Saponin Sacrum

direct image link
Greetings! So with time for a little breather, I'm getting caught up on my reading. I've got three books I plan to review and it's a conundrum which to do first, they are all so bad. Seriously, it's not the style or the writing. It's the content that passes for science these days that is just so mind-numbingly abysmal.

The three books are David Perlmutter's Grain Brain, Jonathan Bailor's The Calorie Myth and Chris Kresser's Your Personal Paleo Code.  I'll save Bailor's for another day, but his poor man's version of GCBC somewhat factors into today's post.  I'll also save the reviews of the others for a later date.  For now, let me share my little round about the internet that inspired the post title here ;-)   


When I first saw the cover of Grain Brain, I really thought the book was a spoof.  Speaking of spoofs, my buddy Mike Howard (author of the upcoming Talking Back to Gurus: An Un-revolutionary and Un-Sexy Guide to Fat Loss) has been busy for a while now churning out some fun honest book titles.  Here are three you might enjoy :-)  (links:  GB , GCBC , WB)

      

But getting back to being serious, sadly, Grain Brain is indeed intended to be a serious work.  I have already highlighted how his risk quiz throws fruit in the mix, and you better be drinking your wine though because grapes bad, wine good.  But far more outrageous is Perlmutter's claim that the paleo diet was 75% fat.  

This nonsense was called out recently by James Hamblin in his piece in the Atlantic entitled This is Your Brain on Gluten.   I'm not sure if that article was read very carefully (or fully) by some initially -- as it was quite roundly shared by a number of pro-GB folks on social media, including Perlmutter himself -- but it's actually kind of a hit piece.  Coincidentally Chris Kresser is quoted.  See, there's a reason I call this the Incestral Health Community ... cause it just is.  So here's the rough flowchart of my internet adventures:

Get Kresser's book
look for general message
colorful guru formatting mine
High fat paleo!  I have cracked the code!
I go looking for where he got this from and
I read on about diets of hunter-gatherers

paleo papyrus formatting mine

Yeah, repeating a culture for balance on each side of
the micronutrient spectrum is fine
I guess he consulted pullitfromyourpaleonethers.com for facts
So I get curious about Masai
Come across something about saponins in a bark tea they prepare
SAPONINS??? TOXINS!!!
Which led me to Cordain's site
Which happened me upon this:Spinning Facts to Fit Biases



The part of the article Gary took issue with:


The bottom line of Cordain's response:
Which indirectly brings me back full circle to Kresser
who is quoted in the article:
“It’s important to realize,” Kresser says, “that just because a low-carb diet can help treat neurological disorders, doesn’t mean the carbs caused the disorder in the first place.”   and
Kresser also tells concerned patients about cultures that do just fine on carbohydrate-based diets. “The Hadza of north-central Tanzania and the Kuna of Panama obtain a high percentage of their total calories from foods that are high in natural sugars, such as fruit, starchy tubers and honey, yet they are remarkably lean, fit and free of modern disease.” He also mentions the Kitava in the Pacific Islands, whose diet heavy in yams, banana, and papaya is 69 percent carbohydrate; the Tukisenta in the Papua New Guinea highlands, whose diet is over 90 percent carbs; and the Okinawans, whose diet is “mostly from sweet potato.”
It's a regular who's who in carbophobic paleo hacks and hucksters brought together unwittingly by Hamblin. Kresser Cordain Taubes Perlmutter Kresser ... fry me up some Bacon?

OK ... Let's organize a bit here.

Composition of the Paleo Diet


Chris Kresser has finally come out and put his stamp on the paleo diet. Nevermind that he used to explicitly distance himself from the label, and then only semi-associate himself with it: Beyond Paleo. As the winds of opportunity shifted, so too has Chris. Which is what it is. He seems nice enough, we've had friendly interactions, he even consulted me for help when he was slated to balance the Safe Starches panel out at AHS12. But for all the hedging, he and fellow macrontrient confusion expert Robb Wolf, got together and launched Paleologix. That supplement line is specific to very low carb diets. So instead of eating more carb and less fat, as is supposedly the intent of the template approach, this duo encourages you to suck it up and take their supplements to reach that land of fat burning nirvana.

Speaking of fat burning, Kresser leaves no room for doubt here either. "Fat is the preferred fuel source for the body" and therefore fat should constitute at least 40% of calories in the diet -- 40% to 70%. Gee, that's quite a range there, so 40% or 75 percent more fat to get to 70%, or pretty darned close to doubling the fat content. If it is the preferred source, then why shouldn't everyone eat closer to the pifypn.com figure of 70%?

Fat as Preferred Fuel - A Challenge

I am sick and tired of hearing this nonsense. Back that up with a reference or shut up already. Seriously. All of these folks making that claim are full of shit. No dainty way to dance around that or make it more diplomatic with flowery language. They all just are up to their necks in shit. They made it up. You will not find that in a biochemistry or physiology text. If we're going to pick winners and losers in cellular macronutrient bigotry, glucose wins hands down. There are cells that can't even burn fat while every cell in your body can burn carb, so there's that. Then there's the hierarchy of macro utilization that clearly takes care of carbs and proteins before fats. The only time fat seems to be preferred is in the fasted or starved state when you are burning energy stores. It's as if the worst thing you could do to yourself is eat, which is pretty ridiculous when you think about it.

I've seen some attempt to back up the assertion relating to mitochondrial function and dysfunction and Complex I vs. II and NADH and such. All of which ignores half or more of what's going on and none of which seems to be relevant to the non-diseased or non-genetically mutant state of humans on very high or very low carb diets. In self-published version of Perfect Health Diet, Paul Jaminet claimed that:
"One reason most cells prefer fats to glucose as an energy source is that fats burn cleanly, while glucose, when it is metabolized for energy, produces reactive oxygen species (ROS). These dangerous molecules can damage or destroy cells." {2011 Kindle version, location 630}
But this does not appear to have been repeated in the most recent publication. Kudos for leaving out the glaring errors, but this also leaves out any justification for fat being somehow metabolically preferred. I'll give Paul credit for trying to justify the macros of his diet, but sadly he falls short on all points (I discussed one of these rationales here). I will point out that whatever the paleo diet was or that of traditional cultures are, these have no bearing on the notion that fat is the preferred fuel for cells. Again, I'll give him credit for re-inventing the late Barry Groves' vision that all animals eat HFLC diets, but there is a serious error in that logic (see When is a fat not a fat) .

