Infections and Calorie Restriction

As I type this I have been practicing calorie restriction with optimal nutrition for 2 years and 3 months. During this time I’ve been through my ups and downs, but during the first year and a half I seemed to be almost immune to everything I came in contact with. No longer would I get ill first, and neither did my close proximity to others cause me to become ill with common viruses such as flu, colds, and stomach viruses. However, this changed once I started to develop a dental problem around September 2006 – April 2007. During this time I had managed to catch the worst flu I’ve had in my life, throat infection, two stomach viruses, another undiagnosed viral infection, thrush, mouth sores on a daily basis. My life seemed to take a turn for the worst and significantly impacted my quality of life for quite a few months. My doctors seemed to believe that all this was entirely normal and nothing to worry about. Test after test shows that things like White blood count remained within normal limits, my temperature remained under 37 degrees (more on this later), and that I was perfectly healthy. I have superb glucose readings, cholesterol, blood pressure and so on. Why was this all happening to me?

As it turned out, I had a dental infection for over six months, which seem to make my immune system ‘run down’. I tried 3 rounds of antibiotics, one of which caused some severe side effects on the second attempt (metronidazole) but didn’t seem to get rid of the infection that I had. Eventually I had a root canal done on this tooth but unfortunately the benefits were very short lived. At first I notice some dramatic decreases in my average daytime body temperature of 36.8-37 to around 36.4 degrees Celsius. At the time I didn’t realise that in fact, my CR induced low body temperature should have probably been much lower than this, maybe around 36.0 as my doctor measured in his office around October 2005. At certain times I only have minor pains in the area of the dental infection, and my temperature was increased but not above 37, which unfortunately the doctor or dentist could not act on this. However, because of my significantly lower body temperature, this was quite high for me, clearly a sign of pyrexia. Eventually I did end up having the tooth removed as I had yet another viral infection and the tooth started to play up again.
After the tooth came out my temperature plummeted, my hands were freezing in summer-like weather, and I knew this time I’ve defeated it. However, once again my temperature started to increase slowly but the gum inflammation was easing off. Could I still have the infection I thought, so back to the dentist and he confirmed everything looking good and I shouldn’t worry too much. I began to think I was just going crazy and that maybe there was no infection all along. Everything I mentioned to my doctor and dentist seemed to generate a few laughs, and that I was a worrier.
I had the tooth out in February and my temperature finally went to my normal of 35.9-36.1 average (over several readings). It has been like this for three weeks now and I’ve seen no temperature spikes. I have not seen one reading at 37 degrees. What was a little confusing though is that I had this very ‘sudden’ illness and then my temperature corrected itself after the illness subsided after two days. I now feel almost the best I have in my life, all my symptoms are gone or going away. My anxiety has gone, joint pains gone, headaches gone, tiredness is gone, my temperature is normal for a CRONie and the horrible nights sweats have gone. It feels like I’m finally getting my life back. The only symptom I’m left with is some weird sensations near the extraction area and very mild occasional pain. But why was diagnosing this infection so hard? If they would have done X-rays or took the tooth out earlier then maybe this could have been avoided.

Did CR mask the low grade infection?

First we know that calorie restriction decreases body temperature by up to a degree or more. Second we know that CR has a powerful effect on inflammation, and so does the foods a typical person like me on CR eats. All suppressing inflammation, inflammation caused in my case by bacterial toxins. Below is a graph I created and each data point is from an average reading over 3 days taken at the same time.

As you can see above, there is quite a dramatic difference in body temperature complication that may arise from practicing calorie restriction. It potentially mask low grade infection. With viral infections like the flu CRON doesn’t seem to prevent a high fever, but when the pyrexia is at a low level, it might just put you within a normal range, and not above a significant level that would cause alarm. If for instance my normal average body temperature was 37 degrees, I would expect that my temperature may rise to around 37.5 or above. This is just one of the potential complications that I feel those practicing calorie restriction should learn from. Today I do not know if the infection will return, but so far it seems to be gone.

What tests can identify infections

An infection would likely cause a rise in C-Reactive protein (although again, if the infection is low grade then CRON’s anti inflammatory effect might even attenuate excessive inflammation and produce a reading within the normality for the average person. Another one to test is ESR During my infection I had several Blood counts done, each showing nothing significant and confused me more. Although from reading off various sources it seems that certain types of infections do not always produce a high WBC.

What did I learn?

It’s important to learn from mistakes, during my childhood and teens I did take care of my teeth, but also ate plenty of sweets and sugary foods. This lead to several cavities mostly on molar and pre-molar teeth… At the time I did not realise just how big of an impact tooth infections, and abscesses can have on overall well being. 

1. Dental hygiene is so important and should be well maintained on calorie restriction. The diet itself will help prevent cavities but not totally. Prevention is better than dealing with it later on.

2. Go for frequent blood tests to spot changes that are not right.

3. Do home monitoring! If I never took my daily temperature readings I would have never actually spotted the rise in body temperature. As it was still normal during most of the infection (not acute phase) any physician would have probably missed it.

4. Get your doctor to note down your own normal range

Calorie restriction is a powerful method to slow down aging, and improve immune function, but both can be compromised in any individual and at any age. CR improve immune function in rodents and rhesus monkeys, and anecdotal evidence from CRers suggest that those who do CR get ill very rarely. However, we must keep an open mind. CR will reduce the major killers, or even eliminate the possibility of suffering from them later in life. But we do not live in sterile environments as Rhesus monkeys being studies, or rodents that have dramatically increases maximal life spans.

Take care of yourself, wash your hands regularly, clean your teeth and avoid being ill. Those with lower body weights are probably should be more aware and careful in this regard.

Stay well!