Arnaldo Cantani
1837
1893
--
Deceased Italian Physician
Vico Banchi Nuovi, 9, 80134 Napoli NA, Italy
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Diabetes - From Wikipedia
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List of sanctioned and forbidden foods on the Cantani diet
Cantani treated his diabetic patients by eliminating carbohydrates and prescribing a meat diet.[3] He believed that stopping glycosuria was the major method of controlling diabetes.[4] This became known as Cantani's diet or the "Cantani system".[5]
Cantani allowed his patients as many calories as they could tolerate without glycosuria. Later he limited daily food intake to about one pound of cooked meat. If glucosuria persisted, he fasted his patients.[6] The exclusive meat diet would continue for several months but if urine was not free of sugar it would extend to six or nine months.[3] To control glycosuria, Cantani would enforce his diet restrictions. He would often lock his patients in a room, so they adhered to the strict diet.[7] He performed microscopic studies on the organs from thousands of cases and observed that atrophy and fatty changes were more frequently found in the pancreas of diabetic patients than of non-diabetics.[8][9]
Cantani's exclusive animal food diet consisted of all kinds of meat and animal fats, fish, lobsters and eggs but no dairy as it contains lactose.[10] A list of sanctioned and forbidden foods on Cantani's diet was included in Isaac Burney Yeo's book Food in Health and Disease, published in 1896.[10] Bernhard Naunyn was influenced by the Cantani system.[5]
Cantani also favoured the use of lactic acid to treat diabetes.[11] He administered his patients 77–154 grains of lactic acid daily which was diluted in 8–10 fluid ounces of water. This became known as Cantani's method and influenced George William Balfour.[11]
History Entries - 10 per page
January 1, 1896
Arnaldo Cantani
Food in Health and Disease
Yeo Burney summarizes Cantani's Diet for Diabetes: He requires the adoption of this absolute meat and fat diet for three months — in very mild cases for two months, in very severe cases for six or nine months.
7. — Cantani's.
{This is a very exclusive diet.)
Sanctioned:
Meat and animal fats of all kinds (at all meals).
Fish of all kinds.
Lobsters.
Olive oil (instead of butter).
Eggs (in milder cases).
Substitute for bread: Pavy's almond cakes(only for convalescents who cannot entirely dispense with bread).
Pure Water.
Soda-water.
Persons habituated to the use of strong wines and spirits may add to the water 10 to 30 grammes of pure alcohol daily.
Red Wine.
Tea and coffee in small quantities.
Forbidden:
Liver.
Butter, as it contains traces of lactose.
Cheese.
Milk.
All farinaceous and saccharine foods absolutely.
All fruits.
All green vegetable and roots.
Lemonade.
Chocolate.
Rum, cognac.
Tea and coffee (in severe cases).
Cantani considers much salt injurious, as well as much pickled pork or salt fish.
He requires the adoption of this absolute meat and fat diet for three months — in very mild cases for two months, in very severe cases for six or nine months. If after two months the urine contains no sugar, he allows green vegetables ; after another month, cheese and old red wine ; and after another fortnight, almonds and nuts. A month or so after this he permits juicy fruits, not too sweet, as straw- berries, raspberries, peaches, apples, and sour oranges ; still later, plums, gooseberries, green beans and peas, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, and gourds. After another fortnight, milk and fresh milk foods may be used. Finally, if after repeated examination no sugar be found in the urine, small quantities of farinaceous food may be cautiously permitted, but their use must be restricted for life. It is best to avoid altogether cane-sugar and sweets of all kinds.
Cantani urges the consumption of as much fat as possible, and especially of " pancreatic fat," as easy of digestion. It is prepared of pancreas, cut up into small pieces, well mixed with a certain quantity of melted bacon fat or lard, left to undergo an artificial digestion for about three hours, and finally lightly roasted before the fire. In mild cases he prescribes pure sugar-free cod-liver oil, in 20- to 100-gramme doses.