As to the rest of them, I'm not even seeing the attempt. The WAPF folks talk about the tooth rotting of carbs and glories of saturated fat, others follow their lead and claim we'd die without fat and cholesterol as some sort of proof (I'd point out to them that we'd die just as quickly if not moreso without glucose). They postulate about saturated fat deficiencies while ignoring all manner of populations that had very low saturated fat intake and seemed to manage, not to mention the paleo insistence that our fat intake was much higher in PUFA, and O3 at that, than it is today. Mark Sisson claims the less glucose you burn in a lifetime the longer you will live. Good thing for all of us, Ron Rosedale (the source of this belief) is wrong and we're not transparent, cold blooded, arrested-development-capable, E.coli eating worms. He also claims we're born fat burners and manage to screw it up from there. Again, nothing to substantiate this -- if a baby's metabolism is different in the early days of life, it is generally because it is trying to build its brain and lay down fat. Some who start life behind the ball will even have RQ's greater than 1.00 as a result. But I digress ... Which all this talk about babies and milk steers me back to the point at hand ... or one of them anyway. But before I do, back up your claim Chris, and all the rest of you.

I've had some fun here with what I consider to be one of the best descriptions of the paleo diet ever:
Chucking the many different hunter–gather diets into a blender to come up with some kind of quintessential smoothie is a little ridiculous. (source)

This is essentially what Eaton and Konner (and adopted by Cordain) did with their various versions of the paleo diet, all of which came out in low fat territory.  There is only the one odd-paper out that, oddly enough, rigorous to a fault science journalist Gary Taubes holds out as the one epitomizing fat consumption in the paleolithic in GC,BC.  Still, even that paper put the ceiling at 58% fat leaving one to wonder evermore where, in a book with paleo in the title, Kresser is getting his recommendation for optimum dietary fat content well exceeding that in some cases.   As to the Inuit, perhaps he's confusing the diets of Stefansson and friend, intended to mimic those of the Eskimos ... er ... Inuit ... er ... terms used to refer to the same people!  These two men didn't fare well on the 45% protein diet, suffering from diarrhea and nausea,  and after a just few days upped their fat to around 80% of calories (the rest being mostly protein).  Their diet of boiled or fried beef and lamb differed substantially from Inuit fare of "high" (rotted) raw seal meat.  But far be it for me to expect just a little accuracy in representation!!  

We'll always have the Masai.  


Or will we?  The Masai are not even hunter-gatherers.  They are described in just about every reference I've seen as somewhat of an "outlier" tribe that are pastoralists -- e.g. cattle (and to a lesser extent sheep and goat) farmers.   While followers of Grok's Primal Whey make concessions to dairy, it is indisputable that dairy is a Neolithic food.  The anthropological record is pretty clear and non-controversial on this point -- well except for Dr. Cate and her cave drawings, but I'll go with the real experts on this if you don't mind.

As much as I dislike linking to Wikipedia as a source -- given problems with some articles, etc. -- I make an exception in this case, because their article on the Masai is extensive and fairly well referenced.  I wonder, how many people citing this group have even bothered to read something like a Wikipedia entry before mentioning them in their books, or in debates on the internet.    Chris would appear to have done some research because he references them twice in reference to pre-conception diets which is a bit more than the offhand mention.   Of course the reason folks know about any of these cultures is generally one of three men -- Staffan Lindeberg, Vilhjalmur Stefansson or Weston A. Price.  Not to give short shrift to anyone else, there are more, but these are virtual "household names" in the IHC.    Such would be the case for the Masai:


"Traditionally, the Maasai diet consisted of raw meat, raw milk, and raw blood from cattle. In the summer of 1935 Dr. Weston A. Price visited the Maasai and reported that according to Dr. Anderson from the local government hospital in Kenya most tribes were disease-free. Many had not a single tooth attacked by dental caries nor a single malformed dental arch. In particular the Maasai had a very low 0.4% of tooth caries. He attributed that to their diet consisting of (in order of volume) raw milk, raw blood, raw meat and some vegetables and fruits, although in many villages they do not eat any fruit or vegetables at all. He noted that when available every growing child and every pregnant or lactating woman would receive a daily ration of raw blood."
We learn a few more details on the dietary composition here. That link is not to the full text, but the preview page contains some more detail on the milk in their diet compared to the US -- higher in fat and lower in sugar. But we're talking the ANTI-paleo diet here! A culture that consumes huge quantities of cow's milk and not much more on a regular basis. This amounts to ~3000 cal/day estimated to be 66% fat (so around 220 g fat).  It is difficult to get information on blood, but this source for lamb blood shows it to be a relatively low fat and low carb source of protein.

So while 66% fat is high by general standards, it is not "extremely high", and nowhere near the 90% cited for the Inuit for shock value.  When the high carb cultures cited were in the 20% and even 10% fat range, and the high fat cultures were really nowhere near 90% fat on a routine basis, I'm calling Chris out here for misleading his readers and formulating his general recommendations for fat intake based on dogmatic paleo-lore instead of the science he so often likes to refer.  No, 40-70% when so many hunter-gatherers consume one-quarter to half of the low range, and on the high end you have the Inuit (closer to 55%) and Masai (almost 70%, but not even HG's) , is unacceptable.    Further to the smoothie making, we've kinda run out of the high fat cultures to throw in that blender while there are many more remaining representing the other extreme in fat consumption -- an extreme that, apparently, Kresser doesn't recommend in his "paleo template" to his (accupuncture) patients clients.

The Masai, Saponins, Cholesterol and Heart Disease


Now here's what really caught my eye on Wikipedia -- since we're talking paleo, and when talking paleo, one is always on the lookout for evil anti-nutrients!
Soups are probably the most important use of plants for food by Maasai.  Acacia nilotica is the most frequently used soup plant. The root or stem bark is boiled in water and the decoction drunk alone or added to soup. The Maasai are fond of taking this as a drug, and is known to make them energetic, aggressive and fearless. Maasai eat soup laced with bitter bark and roots containing cholesterol-lowering saponins; those urban Maasai who don't have access to the bitter plants tend to develop heart disease.[National Geographic, Oct. 1995, p. 161] Although consumed as snacks, fruits constitute a major part of the food ingested by children and women looking after cattle as well as morans in the wilderness. [direct link to citation]
Say what?  Let's ignore the fruit consumption by children and women ... what's with these saponins?    I've got a confession to make, but I'm willing to bet others here can relate.  I never heard of anti-nutrients let alone saponins before maybe 2009-2010-ish.  Since then, I think of them as the things that make potatoes toxic!  (Though I've never given it much of a second thought as potato skins are yummy and if anything I remember being taught that the skins were where the nutrition was).   It's funny really, how well accepted potatoes have become ... at least in some corners of paleo given Loren Cordain's position on them.  I'll get to that in a minute, but was this just an offhand comment on Wikipedia?  Well it did come from a 1995 National Geographic so maybe it's folklore.  But further, almost every time the Masai come up we hear rarely hear about their cholesterol levels (they are assumed to be high in most cases) and conflicting information is given about atherosclerosis (more on that in the coming paragraphs) but the big "sell" is that they don't suffer from heart attacks. 

