Physician Phollies ~ III: Dr. Jack "Leptin Man" Kruse


In  light of recent posts by Melissa McEwen (Hunt Gather Love blog) and Danny Roddy, I decided to dust this one off that got lost in the draft bin.  Melissa's post especially got me to go get this out of storage -- she cites a few quotes from Jack that are rather mind-boggling.  Folks over at PaleoHacks are well familiar with Quiltisms on all manner of things.     It seems that the selection of speakers for AHS12 has caused a bit of consternation in the paleo world, and for good reason, IMO.  I had considered entering a talk on eating disorders but figured it would be dead on arrival when I heard that some presenters from last year were rebuked.  So didn't waste my time.  I'm glad to see that others are speaking up -- hopefully more will -- about this disturbing trend in the paleo community.  Especially, as Melissa put it in her comments, how Jimmy Moore has now become some paleo guru kingmaker.  This as the man has now announced that he's pushing 300 lbs despite going paleo after AHS11.  As the collective communities bemoan how the media is portraying paleo, they need to rethink who it is they support in this community.  Over on PaleoHacks Sean Croxton seemed a bit ruffled that his Paleo Summit has been met with negativity.  Jack Kruse on the docket will, no doubt, add to the behind-the-scenes groaning.  I would like to see the ancestral movement stem this tide as a return to a real foods diet will be the solution for most.  Such a diet can more than be supported by science.  But it has to be science, not the krispie sort.




Original post:

This installment is about Jack Kruse, aka Digisurgeon, aka john, aka The Quilt ...

So it was Encore Week on the LLVLC podcast last week and the #1 vote getter was .... drum roll please .....


I feel kinda bad poking at Jack sometimes, because he actually seems like a pretty nice, sincere man, who would also probably be a hoot to party with sometime.  Still ... since he is a NeuroSurgeon!  There's that appeal to authority thing going on there and he fairly regularly doles out medical advice on his blog and various forums about the web.   

It's very difficult to figure out where Jack stands on the lowly carbohydrate.  He has insisted in exchanges with me, both in comments here and elsewhere, that he's not a low carber.  Apparently he eats VLC after September 15th and yokes his carb consumption to seasonal light cycles or something like that, but eats a shocking (to AHS attendees) amount of carbs in the summertime.  Whatever ... to co-opt a saying from a buttery blogger, I can't be arsed to figure that out.

So ... after muddling through the annoying third person references to himself, at about the 1:02 mark (yes it's over an hour long) , we get to the statement that has me asking:

How can he even say that?

Jack's Physician Pholly:  Speaking of "crazy crossfitters" who gain weight when they up carbs, 
"their leptin receptor isn't working well and they can't account for electrons from carbohydrates well"
Maybe I'm just a geektoid ... because Jack waxes poetic several times in the interview that can be worthy of mention here ... but the whole electron thing baffles me.  Are the electrons from carbohydrates different than the electrons from fatty acids?  Last time I checked, both classes of compounds are mainly carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in different combinations/orientations.  So we're not even talking different atoms. 

Quantum Electron Spring Theory:  Carb electrons don't count after March 21.  Always wondered where they got the name for QuEST bars. 

Comments

Mirrorball said…
All those fattening electrons, who would have thought. Maybe some people have taken Mark Sisson's advice to stop listening to "conventional wisdom" too far and now they no longer listen to common sense either.

In RL I haven't admitted to anyone that I'm doing paleo. Here is one more reason for being ashamed of it.
Mike said…
Jack is more right than anyone is willing to accept. I admit he goes off on the deep end bring quantum mechanics into this, but there is a difference among electrons (really electron affinity). That's what the entirety of organic chemistry is about: "pushing electrons". I glazed over when originally reading Jack's post, but what he's trying to say here is that the electrons are "stuck" to the carbs more than they are to fatty acids (true statement) and that the leptin receptor needs an electron to do its work.

