Random comments

OK folks, this is the best I can do about the conversations I felt didn't belong in my book review.  Here is a PDF of them "printed out".  Please feel free to continue the discussion here.  Thanks!

Oh Rats!! II: Usefulness of Rat Studies & Unmotivated Fat Rats

An important result was that motivation to lever press was impairednot only in food-restricted rats working for food reinforcement (sucrose), but also in water-restricted rats working for water reinforcement.  The non-specificity of the impairment suggests that the REF diet affected general mechanisms of motivation rather than those specific to the feeding behavioral system. Taken together, these findings lend support to the hypothesis raised by scientists [28,29] and journalists [30] that obesity may not be the result of impaired motivation (lethargy).  Rather, an obesogenic diet, such as that consisting of highly processed, refined foods, may induce obesity and disrupt motivational mechanisms of the central nervous system.  This hypothesis awaits further empirical scrutiny and does not necessarily rule out the lack of will power as a contributing factor to obesity.

Three guesses who/what reference 30 is, and the first two don't count.  Oh my.

---

image link

In Oh Rats!! I, I discussed some rat research on sugar addiction (so-called).  A major player in this area in the peer review literature is Dr. Nicole Avena who has taken the leap to mass-media diet guru -- and I mean guru in the worst sense of the word.  Avena is a bit different from many of the fellow gurus, when she goes on TV and such, she has an impressive bio and research background following her, so I'm going to hold her to a higher standard.  There are two problems with her book, the first being the definitiveness with which she places blame on sugar and by extension carbs, to the exclusion of fat and/or the sugar/fat combination.  This is unquestionably in conflict with her own research findings.  The second being that she characterizes rats as "very good models of humans because we have similar brain systems and neural circuitry."   This implies that research in rats is easily translated and applicable to humans.  

Oh Rats!! I: Usefulness of Rat Studies & Sugar Addiction

Over the past several months I have fallen down more PubMed rabbit holes than I care to admit to ... and that's just for the Restriction Addiction book (which, by the way, I'm putting the finishing touches on for republishing the updated and expanded version). Research for that book was overwhelming at times because of the sheer volume of studies out there on food addiction, dopamine, food reward, obesity, eating disorders, etc.etc. A ton of them in rats. No ... my book is not a lengthy compendium with 1000 references. There are a few seminal reviews that illustrate key points.

One of these is the following from Nicole Avena PhD. :  Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake.  The PDF for this is more like a mini-book, complete with sections and content navigation.  So when I was perusing the schedule for the upcoming New Age Paleo CONference and MLM Expo (aka PaleoFX) and saw her name among the speakers I was like ... finally, they bring some cred up on the stage.  

That sentiment was short-lived, because apparently Avena was bitten by a Lustigvirus-carrying Wistar before it was sacrificed for its brain analysis.  That is to say, she has fallen prey to the low carb "science" and militant anti-sugar craze and joined the activist ranks as a hyperbole-laced-fad-diet-book author.  Yes, she teamed up with a Gary Taubes fanman (who lost weight with low carb and dedicated his contribution to the book to Taubes) and wrote a book:  Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar). The subtitle implies that SCIENCE EXPLAINS all of this.

The 2005 Biochemistry of Obesity, Marks' Basic Medical Biochemistry

A short "image park" in my ongoing effort to document the state of the textbook science of fat storage, obesity and adipocyte function circa the writing of a three PhD thesis worthy tome.   This from Marks' Basic Medical Biochemistry, 2nd Edition, 2005. 

Thus, although activation of hormone-sensitive lipase during fasting results in the release of fatty acids from adipocytes, the release is carefully modulated through glyceroneogenesis and re-synthesis of triglycerides.

Book Review: Talking Back to Gurus by Mike Howard

Talking Back to Health Gurus:
An Un-revolutionary and Un-sexy Guide to Fat Loss     by Mike Howard

---

Note: This might look/sound familiar, because Mike's book was in the Superhero bundle my book was a part of. I hope several others will become available individually as well for those that weren't interested in a bigger investment. 