But I feel like a little Reaganesque with "here we go again" regarding the Masai, and cholesterol, and CVD and saponins.  This has been studied.  This is in the literature. A lot.  Where are the paleo-intellectual types when you need them?
Despite their customary diet composed of 66 per cent calories as fat, they have persistent low serum cholesterol and beta-lipoprotein levels. Post-mortem examinations provided direct proof of a paucity of atherosclerosis. Metabolic studies revealed that the Masai absorbed large amounts of dietary cholesterol, but also possessed a highly efficient negative feedback control of endogenous cholesterol biosynthesis to compensate for the influx of dietary cholesterol. Two unusual serum-protein patterns were observed: the presence of a double alpha2 band; and a high level of serum IgA that is apparent at an early age (four years). The high ratios of phospholipid to cholesterol and bile acid to cholesterol in their gallbladder bile explain the extreme rarity of cholesterol gallstones. All these characteristics may reflect a long-term biologic adaptation of the tribe.   (Some Unique Biologic Characteristics of the Masai of East Africa)
A field survey of 400 Masai men and additional women and children in Tanganyika indicates little or no clinical or chemical evidence for atherosclerosis. Despite a long continued diet of exclusively meat and milk the men have low levels of serum cholesterol and no evidence for arteriosclerotic heart disease. The reasons for this disagreement with the popular hypothesis relating animal fat intake to coronary disease are examined. The authors concede that some overriding protective mechanism such as freedom from emotional stress or abundance of physical exercise may be present. They favor the conclusion that diet fat is not responsible for coronary disease.   (Cardiovascular disease in the Masai (Mann)

The lead author on that second abstract is of note because Mann is the researcher oft cited as having conducted autopsies on Masai (Atherosclerosis in the Masai):
Measurements of the aorta showed extensive atherosclerosis with lipid infiltration and fibrous changes but very few complicated lesions. The coronary arteries showed intimal thickening by atherosclerosis which equaled that of old U.S. men. The Masai vessels enlarge with age to more than compensate for this disease. It is speculated that the Masai are protected from their atherosclerosis by physical fitness which causes their coronary vessels to be capacious.
So Mann's Masai consume a ton of animal fat and have low serum cholesterol.  But I guess they didn't do the CIMT for the first study where they cited an absence of atherosclerosis (repeated by HFLC folks) but they had atherosclerotic plaques after all (repeated by the LFHC camp).    
So see?  Moral of the story is low circulating cholesterol levels have nothing to do with heart disease after all, because they got plaques but they didn't rupture but, but, but.  Some might find this exchange interesting ...


What of these saponins?  
Reports of plants added to milk and meat-based soups by the Maasai and Batemi in East Africa support a role for phenolic antioxidants and hypocholesterolemic agents in the diet, and provide explanation of the low incidence of cardiovascular disease of populations that traditionally consume high levels of dietary fat and cholesterol. ... A total of 81% of the Batemi additives and 82% of those known to be used by the Maasai contain potentially hypocholesterolemic saponins and/or phenolics. (Saponins and phenolic content in plant dietary additives of a traditional subsistence community, the Batemi of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania).  
This isn't a peer-reviewed source, but Saponins: Suprising benefits of desert plants (Peter Cheeke PhD, I'd note his field is more in animal nutrition, which isn't exactly human nutrition and anthropology, but a smidge closer than exercise science).

The blood cholesterol-lowering properties of dietary saponins are of particular interest in human nutrition. One of the most prominent research programs on this subject was that of Dr. Rene Malinow at the Oregon Regional Primate Center, whose research (published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1997) demonstrated unequivocally the cholesterol-lowering properties of saponins. This desirable effect is achieved by the binding of bile acids and cholesterol by saponins. Bile acids form mixed micelles (molecular aggregates) with cholesterol, facilitating its absorption. Cholesterol is continually secreted into the intestine via the bile, with much of it subsequently reabsorbed. Saponins cause a depletion of body cholesterol by preventing its reabsorption, thus increasing its excretion, in much the same way as other cholesterol-lowering drugs, such as cholestyramine.
Although there are reports of the development of synthetic saponins as drugs for treating high blood cholesterol, yucca and quillaja extracts are natural phytochemicals currently used in foods and beverages and as herbal products. Interestingly, recent research by scientists in Canada and Africa has suggested that the very low serum cholesterol levels of Masai tribes people in East Africa, who consume a diet very high in animal products, cholesterol, and saturated fat, are likely due to the consumption of saponin-rich herbs. [end quotes from Cheeke]
Thus, saponin‐like compounds are a detectable component of the Maasai diet and extracts likely containing saponins do interact with cholesterol and analogues involved in lipid metabolism that have also been proposed to be involved in in vivo mechanisms of saponin induced hypocholesterolemia.  (Saponin‐like in vitro characteristics of extracts from selected non‐nutrient wild plant food additives used by Maasai in meat and milk based soups)
Maybe they're just too obscure a culture after all, and saponins aren't really known for bioactive properties. Nope.  From: Natural products with hypo-glycemic, hypotensive, hypocholesterolemic, anti-atherosclerotic and anti-thrombotic activities
Price et al (91) have authored a review of saponins which are common in the plant kingdom.  Among the diverse biological activities of saponins is their hypocholesterolemic action. Story et al (92) commented that saponin - cholesterol interaction was an important part of the hypocholesterolemic action of alfafa but interactions of bile acids with other components of alfafa might be equally important. Alfafa plant and sprout saponin bound significant amounts of cholesterol. (Links to cited studies:  Price, Story.)
Going down the "related stories" rabbit hole, I came across this:  Natural medicines used in the traditional Chinese medical system for therapy of diabetes mellitus ... gee, if only we knew someone who studied traditional Chinese medicines who had an interest in health and wellness and ....   Oh wait.  There is one, but I guess promoting bullshit remedies like overpriced betaine HCl for mythical low stomach acid and other supplements for dealing with a so-called paleo high fat diet is more profitable.  (Gosh Facebook has given me such a potty mouth ;-) )

OK ... I could go on and list all that came up in a 10 min search on Google scholar and realms it lead, but I think you get the point.  (Incidentally, I don't have time to upload to docs to share, but I have most of the full texts, you know the drill) .  Clearly there is something unique going on with the Masai other than their mostly raw whole Zebu cow milk diet.  Be it genetic adaptation or plant "medicinals" or their physical fitness, any responsible person counseling someone on nutrition should not be drawing from this culture.  Or, allow me to add the caveat that, if they insist on doing so, then they should also do their homework and present something better than a didn't-even-read-Wikipedia-digest version of what is really going on there.  Further, if you're going to insist on attaching paleo to your schtick, then you don't get to use dairy consuming cultures to promote your diet.  Period.  

