My Carb Sane-Asylum

Fat Tissue Expansion: Part II ~ Overview of How it Can Happen

2012-01-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

In Part I, I laid out some terminology that we'll use in the discussion of how we get fat. In this installment, I'm mostly going to list the various means by which fat tissue can expand, emphasis on the word can. Because as future installments will lay out, while some of these mechanisms are plausible, some of these mechanisms contribute very little if at all to the fattening process.

So what mechanisms might be involved in the expansion of fat tissue? It is not controversial that fat tissue expands by two means:

Adipocytogenesis: The growth of new fat cells, increased fat cell number
Adipocyte growth: Increased size of adipocytes

Fat Tissue Expansion: Part I ~ Terminology

2012-01-29T09:10:00.001-05:00

One of the things that irks me about discussions of various obesity related topics is the inappropriate use of terminology. I would like to give the benefit of the doubt and presume that for most who do this, it is inadvertent. Often this is due to not having a complete understanding of human metabolism and physiology (cough ... ahem ... Mr. Gary Taubes) , but at some point, when speaking from a presumed position of authority, this excuse doesn't cut it. To be fair, the peer review literature and higher level texts are rife with inconsistencies of their own. Most authors are likely simply using the term they are most familiar with not realizing that those terms mean different things in different contexts. Still, a careful reading of said literature is all that is needed to understand how they are using the terms and the process to which they are referring.

This has been briefly addressed here previously. As with insulin resistance, I think the "fat formation" realm is in dire need of some more clear definitions and applications of the terminology. The terms adipogenesis and lipogenesis are often used interchangeably (even considered synonymous). But I would like to propose that -- although it's probably not going to happen -- a revised and expanded terminology should be agreed upon and used consistently. Expanded? Yes, because the conversions between types of lipids -- the cyclic conversion of -- fatty acids + glycerol ↔ triglyceride -- is not a "genesis" of anything, it is merely a conversion of one form of lipid to another. On that note ...

Gestational Diabetes and Pre-Pregnancy Fat Intake

2012-01-28T08:05:00.000-05:00

Gestational diabetes -- hyperglycemia during pregnancy -- effects a considerable number of women. It is also a known risk factor for developing diabetes (T2) later in life. Some degree of peripheral insulin resistance normally develops during pregnancy. Why? Because the fetus' growth and development takes priority in nutrient partitioning so glucose is conserved for the fetus much like it is conserved for the brain in the fasted/starved/glucose-deprived state. The link of GD to T2 most likely reveals the genetic predisposition towards IR -- in other words, while diet can cause insulin resistance, there is a genetic component in most who eventually develop hyperglycemia as a result. Most women will compensate for the mild IR state and maintain normal glycemia during pregnancy, while those who are perhaps even mildly IR to begin with will exceed their capacity to compensate during the pregnancy. In most cases, deliver the baby and the diabetes goes away.

A prospective study of prepregnancy dietary fat intake and risk of gestational diabetes

A perfect example of why I post what I do about LC personalities

2012-01-27T08:39:00.000-05:00

I frequently read folks wondering out loud why I spend (waste?) the time that I do to post on various low carb gurus and personalities. It doesn't seem like a worthwhile endeavor at times ... and I must admit I occasionally wonder if it's worth the flack and time either. And then along comes another LC'er "helping others" with their wisdom. Some of the people I've written about don't "get me" ... after all they are just every day folks sharing their experiences trying to (selflessly) help others. That "selflessly" is often silent, sometimes strongly implied in their repeated reminders that this is their goal, and sometimes shouted straight out, lest you not notice the generous benevolence in their actions. They may even go so far as to remind you of the expense they've endured to bring you the free service you're using .....