The whole back-and-forth about Jack Kruse and quantum mechanics has been both fun and annoying to watch. Everyone thinks they know enough chemistry to point out that the other doesn't know anything.
Scott said…
Is this "...can't account for electrons from carbohydrates well." from an interview? I can't find this quote on-line.

If it's from the interview, and in response to cross-fitters upping carb intake, I think you might want to cut him some slack. Speaking can be less precise than writing.

I don't read Kruse, but my google search shows all written "electron" references apply to "food", not "carbs".
CarbSane said…
Yes, it's from the interview I linked to. This is not a slip though, Kruse makes many such comments in print that probably wouldn't show up in a search -- might want to try "elktons inn krabs". He wasn't asked about the CF'ers, he brought them up and this was his explanation why they still don't handle carbs!
Travis McBride said…
I think Richard Feynman was working on a new chapter for a new edition of QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) before he passed. He was going to show us how carb electrons traveling backwards in time could destroy nascent homo sapiens. Reportedly, leptin electrons saved the day at the end by annihilating those pesky time traveling carb electrons. We'll never know for sure, though, since the manuscript was lost. I have it from a good source, Dr. I.A.M. Fullofit, that this is all true! He swears he and Feynman were buds and played the bongos together. ;-)
CarbSane said…
Welcome miked! Nahhh ... I'll put my knowledge of electron affinities up against the best of them. You're in my educational wheelhouse here. I've never seen anywhere that electrons have a higher affinity for carbohydrate molecules than than fatty acids. Indeed if we're talking the ultimate "sticking" of electrons, fatty acids are far more likely to hoard the electron and exist in acid form (a big old honking polyatomic ion with a COO- terminal group) than glucose is. So that doesn't even make sense. Do you have any reference as to what that means? I presume you do since you tell me this is a true statement.

Jack may be right about a lot of things. I sure hope so or I pity his patients ... But it's hard to tell. I gave up when I asked him for a simple reference to a simple statement of his that Mg deficiency ALWAYS precedes IR and got the runaround.

A goodly portion of the electron transfers that occur come from the same biological molecules as all Acetyl CoA that goes through Krebs, whether glucose or FA-derived, produces the same reducing equivalents. If he is speaking to the difference in the precursor steps, wherein fatty acids produce more FADH2 than NADH, then he needs to say so. He's certainly not beyond baffling with BS rattling off names of neurons and chemicals and whatnot.
CarbSane said…
LOL :) Welcome to the Asylum!
CarbSane said…
That phrase "we didn't learn this in Medical School" is code for "I made it up".
Sanjeev said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sanjeev said…
wow .. this sound is looping itself through my mind now
DING cuckoo DING cuckoo DING cuckoo DING cuckoo DING cuckoo DING cuckoo DING cuckoo
Sanjeev said…
http://jackkruse.com/do-food-electrons-impart-a-quantum-effect/

Well, electrons from all types of foods fit that bill. The real question is do electrons from different macronutrients have specific quantum biologic effects? Many of the things that have been mathematically predicted by Einstein’s quantum mechanic
Sanjeev said…
the statements are so vague as to be meaningless. Sounds like another writer just introducing fancy buzzwords he doesn't understand to make a point with others who don't understand. It's the "law of attraction" all over again, but with even more BS thrown in.

of COURSE the electrons in a glucose behave differently than those in a stearic acid.

The "surface" topology and the 3-d layout determine which receptors are affected, which reactions can happen (which atoms are positioned right) and cannot happen (if there's a conformation where the necessary reactants are blocked from swinging into the right position - determined by the electronic field strengths, determined by the electrons and protons).
Anonymous said…
If you think it appropriate to speculate on Kruse's weight loss being the result of HCG, then I am going to speculate that his theories on weight loss are the result of smoking crack (it also might account for some of the weight loss itself).