Moving on ... but staying with the saponins, Cordain makes a huge deal about these and their supposed toxic effects on gut endothelia resulting in the original paleo fake disease:  leaky gut.  (It took a couple of years for the low carb flu to morph into chronic adrenal fatigue diagnoses left and right, or surely that would be the top paleo ailment, keeps the paleo functional medicine "doctors" in business though).   

In The western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization, Cordain teamed up with some names that might be familiar to folks reading this (Pedro Carrera-Bastos, Maelan Fontes-Villalba, James H O’Keefe, and Staffan Lindeberg) .  Yeah unfortunately we don't know much, but I (Cordain) will repeatedly make similar claims, as if this were established fact, saponin swigging Masai be damned.


Even Chris Kresser and Mat Lalonde seemed a bit off put by the anti-saponinicity of Cordain! I think Lalonde distilled it down best, where the supposed gut permeability issues are concerned these are claims extrapolated from some in vitro studies on rat cells ... the applicability to the intact human intestinal tract seems dubious at best. Surely that the Masai regularly consume saponin fortified foods -- one might even say that they supplement with saponins -- should at least have caught the eye of Cordain or any of the other paleo so-called scientists and experts at some point along the line.  



Fat Free Brains & Other Paleo Pontifications


But there I was, finding myself following the saponin spoor to Cordain's site, and lo and behold what do I find on his blog?  A letter from Gary Taubes!  Complaining about some other science journalist "spinning facts to fit his biases".  OH THE IRONY!!!   

So in the Hamblin article in The Atlantic, Loren Cordain is mentioned.  I guess this is why Taubes wrote him, as he feels Cordain is misrepresented by Katz?  I don't know ... let's quibble over Katz incredulity at the erroneous claims made by Perlmutter rather than, say, the erroneous claims made by Perlmutter?  Dr. David Katz, I feel your pain.   Did Loren Cordain take issue with Perlmutter's estimation that "the Stone Age diet was 75 percent fat", no, apparently Taubes and Cordain ignored the fact that this is not even in accordance with any scholarly claims (even those made by a PhD in Exercise Science turned paleo anthropology expert).  They took issue with Katz and his response that this is "wildly preposterous" and his query as to where all this fat would come from.  Perhaps Katz implied incorrectly regarding Cordain's beliefs about veggie vs. animal sources of fat, but he's spot on asking.

Wild animals do not contain a lot of fat.  And by fat I mean fatty acids, and also adipose tissue.  Their skeletal muscle is not marbled, and in the regions we humans are thought to have originated from (e.g. not the arctic), body fat for insulation from the cold just wasn't something those animals had a reason to accumulate.  So when Katz exclaimed: 
Virtually nothing in the natural world is that concentrated of a fat source, except maybe for the brain. Maybe if they just ate the brains of animals?
He's not that far off.  We're told that paleolithic humans and hunter-gatherers ate nose-to-tail, and thanks to Mark Sisson's minion to keep track of CarbSane  we know that bone fat rendering was an isolated practice arising in the late paleolithic (after we had figured out how to eat grains and legumes).  So yeah, where did they get the animal fat to get to 75% fat?  Try to track your macros and get to even 60% fat without considerable veggie contributions (avocados, nuts, seeds) or dairy (butter, cream, even milk).  It is virtually impossible unless you favor ground meats that have been fat fortified.  Organ meats?   Of the visceral organs, only the digestive tract is fattier than domestic skeletal muscle (e.g. stomach ~40%, intestines ~80% ← shall we see this served at the Whole9 table at the #mostlypaleowhitepeoplefest??  LOL), which leaves you with the brains and the bone marrow.  Livers and hearts of wild animals are not fatty. Cordain is playing semantics games by claiming brains contain no fat!  Really?  They contain no adipose tissue, yes.  Neither do your bones.  But they contain fatty acids and phospholipids are included in the "fat" content of foods.  Even if you do that, lamb brain is about 63% calories from fat, 9% by weight.  The sat, mono and poly unsat fats comprise 54% by weight of the total fat, cholesterol ~16% leaving the remaining 30% from phospholipids (or other molecules I can't think of that would be classed as fats).    So yeah, Katz was wrong, they should be eating the guts to feed their brains not having the guts to eat the brains -- but either way if they're eating much else they'll be falling way behind meeting their 75% fat quota.   Nevermind the inconsistency of Cordain and his "student" both advocating lean meat consumption in their books. 

I gotta say, Taubes didn't fail to disappoint in his arrogance, but Cordain sure disappointed me by focusing on minutia and seeming to react to the ego bruise from not being interviewed for the piece(?).  Where would paleolithic humans be sourcing their 75% calories as fat as Perlmutter claims?   I suppose he's preoccupied trying to reconcile his cognitive dissonance over myriad and increasing reports supporting much higher starch consumption than any of his studies ever turned up.

Thus ended my trip around the paleonutritionism sphere yesterday.  Off to make some saponin soup.

Comments

Victor Venema said…
Evelyn, where did this statement come from?

"For most people, the quality of macronutrients has a much more significant impact on health and well-being than the quantity or ratio. The fact that hunter-gatherers thrived on a variety of diets and macronutrient ratios supports this idea."


Given that you are mainly blogging about macronutrient ratios, I had expected you would comment on this statement. Or did I miss it?
carbsane said…
Both of those graphics are from Kresser's book. I probably should have commented, but the HG's make the case that the quality (aside from processed stuff and transfats) seems to make little difference (although the paleo literature is heavy on the importance of long chain PUFAs and PUFA ratio ... I haven't gotten to his stuff on PUFA yet).
Lighthouse Keeper said…
This gets right down to the nitty gritty of it all, long may this blog poo poo the woo.
John Smith said…
You have to understand that the Fat Burning Beast is beyond traditional concepts of reality, he or she creates their own reality, surfing the ventricular pathways of hemoglobin matrixes and making adjustments on the fly. The Fat Burning Beast has reached into the distant past in order to leap into the future. Perhaps in twenty years the present will have caught up with him, but until then you can only watch in wide-eyed wonder and marvel at his majesty.


Someday, maybe during your lifetimes, monuments will be dedicated to the Fat Burning Beast.
Lighthouse Keeper said…
"surfing the ventricular pathways of hemoglobin matrixes and making adjustments on the fly." Hail pure poetry of the heart !
carbsane said…
There's that wit!
t s said…
so, well, where is the saponin soup recipe?
charles grashow said…
http://soulsessions.org/free/blog.php?id=99

NORA’S DIET - Fat based ketogenic

"Nora’s diet looks very different these days. It’s a fat-based ketogenic diet which means fat has become the main source of fuel that her body is burning - not carbohydrates or sugar. “There is nothing more stabilising to the brain than natural dietary fat, and there is nothing
more destabilising to the brain than sugar and starch,” Nora says. “A well adapted ketogenic diet is anti-inflammatory and it can even improve blood flow to the brain by up to 39 per cent.” It’s the same diet she recommends in her book."

