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Muscle Tremors & Diet

Essential tremor, one of the most common neurological conditions, appears to be linked to meat consumption.

January 4, 2011 |
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Muscle Tremors & Diet, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

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Acknowledgements

Image thanks to the United States Navy and Chief Mass Communication Specialist Don Bray.

Transcript

Breast cancer has been the traditional target of these cooked meat carcinogens, but now there’s also prostate, stomach, colon, and kidney cancer concerns too. We also know these cooked muscle chemicals are neurotoxic, and so last year researchers looked into meat consumption and “essential tremor,” one of the most common neurological conditions in the world.
They can start as early as our 40’s, and usually starts in the hands but can spread to the rest of the body and become quite debilitating. And we never knew what caused it, but now, at least for men, we seem to have a pretty good idea. Men eating the most meat in this study had more than 20 times the odds of having this tremor.
Just to illustrate how dramatic a 20-fold increase is, the odds of a pack a day smoker getting lung cancer after 20 years is only 13 times that of nonsmokers.
So for meat and tremor, it comes out to be 6% increased risk for every 10 grams of meat consumed daily. That’s like one strip of bacon. That means if we eat the equivalent of a chicken breast a day we may double your risk of developing a tremor for the rest of our lives.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

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Dr. Michael Greger

Doctor's Note

Please feel free to post any ask-the-doctor type questions here in the comments section and I’d be happy to try to answer them. And check out theother videos on meat. Also, there are 1,449 other subjects covered in the rest of my videos--please feel free to explore them as well!

For some context, please check out my associated blog posts: Harvard’s Meat and Mortality Studies and Breast Cancer and Diet.

  • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/mgreger/ Michael Greger M.D.

    Please feel free to post any ask-the-doctor type questions here in the comments section and I’d be happy to try to answer them. And check out the other videos on meat. Also, there are 1,449 other subjects covered in the rest of my videos–please feel free to explore them as well!

  • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/toxins/ Toxins

    Can tremors be reversed with a whole foods plant based diet?

    • Jane

      I don’t know what all of the research says, but I had tremors for a year because of autoimmune problems. I went on a low fat plant based diet (no meat or dairy at all and not much processed foods) and my tremors are completely gone after a year on the diet.

  • acrigler

    What if any foods/nutrients increase the production and/or usage of dopamine?

  • Michael Greger M.D.

    For some context, please check out my associated blog post Harvard’s Meat and Mortality Studies!

  • Glden

    Dr Greger, do you have any studies showing how nutrition affects ovarian cancer? Specifically, what are good foods for fighting/avoiding ovarian cancer?

  • teresa

    I have essential tremors,I have been looking for a good diet

    • Jane

      I’ve been on a low fat vegan diet for a year now and am feeling amazing and no more tremors.

  • salbers

    Could this study implicate meat consumption in restless leg syndrome? It is sort of a muscle tremor.

    • TCB Health

      Theoretically it is possible, although there does not appear to be studies on it yet. The underlying cause for RLS would be pertinent, as there is no one cause. While they manifest similarly and often co-exist, essential tremors and restless leg syndrome are different disorders.

  • debbie

    Hi Dr, thanks for the great videos. I really want to help my ~Dad, he is vegan, hasnt ate meat for 30years and has Essential Tremor badly in his hands. Would it help to find out his B12 levels? Ive heard a low B12 could contribute towards this. What else can he do?

  • Sid Young

    Dr. Greger,
    I am 70 years old and my tremors began at age 19. Sometimes now, my hands flutter uncontrollably like butterflies. Beef has been a staple of my diet. Quite accidentally, I found that large consumption of watermelon, (seeds and all) brought almost total relief the following day. I have tried watermelon seed extract with lesser success. I have just now found watermelon seed for sale by the lb. from a seed vendor and roasted watermelon seeds by the lb. from nuts.com which I am going to try.

    Have you ever heard about relief with watermelon before?

    My father had the same problem as did his mother. I had decided that it was hereditary, but we all were consumers of cooked meat mostly beef.

    I have also investigated getting my brain zapped with radio waves in Virginia.