Paul Jaminet commented at Melissa McEwen's blog that he really didn't want Jack Kruse involved with the safe starch panel because he can't debate someone if everything that comes out of his mouth is completely incomprehensible. I see Jaminet as that much more of a gentleman than the low carbers he's up against, so for him to come out and basically call Kruse a kook is telling. My first exposure to Kruse was his interview with Jimmy Moore. After the story about his knee injury and his combing the literature for answers and eventually losing weight by resetting his leptin, it was all some of the most florid drivel I'd ever heard.
CarbSane said…
The closing quote: "And now you have the essence of what I was trying to ask “The Chemistry Kracken”. Are all electrons really created equal or does our body account for the types of foods that certain electrons come from? I don’t know this answer but why would a ketogenic diet high in MCT do something radically different to brain metabolism and CBF that carbs and protein do not. I think its a question that needs an answer."

Our bodies do actually seem to be able to sense where the energy comes from via ROS formation/concentration. Are the electrons different? Yikes if they are!
Mario Iwakura said…
Hi Evelyn,

Regarding this Jack's statement that Mg deficiency ALWAYS precedes IR. In his recent podcast, Chris Masterjohn told us about the relation between the low thyroid and insulin resistance:

http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2012/02/my-cholesterol-101-q-podcast-on-ask-low.html

A good, free full review, of this relationship can be read here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175696

What is interesting is that Mg levels are inversaly correlated with thyroid hormones: it's high in hypothyroidism and low in hyperthyroidism! For example:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2810922
LeonRover said…
Kruse's latest scheme is super-Paleo - guess it's better than faux-Paleo - in which he appends a protocol for increasing the amount of BAT (brown adipose) on the adherent's frame. He proposes that his protocol will increase total body thermogenesis to that of the face.

It remind's me of this:

"The Pilgrims were amazed at how little the Wampanoag wore during the New England winters.

"Me all face" one is reported to have said."

http://www.ldssdf.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1712&whichpage=3

BAT-man has launched another out-of-control Kruise missile; no doubt it will "Return to sender" - address well known.
Tonus said…
I'm thinking that Cap'n Kruse's arch-enemy would have to be none other than... the LEPTOMANIAC! *cue ominous music*

Also, is anyone else at least mildly creeped out by lego-superman's penciled-in abs?
bentleyj74 said…
I draw the line at nipples.
Tonus said…
I see what you did there...
Josh said…
I am reading a book at the moment called 'Believing Bullshit: How not to get sucked into an intellectual blackhole' by Stephen Law (highly recommended). The chapter on Pseudoprofundity seems to be applicable to Mr Kruse, particularly this paragraph -
"References to quantum mechanics are particular popular among peddlers of pseudoscientific claptrap. Quantum mechanics is widely supposed to make weird claims, and hardly anyone understands it, so if you start spouting references to it in support of your own bizarre teachings, people will assume you must be very clever and probably won't realize that you are, in fact, just bullshitting. So perhaps, if you're feeling ambitious, put on a seminar entitled 'Positive Attitudinal Energies and Quantum Mechanics'." PS Somebody also needs to send Taubes a copy of this book as he appears to be stuck in an intellectual black hole and using tactics straight out of the 'Moving the Semantic Goalposts' and 'Going Nuclear' chapters.
Sanjeev said…
restraint ... restraint ...

...

: (
bentleyj74 said…
I'm sending him "Donnie Darko" with a bullet point outline for his next book.
Diana said…
Jimmy is pushing 300 pounds? Sheesh.....He should eat a few sugared pecans. Not the whole log. A mini-bagel with a pat of butter is also nice.

When is he going to learn?
CarbSane said…
Interesting as always Mario. So if IR is associated with both hyper and hypo thyroidism (per the review paper -- only skimmed at this time) but Mg levels are high in one and low in the other, this would refute the claim. As always there's going to be the confusion of exactly what IR we're talking about and whether or not obesity is involved.

At the time of the claim, Jack sent me to PaleoHacks where someone else contributed a list of links. I had been meaning to address this at the time. There's at least enough evidence out there consistent with certain deficiencies being the result of various pathologies rather than the cause of them.