Improve blood flow to the brain by up to 39% - MY OH MY

"Here are the rules:

1. Cut out all dietary gluten and grains in general
2. Remove all dairy (with the possible exception of grass-fed ghee).
3. Eliminate sugar
4. Eliminate starchy vegetables
5. Moderate your protein intake to be just enough to meet your needs
6. Eat enough animal fat to satisfy your appetite. Not just omega 3 fats, but all types of animal fats.
7. Omega 3. Get extra omega three fatty acids in high quality fish or krill oil.
8. Tumeric can do marvellous things for people with neuroinflammation
(a real problem in depressive and cognitive disorders). It’s one of the
few anti-inflammatory substances that crosses the blood brain barrier.
George said…
Has anyone here ever butchered a mammoth? Could be fat, could be lean - has anyone analysed the frozen specimens from permafrost?
t s said…
so, well, where is the Saponin Soup recipe?
Screennamerequired said…
John smith should write a book on nutrition. I would purchase a hard cover in an instant.
carbsane said…
I find I can no longer listen to those podcasts. I am REALLY surprised that the light of publicity hasn't illuminated any of the controversy over Perlmutter's questionable expensive therapies for Parkinson's.
carbsane said…
Significance?
Screennamerequired said…
I think part of it is that the internet echo chamber is growing and so are the followers. They flood the comments and reviews like you couldn't imagine.

A lot of it stems from radical anti-governemnt rhetoic about how they are trying to kill us all with grains and then profit from it with drugs.

What we need to do to fight the genocide and oppression is turn the pyramid upside down and raise our cholesterol to strenthen our mental capabilities.
Screennamerequired said…
You probably thought I was joking with that last sentence.
But here's some quotes from one of the worlds leading experts on cholesterol skepticism, Chris Masterjohn.


"The State makes war on cholesterol because it is your best defense against that State:

Cholesterol empowers independent thought by strengthening mental capabilities.
In truth, to be anti-cholesterol is to be pro-State; to be anti-State – that, dear reader, is to be pro-cholesterol."
Mammoth's had a lot of fat. They needed it to keep warm. So, those of our ancestors who ate Mammoth (probably mine), would have had a significant amount of fat in their diets.
Jaie Jac said…
So what? Humans do a lot of things that are bad for them. Will archeologists look back to today and claim smoking is "In our genes." Those hunters who ate fatty mammoth did so to survive, not because it was somehow superior.
Jaie Jac said…
Quinoa Soup with lentils and potatos? Maybe?
The point you are missing is that mammoth-eaters through the process of natural selection, would be selected to consume fat. In the same way that large numbers of Europeans are lactose tolerant.
Jaie Jac said…
maybe ( i am by no means a genetics expert)
If populations that subsisted off fats for a long time were immune to heart disease, you would expect to see this pan out. You don't. You see heart disease in many Asian steppe Cultures, for example. Taking everything into perspective, there were a lot of wild plants and parasites that lowered Cholesterol and kept the disease away for primitive hunters.
Huh? What are you segging into heart disease for? I wasn't making the point about heart disease one way or the other.


However, if you think there were plants and parasites that stopped heart disease you should post a list so the good people here can add them to their diets.
Jaie Jac said…
To be fair, She provided links suggesting that Saponins lowered Serum Cholesterol. Also, look into Shistosoma Mansoni and Toxoplasma. These two critters have cholesterol lowering effects.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12458825

I discussed heart disease because i made the claim that "humans do a lot of unhealthy things" Eating all that animal fat may contribute to Heart disease.
Jon M said…
If any descendants of mammoth eaters remained. It has been suggested by some that middle eastern farmers swept into Europe after the ice age was over and overrun those that had survived there during the ice age.
carbsane said…
Would mammoths contain more fat than seals? For all the tales of the Inuit, it turns out they ate a lot of rotted meat. That term rabbit starvation has been taken out of context so badly it's almost criminal. They would rather eat nothing at all vs. virtually pure protein in the late winter/early spring because even as adapted as they were to a high protein diet, it made them sick. I would also venture that the fat content of a mammoth would be quite different than the beef fat the modern paleos consume. Not quite as unsaturated as the cold water mammal, but probably paleo (low) levels of sat fat ;-)
carbsane said…
Speaking of genetics, I wonder how the high infant mortality rate factors in as well. Those with weak "constitutions" didn't survive to develop diseases.
carbsane said…
What what???? OMG I can't believe Masterjohn said that. :(
carbsane said…
He did. And on Lew Rockwell no less. Inneresting.

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig6/masterjohn1.html
ExEffectsGuy said…
The body processes these gurus claim to understand so well are complicated that it's laughable for them to claim any special understanding of them. The idea that anyone needs to know this stuff to eat and enjoy a reasonably healthy existence is laughable to me. It can be interesting to read or hear these ideas for sure, but I, based on no special understanding on my part, think they don't know a damn thing about how and why our bodies work the way they do. If I'm supposed to do a mind flashback and analysis of what ancient societies ate before I eat my sweet potatoes and eggs forget it. I'm way over that. Rightly or wrongly I let me common sense guide me. Is my way best? Don't know........don't care. Thanks again for a great mental touchstone article to point out the silliness these experts claim, and will share with you to save your life, but for a price. If I new the true secret to an optimal life, I SWEAR I wouldn't charge apenney to share it!
Guest said…
Are you aware that Shistosoma Mansoni has been shown to lower Cholesterol levels? As does Toxoplasma. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12458825

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15882457
Possibly. Interbreeding would be a far more likely scenario though.
charles grashow said…
"If
your fluoridated and chlorinated municipal water supply wasn’t toxic
enough"
Kamil said…
What was the average age of those people? I guess, it wasn't very high at all. And how was they appearance? I don't know, they ate the food to survive in the wilderness. I reckon they were smaller and not very muscular. Screw that, everything is bad for you nowadays. Whoever a bit "smarter" writes articles about what's good for you and what's not. And then they change their mind and what was good for you is actually bad for you. This is a mess. Eat what makes you happy, yeah and in moderation of course :D. xx from Slovakia( the country between Hungary and Poland). Cheers!
David Astheman said…
Ahhh! I can relax and eat my oatmeal. Thanks.
George said…
I agree that paleolithic man did many stupid things. Eating grains for one. He is my ancestor, not my role model.
George said…
Indeed, why is heart disease the big bully boy of diet-health, that always pushes aside things like happiness or sanity? We are all going to die of something if we live long enough. Let's try to select something merciful and quick. And not too expensive.
George said…
Shouldn't extinct species be part of ancestral theory if we can know anything about them? What about the aurochs, Wooly rhinocerous, etc?
Lighthouse Keeper said…
If you want a glimpse of the ideology behind the paleo movement following the above Lew Rockwell link may well prove to be apt.
charles grashow said…
I wonder if Dr William "Wheat Belly" Davis is aware of this?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3713625/
Vitamin D May Not Improve Lipid Levels: A Serial Clinical Laboratory Data Study

