet there are many books and websites that promote these dietary ideas to this group of patients.


Reflux is caused by a weakness of the valve at the top of the stomach and not by an imbalance of the pH of the blood. There is very little evidence that any particular foods have a consistent effect on reflux symptoms. The best way for an individual to check if something disagrees with them is to give up just one food at a time, eat normally, and then re-introduce the suspect food for a day and note any effects. Then, as with all good scientific experiments, repeat this procedure a few times to check that the effect is consistent.

Other than that, reflux patients should eat a high-fibre diet which seems to help, possibly because it keeps constipation and straining at bay. Straining, in someone with a weakened valve, will tend to push acid back up the oesophagus. The other important point is to eat a diet that prevents, or reduces any tendency to develop a bulging waistline. In this way pressure on that problematic valve will be kept to a minimum.

Porridge Oats – Heathy and Cheap?

There are very few foods that are permitted, in Europe, to state that their consumption reduces your risk of a specific disease. These claims have to be proved to a high level of scientific scrutiny by the European Food Standards Agency.

One of the few foods to achieve this elevated status is oats. It's been clearly shown that a kind of soluble fibre found in whole oats, known as beta glucan, can reduce cholesterol - if you eat enough oats and do so on a regular basis. Reducing cholesterol reduces your risk of developing the clogged up arteries that cause heart attacks. Hence the claim that oats can be “good for your heart”.

Porridge is the most convenient way of eating oats and is officially good for you. (Of course if you are spending the rest of the day smoking on the sofa, eating doughnuts and crisps, which would certainly cancel out the health-giving effect of your breakfast porridge.)

Before the recent crackdown on health claims, they were bandied about fairly freely on oat products. You may have noticed recently the more carefully worded messages such as: "Each serving will have enough beta glucan to begin
 reducing cholesterol." Notice the word “begin”. Now look at the small print, (or the print that flashes before your eyes on the TV ads) which says something like: 

Each serving contains 33% of the 3g of oat beta glucan suggested per day to help lower cholesterol as part of a varied and balanced diet & healthy lifestyle.

The important thing to remember is that you need to eat at least 90g of whole oats per day to get a cholesterol lowering amount of beta glucans.

Peering critically at packets, as I do, I can’t help thinking that the person who suggested putting oats in one-serving packets and branding them as simple and microwaveable should have had a massive bonus from their employer. It is a brilliant way of charging a lot more for oats. But aren’t all oats simple and microwavable? These measured portions are, for beginners, an easy way of making porridge - but, I would have thought, making porridge in a microwave is an easy skill that could be managed by a seven year old.  And remember – those little packets only give you a third of the recommended daily intake of oats.

The cost of these neatly packaged oats is around £5.50 a kilo. Supermarket “value” brands of porridge oats, sold in one-kilogram plastic bags, can be had for about 80p a kilo. They are just as good as the oats you can buy in a box, or a box with lots of little packets.

There are other branded versions of porridge around, such as individual microwaveable pots. Again if you want to check the serving size and the price per kilo, you need to peer closely at the small print. Or visit an online shopping site so that you can read the nutritional content of foods in bigger print on their websites. One individual pot I looked at contains 60g of product, 30g of which is oats. So again, you’d have to eat 3 of these (at about £1 each) to get your daily quota of oat beta glucan.

Dried fruit is a good way of sweetening porridge without using refined sugar and it is cheaper to add your own than to buy it ready mixed.

So if you want to get a cholesterol lowering benefit from your morning porridge, have a big bowl and have it most mornings. And if you’re watching your pennies – and who isn’t – go for the ones in plastic bags.