For all the touting of how any day now the Insurgency will persevere, of how the low carb message is spreading, etc., the LC community remains a small niche in the wide wide world of dietary lifestyles and weight loss strategies. It seems to me that, because there are so relatively few, the internet presence is all the more inflated compared to other approaches. In real life, many who follow more traditional or popular approaches have buddies or support groups they can attend. Or there are TV shows they can tune into, etc. Low carbers don't have nearly the options, and in many ways these have dwindled rather than increased in the past five years or so. Yes, despite the best efforts of Gary Taubes, the drop-off of the Atkins boom was mostly staved a bit but not halted. It is because the community is so relatively small and intertwined, that the onus is all the more powerful to put out a truthful and realistic welcome mat.

Some thoughts on fructose studies

2012-01-26T14:19:00.000-05:00

I've been poking about the literature lately ever since the insulinogenic (in terms of circulating insulin levels but not necessarily secretion of insulin) properties of jelly beans were made known to me a while back. I've been looking into studies comparing sucrose to glucose or fructose separately, or that measure insulin secretion and/or clearance per se. It's a rough go. Much of the research that turns up with fructose in the search phrase involves HFCS not fructose per se. When you get isolated fructose studied, however, there are still other complications.

For starters, it is impossible to isolate the effect of just fructose with whole foods. Just about every source of fructose, like fruits, also contains sucrose and even considerable amounts of isolated glucose in many cases. It is also virtually impossible to attain the levels of fructose generally required to elicit a measurable metabolic response. For reference, a medium apple contains roughly 10g fructose (most of which is free). A "bolus dose" for 50g would be difficult to achieve and would come with ~5g glucose per apple. So ... sweetened beverages it is as the major dietary vehicle by which fructose is incorporated into dietary interventions.

If this makes it to TV, will they be consistent?

2012-01-25T19:44:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, Dana Carpender let her audience in on a little more news ... and I do mean just a little ... on the potential upcoming LC TV cooking show. In a short but sweet announcement, she encourages readers to go "Like" the show on Facebook. We learn the proposed title: Your Doctor's in The Kitchen. She describes this as a "low carb cooking and health advice show that Dana and Dr. Jim Carlson hope will find a network home". Here is Carlson's website. He wrote a book called Genocide which you can read there (or excerpts, it's unclear) ... I think I read most of what's on the website at one time, but not recently. As serendipity would have it, Carlson ends the Preface with the same Mark Twain quote that dons the pages of the AWLR blog -- another rebel without a clue....

In any case, Dana encourages people to go like the show on FB to help increase the chances some network might pick it up. There's not a whole lot of info other than that Dana will play a guest starring role (sidekick?) to Carlson, that "outrageous MD, Nutritional Bio Chemist and hell raising Biker". Here's what you'll get:

Google Giggles

2012-01-25T17:23:00.000-05:00

I have a twofer today.

The first one I have no idea how it got someone here! Beth's Weight Maven blog perhaps, what with her always enjoyable Friday Cat Blogging. But nonetheless, someone found the Asylum with:

Mean Kitty

The next one makes me wonder if I haven't been cursing too much here on the blog. I don't do it often, but Google sees all apparently. I'm happy that someone landed here searching on:

Gary Taubes bullshit

hee hee hee

Another Quote to live by?

2012-01-25T17:16:00.000-05:00

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,

it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain

At the time of publication of this blog post, this Mark Twain quote comes from Larry Istrain's blog. As much as I admire Twain, some of his "isms" are not, in my opinion, good advice ... or at least not in the way many people take them to heart. The implication, to me, of the above quote is that there is something inherently wrong with being on the side of the majority, and something inherently noble about dissent ... part of some rebellion ... dare I say a would-be paradigm changer.

Verdict: Guilty as Charged!

2012-01-24T16:14:00.000-05:00

Hi all! I thought for a bit on whether or not to respond to Larry Istrail's Response to Criticism from 'Carbsanity'. There's not much of substance there to address ... but it is typical of the lack of real substance and mischaracterization that is so common amongst my detractors. So, I thought I'd address it.

Is this registry a joke? The verdict is in: Guilty! I'm sure that Istrail is serious, and many of those who are registering are serious, and that's not what the joke is. The joke is that somehow anything meaningful to the purported goal of the study will come about. Let's take a look. I'll try to be consistent and put Istrail's words in purple.