Talking Back to Diet Gurus:
An Un-Revolutionary and Un-Sexy Guide to Fat Loss

Cancer and Insulin

A lot of the metabolism-focused cancer talk seems to coalesce around insulin and its cousin IGF-1  (see for example colon cancer , breast cancer, or do any Google Scholar search on the topic).   Moreso than glucose lowering or ketone producing, the keto for cancer folks seem to be trying to reduce insulin (see this recent blog post).  

So yesterday when I relistened (because sometimes I just torture myself) to Gary Taubes' walk back his G3P argument, something else caught my ear at the end, especially in light of the earlier convo in the podcast about protein and insulin.  Have a listen [I cropped together just 4 minutes for you :-) ]

Jonathan Bailor Fact Check

Jonathan Bailor has earned himself a high dishonor of his own blog post linking to the bad science in his books.  He earned this because he has perpetuated past 2010 the flawed alpha glycerol phosphate aka glycerol 3 phosphate aka G3P part of Gary Taubes' fairy tales on obesity.  

Better Starch Digestion = Lower Weight?

This paper was posted by Denise Minger on Facebook last night:

Low copy number of the salivary amylase gene predisposes to obesity

It has been known for some time that humans carry different numbers of copies of the genes responsible for producing amylase.  Amylase is the enzyme in human saliva that begins the breakdown of starches in the mouth.   Obligate carnivores, such as cats, lack salivary amylase.   The copy number of the AMY1 gene in humans range from 2 to 12 in this study (on FB, Denise states that it can vary from 1 to 15).  Want more information on this, try Chris Masterjohn's presentation from AHS12.  The amylase part is pretty near the beginning.

Appearance on Evil Sugar Radio Podcast & Book Update

Hello all!

---

A little while back I recorded a podcast with Antonio Valladares and Scott Kustes of Evil Sugar Radio.  It airs today.  We discuss my book, Restriction Addiction, as well as TWICHOO and Gary Taubes.  We also discuss a bit of paleo craziness.  It was a lot of fun and I hope you'll enjoy!

EPISODE 39

Edit:  Apparently over on the website someone left a comment challenging my representation of Stefansson's all meat diet.  From my response:

http://owndoc.com/pdf/meat-only-diet2.pdf

“During the first 2 days his diet approximated that of the Eskimos, as reported by Krogh and Krogh (3), except that he took only one-third as much carbohydrate. The protein accounted for 45 per cent of his food calories. The intestinal disturbance began on the 3rd day of this diet. During the next 2 days he took much less protein and more fat so that he received about 20 per cent of his calories from protein and 80 per cent from fat. In these two days his intestinal condition became normal without medication. Thereafter the protein calories did not exceed 25 per cent of the total for more than 1 day at a time. The high percentage of calories from protein may have been a factor
in the production of the diarrhea. “

This is part of the issue with LC propaganda.  Inuit diet was 45% protein/55% fat.  This isn't Krogh and Krogh, but it cites it and I've linked to this a couple of times now.  I'd send out a hat tip if I remembered which commenter brought this to my attention so long ago.

"Krogh and Krogh have analyzed lean seal meat and found it to contain 6 to 10 per cent of fat. According to their data the average daily food partition is about 280 gm. of protein, 135 gm. of fat, and 54 gm. of carbohydrate of which the bulk is derived from the glycogen of the meat eaten. "

---

My book is not currently on sale, but it will be very soon.   I juggled with selling the current version that was rushed a bit for inclusion in the bundle vs. waiting to update and expand it.  I decided on the latter so as not to have different versions out there.  I'll announce here, or subscribe to my newsletter for updates!

Energy Expenditure Correlations to Various Factors in Women

I'm working on a post to tie together some thoughts on calories and what "appropriate" intake generally is for women.  In doing so I came across the following study -- High levels of energy expenditure in obese women -- crunched some of the data into a giant Excel table, and did a few linear regression analyses.  I'm certainly not attempting to create yet another model for all of this, but I did find some interesting things.