Conclusions

"While vitamin D deficiency is associated with an unfavorable lipid profile in cross-sectional analyses, correcting for a deficiency might not translate into clinically meaningful changes in lipid concentrations, although data from intervention trials is required to confirm these
findings."

http://www.trackyourplaque.com/library/booklets/Track%20Your%20Plaque2-Chap10.pdf
Vitamin D: Crucial nutrient for the Track Your Plaque program

SO - who's right??
Jaie Jac said…
i fundamentally disagree that human nutritional needs are so concrete and forged by some long lost spatial setting. Why do you assume your ancestors hunted mammoth as their primary source of calories? The only thing i am sure of is that my ancestors probably had similar nutritional needs of modern humans and that they likely met this need through a large variety of foods.
Jaie Jac said…
Even if the mammoth eaters survived, why would those early hunters be genetically low carbers? i never understood this arguement from some within the Paleo community.
Screennamerequired said…
"What what???? OMG I can't believe Masterjohn said that. :("


I can. He's whole identity seems to be tied up in extolling the benefits of cholesterol. "Cholesterol is essential for life!" they repeat. His website banner is of sausages and eggs and he writes for the WAPF.


I should start a website on the necessity of blood sugar. My website banner will be of cans of lemonade and bottles of maple syrup. It's aim will be to reinforce the importance of blood sugar for all human life.
Screennamerequired said…
Or mark sissons interview with rockwell, titled "Just Do the Opposite of What the Government Says".
George said…
No-one assumes that. Mammoths had their time as a food source, other things came before and after. Go back far enough and we are descended from insectivores. But there were many numbers of large prey animals about, during a long period, the ice ages, that was important in homo sapiens evolution and ended relatively recently.
As to grains, 'we' have been eating them for thousands of years. It is inconceivable that there hasn't been evolutionary adaptation since tribes people were gathering the seeds of wild grasses in Mesopotamia.


The only issue, to my mind, is whether modern wheat strains and processing methods are so innovatory that they pose challenges to the human body.
Some people are still insectivores:

http://www.lazyboneuk.com/categories/Edible-Insects-/
The ice-age lasted a long time. During that time, the northern steppe was dry and inhospitable. Grasses, lichens and sedges were the best we could hope for. We could only digest those if they are transformed first into meat form.


During that time, those who thrived on the available diet had an advantage and are likely to have had more children. These children would also be more likely to thrive on a meat diet.
George said…
My assumption is that a woolly mammoth or similar was a mammal synthesizing and storing fat for protection against cold (i.e. for the purpose of both insulation and BAT thermogenesis) and hunger, and not eating fish or seaweed, nor getting much fat directly from its diet (though cold weather greens are good low-fat sources of linolenic acid omega 3 EFA). This means a higher proportion of non-structural fat than a lean game animal. The mammoth was also an animal that could trade size for speed as a protection from predators, so differed from most modern game, other than elephant and rhino and cape buffalo, in that regard.
The sheep has the fattiest meat of any table animal and is also a source of commercial tallow. Today I saw a flock of sheep (pastured on a hillside) which had just been sheared. Without their wool these sheep looked like fit, muscular animals, well-built and strong, not at all like animals over-fed or bred to be fat.
George said…
R. M. Ballantyne wrote a few books based on his time in Hudson Bay in the early 19th century. I've just read Ungava, and he describes a meal that featured "a haunch of venison with fat an inch thick". I'm guessing this was a reindeer or similar at the end of summer. A lot of different birds, and a big trout, also feature in the meal. The only carbohydrates are flour and sugar supplied by the traders, but there is some cranberry jam, probably made with local berries and imported sugar.
George said…
It could be that carnivorous, non-farming peoples such as the Mongols were descended from mammoth hunters, and the Mongols effectively diluted the neolithic gene pool on the occasions when they swept back into Europe.
George said…
The last glacial period lasted from 110,000 - 12,000 years ago. So the neolithic period starts where the Ice Age leaves off, and 100,000 years is a significant length of time in the evolution of modern humans. Here's a map of vegetation at the maximum, 22,000 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Last_glacial_vegetation_map.png
I don't think that many people are genetic low-carbers until exposed to stresses that no animal tolerates. The reasons low-carb is then protective has to do with basic mamalian physiology (the fasting theory) as much as specific dietary adaptation. Adaptation speaks more to plant toxins and extra-physiological stresses, and I don't think a naturally high-carb ancestral-type diet can provide the latter.
It's likely that the berries were lingonberries which grow at northern latitudes and are widely eaten in Scandinavia. Naturally, they are very tart, but these days they are made into a jam with sugar. More traditionally, they were put into a bottle of water to preserve them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingonberry



The Wikipedia article doesn't say, but I'd guess they would ferment in the water becoming mildly alcoholic, acetic and lactic over time.
Frank F said…
This timely study seems appropriate:
"The Fat from Frozen Mammals Reveals Sources of Essential Fatty Acids Suitable for Palaeolithic and Neolithic Human"
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0084480

"Some of the present authors have previously described the presence of thick layers of subcutaneous fat and even humps on the neck in mummified carcasses of the mammoths found in the permafrost of Siberia (Russia) [12], [13].

The use of the mammoth fat, which is a large organ rich in energy,
could have provided substantial benefits to ancestral hunters. That is, one medium-sized mammoth could have nourished a group of 50 humans (either Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal) for at least 3 months [14], while at the low temperatures in which they lived, would facilitate the conservation of the carcasses. Furthermore, by eating the fat of mammoths, Palaeolithic humans could have obtained clean, low-protein energy for several days.

This paper reports on the FA profiles of the fat of some animals from the Ice Age to the Neolithic, discussing the possibility of fat use as an n-3 source for such hunters. Also, the possibility that some of these mammals were hibernating is discussed, as suggested by some of the FAs found."