From AWLR Home Page: The Ancestral Weight Loss Registry is an international assembly of people who have tried a carbohydrate-restricted or paleo diet to lose weight or improve their health.
In response to which I wrote in my "cheeky" style: And I'm an internationally known blogger.
Response: She describes it as a "JOKE", condemning the fact that I describe it as an "international assembly"

The Ancestral Weight Control Registry ~ This is a joke, right?

2012-01-22T10:26:00.003-05:00

< gloat > LOL! I scooped Gary Taubes on the

announcement of the "Insurgency" < /gloat >

Hee hee hee ...

But onwards and upwards. Apparently a medical student is getting tired of reading about the National Weight Control Registry, NWCR, and is bothered by the fact that the vast majority of registrants achieved their success with more traditional calorie restricted programs. You know, that Eat Less Move More, ELMM, that "doesn't work" (just don't tell those prospective JumpStartMD clients). Gary gushes:

A Man in the Wilderness ... A Lonely Soldier off to War (on Insulin)

2012-01-21T12:56:00.000-05:00

One of my very first albums ... yes ... vinyl albums ... was Grand Illusion by Styx. I've probably listened to that album all the way through more times than any other, although Billy Joel's The Stranger might give that a run for the money. Anyway, I was in the mood for a little self-torture the other day and decided to listen to/read some more recent Gary Taubes interviews. I couldn't help but have this song pop into my head. Not a song many are likely familiar with, but soooo apropos! (Hee hee ... wasn't Tommy Shaw perty?)

Quotes to Live By?

2012-01-20T11:37:00.000-05:00

The thing is, it’s very dangerous to have a fixed idea. A person with a fixed idea will always find some way of convincing himself in the end that he is right.

~ Atle Selberg

Three guesses where this comes from and the first two don't count!

Physician Phollies ~ II: Dr. William "Wheat Belly" Davis

2012-01-19T11:36:00.001-05:00

Next up in our "how can he/she even say that?" series of blatantly erroneous things said by practicing physicians in furtherance of the carbophobic agenda ...

I bring you, an Asylum favorite, Dr. William "Wheat Belly" Davis. In the most recent post on his WB blog, Wheat Belly trips over himself trying to implicate wheat, specifically, in the diabetes epidemic.

But can we blame diabetes on wheat?
Yes, absolutely, as much as you can blame poor oral hygience for toothlessness in West Virginia.

Wow! Gratuitous slam on WVa's aside, Dr. Wee Bee goes on to list all the ways wheat causes diabetes:

–Any food that increases blood sugar to high levels (i.e., high glycemic index) also increases insulin to high levels. Repetitive high insulin leads to insulin resistance, which leads to visceral fat deposition, more insulin resistance, inflammation, etc., eventuating in diabetes.
–High blood sugar, such as that resulting from eating two slices of whole wheat bread, is toxic to pancreatic beta cells, the cells that produce insulin: glucotoxicity.
–Triglyceride-containing lipoproteins, such as chylomicrons and its remnants, are toxic to pancreatic beta cells: lipotoxicity.

Paula Deen ~ A Classic Case of Type II Diabetes

2012-01-18T11:17:00.001-05:00

Was anyone surprised by the revelation that Paula Deen has type 2 diabetes? See here and here, for example. Full disclosure here. I'm a NorthEast girl and was raised pretty agnostic in terms of regional foods/cuisines. Still, as an adult I've enjoyed learning different cooking styles, flavors and ways of preparing foods and I'm an admitted Food Network junkie. But Paula? She was not one I ever watched much (unless she was judging on a competition show). Sure, I love some Southern foods -- chicken fried steak w/gravy anyone?? -- but most of those foods are reserved for traveling to where they are local fare (although Chili's does make a pretty good version of the aforementioned steak). And I find her accent and delivery just a wee bit over the top. But I think every time I've ever seen the woman cook, I've seen her put half sticks of butter in a pan while saying jokingly that she's adding "a little". Butter and Paula are synonymous in my mind -- if someone said Paula Deen in a word association game, butter would be the word that popped out of my mouth.

Salvaging the Hypothesis

2012-01-17T16:46:00.000-05:00

You can't salvage a CIH with fructose and "refined carbohydrates" that has insulin as a mediator because there is no such theory that makes physiologic sense, and this would be obvious the moment such a theory is articulated ~ Kurt G. Harris MD, 11/18/11

If 2011 will be remembered in low carb circles for anything, it will be for both the lack of anticipated rise and precipitous fall of what I call here at the Asylum TWICHOO. With the December 2010 publication of Why We Get Fat, no doubt many low carbers began 2011 with a feeling of supreme optimism. What with all the "Gary you're my hero" comments on his blog, and lots of exposure of the lay friendly book, even in the mainstream media, surely 2011 would be the year when "they" would finally get it. The momentum of 2010 would be carried forward and by the end of the year low carbers envisioned an even more energized following with an expanding sphere of influence. Oprah would finally get thin and stay that way going on Gary Taubes' diet and all would be right with the world. Insulin had finally been implicated as the evil hormone everyone knew it was all along, and our grandmas would be vindicated for knowing all along that carbs were fattening. The "late great" Robert Atkins' name would finally be cleared and his diet vindicated. In Berkley, CA, a carving of the Mt. Fatless monument would begin: Bauer, Yalow, Atkins & Taubes.

Sweeteners

2012-01-16T10:38:00.000-05:00

If you're not sitting down reading this, you might just want to, or grab onto something for support, because I'm going to start this post out doing something I don't all that often: praise Mark Sisson. The sample menu page on his blog reads:

A typical breakfast for me is a cup of coffee with cream and sugar and an omelet

This page has been around for a good long time and he hasn't changed it, so presumably Sisson hasn't jumped headlong on the stevia wagon. In the summer, as a kid, we would suck on honeysuckle blossoms for the faint sweetness. Needless to say, we did this more for the novelty of "hey, this is sweet" than scavenging for every blossom we could find for a sweet kick ... they just weren't that sweet. If one googles chewing and sugarcane or stevia leaves you will find references to both. If you are ever in New England in late winter/early spring, you'll see the maple syrup taps on trees. The dried syrup that may ooze from the tap, etc., also tastes sweet. We humans tend to like sweet stuff, and when found in nature, we'll chew/suck or otherwise extract the sweet leaving the rest behind. But the only foods that are truly sweet eaten whole (or at least most) are fruits and honey. I suppose we could add in the faintly sweet root veggies as well.

Hold the Hoax! The Dreamfields Dilema

2012-01-15T09:43:00.000-05:00

"I've been on a Dreamfields kick lately and I love having a low-carb alternative to pasta that actually tastes like pasta. It's a nice treat I enjoy eating when I get the opportunity. Some think you shouldn't ever have these kinds of foods, but I disagree. If this keeps me from the real thing that is LOADED with carbohydrate, then what's the harm I say? It's not making me go out and binge on the real thing or sugar or any other carbage."

~ Jimmy Moore 1/16/10

Yes, I've had these spoof blog titles swirling in my head and they are too apropos to pass up. Hold the Hoax! Livin La Vida Low Clue (not my original idea) started this, clearly a take on Jimmy's blog/podcast/etc. Hold the Hoax! is spoofing on Dana Carpender's blog/podcast/etc. titled Hold the Toast! I don't know if it's been more than the usual amount of time on my hands, or reminiscing over the events of the past year, if Jimmy has been posting some particularly annoying commentary of late, or a combination of the three, but recently Jimmy posted the following: Considering The Reliability Of The Dreamfields Pasta ‘Low-Carb’ Claim. Perhaps I'm the only one offended by Jimmy's newfound holier-than-thou view of frankenfoods, the manufacturers of them, and the validity of the nutritional information on the purported content. Perhaps not. I think his participation in the Dreamfields hoax is worthy of mention.