From the paper it seems a high fat diet would not be inconceivable. But, as you supposed, the FA profile is different than typical meat eaten today with a relatively significant percent of n-3.
Jon M said…
Masterjohn's a reformed vegetarian. He seems to
have mellowed quite a bit though over the 8 years since the Lew Rockwell article.
Lighthouse Keeper said…
Or blood pressure. Blood pressure is essential for life, without it your dead, every cell in your body depends upon it's existence. How dare doctors and pharmacists try to reduce such a life giving force with their lifestyle interventions and drugs. There must be some kind of plot between the government and Big Pharma to convince people that an abundance of such a wonderful life sustaining process can be deadly.
billy the k said…
A similar viewpoint was expressed by Logan Clendening, MD [Prof. of Clinical Nutrition and Prof of Medical History @ Univ. of Kansas] in his 1936 book: "The Balanced Diet:" [p.16] " A balanced diet is, of course, that diet which furnishes all the elements necessary to healthy nutrition in proper amounts and relative proportions." [But scientific knowledge of nutrition was not essential]:..."In fact, experience teaches us that people who study the subject without proper guidance all too frequently become impressed with the phenomena disclosed in one part of the field of nutrition and using that as a cornerstone for a crusade, and ignoring the rest, insist upon the necessity for some kind of a diet which is far from being balanced in a scientific sense. They are the great army of food faddists and food quacks. And they have done great harm to the science of nutrition and to those easily persuaded people who have followed their ill-balanced advice...I admit gladly and freely that if an average person will eat the average supply of foods that is offered to him in market, at the family table, or in restaurants, following the ordinary daily routine of breakfast with its customary fruit, egg, toast, milk or cereal, and midday and evening meals with some combination of soup, main course with meat and vegetables, salad and dessert, choosing his food for variety as his fancy dictates, that he will most probably eat a perfectly balanced diet."
ExEffectsGuy said…
And slightly tangentially on that subject is using the "they are in it for the money!" argument these gurus use to vilify large food companies. Yeah, like selling me supplements to help with their "perfect" diet advice, money to join, going on cruises with them, selling me paleo candy bars, vibrating workout plates is an altruistic enterprise right? Gimme' a break. Good posting billy!
carbsane said…
Damn you billy, I just had to add to my library of classic nutrition books.
carbsane said…
Can I get a Hoo-Rah!
carbsane said…
Yeah, I know his "schtick" is intimately tied to cholesterol, but I've read quite a bit on his blog (maybe not enough?) and his science seems pretty straight forward without bias -- or at least the misrepresentation and out right manipulation of some other bloggers and folks like Taubes and Hyperlipid.
carbsane said…
I don't know him personally. The paleo and WAPF communities are "riddled" with ex-veg.
carbsane said…
Nice find, thanks!
carbsane said…
Overweight people don't try to eat 2000 calories of protein though. Depending on the baseline diet, some will eat a bit more protein than usual on a LC diet due to the nature of LC foods, but most don't even do that.
ExEffectsGuy said…
Instead of a HOO Rah.....maybe I can send you a Quest Peanut Butter cup! ;)
carbsane said…
When soaking beans, save the water. Throw in all your potato peels and some garlic and alfalfa. Simmer with goat head for 12 hours. Bon apetite!
carbsane said…
Posted above :)
Jaie Jac said…
There is no reason to believe that modern Europeans are so concretely shaped by this ancient reality. Our bodies are not the same. populations moved around a lot during the ice age. Your right, it was a very long and dynamic time period (the temperature varied wildly).
Sanjeev Sharma said…
laugh while you eat ... the diet would be named

"The Heimlich highway to a lower weight"
charles grashow said…
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131009131535-23027997-beating-on-wheat-and-raining-on-grains-what-s-really-making-us-fat-and-stupid
Jaie Jac said…
I often wonder if those things are even good?
Screennamerequired said…
Probably. But you can still see his cholesterol love affair is probably originally driven by political beliefs. When your whole identity is tied up in convincing people how awesome cholesterol is it's hard to change your views suddenly.
It did just occur to me that starchy tubers might have been a fairly rare food source on the ice-age step. So, the large quantity of amylase we produce might be a recent evolutionary innovation to deal with our neolithic grain-based diet. That might also be something worth looking into.
ExEffectsGuy said…
I 'll never know! -A-I wouldn't eat them if you paid me and -B- I have no desire to support that particular guy touting them! He may be a low carb genius bordering on Paleo as he sees fit but his tacit and active endorsing of all of the hokum he has on his website kind of makes him look just plain stupid in my opinion. Hardly a revelation to those who think before swallowing his bunk.
Jaie Jac said…
Yeah i have no clear answer really. I personally feel our ability to digest starch varies per culture (you do in fact see less copies of the gene in more isolated hunter gatherer tribes, but they can still do it). Furthermore, it seems Starchy food was being processed nearly 30,000 years ago in several european sites, there is possible evidence stretching back 100,000 years from mozambique as well.
charles grashow said…
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2013/03/18/dietary-fat-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
David L. Katz MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP

"We know that a diet rich in vegetables and fruits; beans and legumes; nuts and seeds; whole, unrefined grains; fish; eggs; with or without seafood, lean meats, and dairy—and variations on such a theme—promotes health. Such a diet is relatively low in saturated fat, but not fixated on it. Such a diet is virtually devoid of trans fat, as that is found preferentially in processed junk."

"Such a diet provides a balance of omega-6s (from nuts, seeds, grains and oils) and omega-3s (from nuts, seeds, fish and seafood). It provides monounsaturated oil from nuts, seeds, olives and avocado. It provides little added sugar, because most foods are close to nature. It provides for moderate sodium intake, because most sodium is added during food processing."

"Focus on the forest of foods, in other words, and the trees will sort themselves out. Climb a tree, barking mad—and enjoy the show as the forest burns down."
billy the k said…
Further confirmation that supplying oneself with an "Adequate Diet" doesn't require a steady stream of the latest bestselling "gurus" can be found in any of the many editions of Fairfax T. Proudfit's
"Nutrition and Diet Therapy; a Textbook of Dietetics. A standard textbook used in Nursing schools since the first edition in 1918; my copy is the 1942 8th edition--the same one cited by WAPF's Mary Enig in "Know Your Fats."
[p.186] Daily Dietary "Pattern" to Meet the Recommended Allowances [RDA's, for adults]:

1pint whole milk
1egg
1meat (3 oz)
1 green or yellow vegetable
1 other vegetable
1 citrus fruit (or tomato)
1 other fruit
1 potato (1 medium)
1-5 TBSP butter
1 cooked whole grain cereal (e.g., oats)
3 slices bread (i.e., one per meal
sugar, fat, etc, to complete calories

So there we have it: a simple list of ordinary and readily available foods that together comprise an "Adequate Diet", providing an average adult with all the RDA's for vitamins, minerals, protein, and sufficient carbs to fuel the brain and central nervous system without the need for supplementary glucose from gluconeogenesis or ketones. Not only is this not rocket science, the whole deal can be picked up by the average schlub at WalMart.
ExEffectsGuy said…
I just downloaded a Kindle Copy FREE on Amazon. I haven't even looked at it yet but for the price....who can complain! Thank you for the wonderful references and clear plain thinking! I love it!
Jaie Jac said…
I know, it's rather silly that these kind of Diet books exist (Grain brain, etc.) When modern nutritional science has known about basic human needs for so long.

Guys, it's simple, eat real and healthy diets and avoid foods that you are individually allergic to.
ExEffectsGuy said…
Yes! If anyone uses You Tube (it's not just for cats playing pianos or whatever) search for vintage nutrition films. You'll find a lot of very interesting movies from the late 1910s thru the early 70s that have so much great balanced advice that I wonder where we went wrong?
carbsane said…
Link please???? I don't find it!
carbsane said…
Even though there are surely new methods in physiology, it's amazing how much has been known for so long that has held up.
ExEffectsGuy said…
It's just amazon.com. In the search bar I typed the author's name and the book came up. Select the kindle edition and you can download it to your kindle or to your IOS, and presumably Android device as well running the kindle app.

http://www.amazon.com/Dietetics-Nurses-Fairfax-T-Proudfit-ebook/dp/B004TPNEGY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389482267&sr=8-1&keywords=fairfax+proudfit
ExEffectsGuy said…
Also, it appears the free kindle version is from 1922 the second rev edition. Yes old, but conceptually still valid I bet.
Dr. Davis' recommendation for Vitamin D is based upon appropriate calcium allocation rather than just lipids.
charles grashow said…
Did you read Chapter 10 - Track Your Plaque?
Yes I have, but that's kind of beside the point to the view that Vitamin D assists with appropriate calcium deposits, which is something he fundamentally attempts to argue, but dresses up in some questionable interpretation of the evidence while also making other questionable claims.

I do think that there's a bit of an overly romantic view of Vitamin D in the alternative health sphere.
Jaie Jac said…
Don't get me wrong, i actually feel the Lipid Hypothesis is correct. That being said, Dieticians dating back nearly 100 years have been advocating healthy diets, many of which limit nutrient poor, fatty foods. We never needed the paleo diet to tell us to eat our veggies and fiber and limit excess red meat and butter
Jaie Jac said…
George, Mongolia has very high rates of Heart disease. If they are adapted to eating that diet as well as "mammoth Hunters" were, then Mammoth hunters developed CVD and Arcus Senilius by their mid 40's too.
Jaie Jac said…
I too trust me doctor, i am not so jaded that i feel he is an agent of oppresion, this is childish thinking in my opinion. While it's true the Lipid Hypothesis may or may not be fully correct (again, i am not an expert on Biohemistry, etc.) But i tend to feel the appropriate experts in the fields have done their homework and actually DO care about saving lives.
ExEffectsGuy said…
I don't know if you realize how refreshing this is to read on a health oriented site! It finally occurred to me after visiting so many sites that vilify doctors, the medical industry and Pharma, I finally got it through my thick head that the only way way to get subscribers/visitors (revenue generating is more like it) is to tear down the institutions pointing out the hokum these gurus spout! OK, a lot of doctors sell out for sure, but THEY are the qucks on the guru sites and TV shows! Anyway, my thanks to this website and the reasonable thoughtful folks on and running this site!
Victor Venema said…
The case for the importance of macronutrient ratios also seems to be quite weak, not? With diets as different as the ones of Inuit, Masai, traditional Swiss farmers, Kitavans, Tukisentas and Okinawans all being quite healthy.
I have not given up on quality yet. But there may be many more factors we did not think of yet.
carbsane said…
Quality certainly matters and I hope you don't think I disagree with that. Basis of real whole foods. BUT, there just aren't very many examples in terms of numbers of cultures and numbers of people in those cultures of fat over around 40%. Most developed nations tend to hover in the 35% range, the majority of traditional cultures seem to come in at 10-20% fat range. To use these "poster diets" (1) without acknowledging lifestyle/context and (2) disproportionately to justify a recommendation as "bold" and broad as 40-70% fat is ideal is simply fatuous.


Interestingly Adel of Suppversity just linked to this on FB: http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/23399043/reload=0;jsessionid=bA14hKP7hgw0q8Xex6x2.0


OBJECTIVE: Traditional Inuit dietary patterns have been found to be beneficial for CVD but have not been investigated in relation to glucose intolerance. We examined the association between dietary patterns and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fastingglucose (IFG).

DESIGN: Cross-sectional design with a priori derived dietary patterns from an FFQ resulted in five patterns: imported meat (n 196), traditional food (n 601), balanced diet (n 126), unhealthy diet (n 652) and standard diet (n 799).

SETTING: Associations between dietary patterns and glucose-related outcomes were tested by linear and logistic regression analyses. Data included: dietary intake by FFQ, waist circumference, ethnicity, frequency of alcohol intake and smoking, physical activity, and oral glucose tolerance test results. Fasting participants and those without diagnosed T2DM were classified into normal glucose tolerance, IGT, IFG or T2DM. HOMA-IR (homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance index) and HOMA-β (homeostatic model assessment of β-cell function) were calculated.

SUBJECTS: Data included 2374 Inuit, aged 18+ years.

RESULTS: Participants with a traditional dietary pattern had higher fasting plasma glucose (mean 5·73 (95 % CI 5·68, 5·78) mmol/l, P < 0·0001) and lowest HOMA-β (48·66 (95 % CI 46·86, 50·40), P < 0·0001). The traditional diet gave significantly higher odds for IFG and T2DM than the balanced diet, imported meat diet, standard diet and unhealthy diet.

CONCLUSIONS: Traditional food was positively associated with T2DM, IFG and fasting plasmaglucose, and negatively associated with β-cell function, compared with a standard diet. The imported meat diet seemed the best in relation to glucose intolerance, with lowest fasting plasma glucose and lowest odds for IFG and T2DM
Victor Venema said…
Quality certainly matters and I hope you don't think I disagree with that.

I had actually expected so. Didn't you and your supporters in the comment make fun of everyone who doubts the eat-less-more-more method. That is just about quantity, even just the quantify of the energy. Or did you move on by now? I do not read your blog that often any more.
CloudTiger said…
Well, anonymous "Guest", you certainly are ignorant. It is not all your fault as your masters have tried very hard to keep their control of you secret. Hence their takeover of general and medical education and the mass media by their control of the bribed and blackmailed politicians. The Rockefellers even openly did this and run the American Pharma Mafia without any shame or real secrecy. Get an education. Google "Rockefeller education" and "Rockefeller medicine". You don't know anything as it stands... though your rejection of Pharma-haters without even bothering to research the subject implies that you are either stupidly arrogant or just a paid lying shill for said Pharma.
carbsane said…
I guess you found me out. I work for Big Farmer and my "acolytes" are on his dole too :p