Livin La Vida Low Clue: Jimmy Moore on Weight Watchers "Scam"

2012-01-14T10:01:00.001-05:00

Yes ... potentially another series ...
Whenever a low carber demonstrates how clueless they are, you can be sure to read about it here!

No, Jimmy hasn't come to his senses and actually given the WW "scam" a try to lose those stubborn pounds his deranged metabolism hath wrought. Instead, he's focused on Charles Barkley in a post entitled: Even Spokesman Charles Barkley Isn’t Taking Weight Watchers Too Seriously.

Apparently, Barkley has lost close to 40 lbs on WW and is a spokesman for WW's "Lose Like a Man" program. I've not seen any spots -- something that according to Jimmy qualifies me as living the life of a hobbit -- but what with Dan Marino, Don Shula and now Terry Bradshaw shilling for Nutrisystem, WW going after the male demo is a no-brainer. We've discussed here a few times how the appeal of Paleo and LC and the success men seem to have on such plans is at least partly due to being able to eat those man foods, and the manliest of foods, the steaks, burgers and bacon. But as several readers have pointed out, many of these foods can be worked into a WW or other flexi-style essentially calorie controlled plan. It's easy enough to find the point values for McDonalds so that Jimmy, you could have gone there back in 1999 were you on WW, and worked it into your plan, and not had to go on a bender where you regained over 170 lbs in a few months.

Blogger Comments

2012-01-13T08:31:00.000-05:00

I don't know if you've noticed, but Blogger has changed the "look" of those of us Blogspot blogs with inline comments. In addition to a slightly different look, below each comment I now see a "reply" link (I also have a delete link for my blogs, I just tested that and it works.)

Oh cool I thought -- a bit more like other comments where replies could be nested. But I mouse over "reply" and all I see is a "javascript:;" and clicking does nothing, not even skip me down to the comment box. Is that working for anyone else? I'm guessing not since I don't see any nested responses. But I thought I'd ask.

Thanks in advance for feedback.

Irisin ~ Just the Pill for Low Carbers

2012-01-13T07:02:00.000-05:00

There was an article in the NYT that was passed along to me the other day:

Exercise Hormone May Fight Obesity and Diabetes

A newly discovered hormone produced in response to exercise may be turning people’s white fat brown, a groundbreaking new study suggests, and in the process lessening their susceptibility to obesity, diabetes and other health problems.

The Low Carb Cruise II -- Will BELCHOW replace TWICHOO?

2012-01-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

This post sponsored by: ScreenHunter

Not really, that's just the name of the screenshot proggy I used to capture this comment I tried to leave on Jimmy's blog:

I'm not surprised that the lineup of speakers on the LC Cruise in May has changed dramatically since first announced. It happened before in 2010 as I discussed in my last post. I think this is rather poor form announcing this on his blog as just a "finalized speaker schedule". This information is being circulated in rather low key fashion. While I'm sure Jimmy is disappointed and worried many will cancel, I think he owes it to those he sold on the cruise with those names to let them know ASAP so they can make an informed decision if they still want to attend. I also wonder how long he's known as well, as he confirmed several replacements prior to making the announcement. Put in the context of "here's our amazing list", the change in two positions doesn't seem like much, but clearly Robb Wolf and Gary Taubes are a huge duo.

The Low Carb Cruise

2012-01-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

In a few months, the 5th Annual LC Cruise will be underway on the Carnival Magic. With little fanfare, Jimmy announced in a recent blog post that two of the expected headliners, Gary Taubes and Robb Wolf, would not be attending/speaking after all. I wonder, if any of those who signed up are more than a little disappointed that these two wouldn't be on board as the bon voyage streamers are flying. It's a bit like showing up for a play at an intimate off-Broadway theater where George Clooney is headlining only to find he's sick and his no-name under study will be gracing the stage instead. At least if you have tickets for such somewhere in the fine print there's the indication this may happen and you take your chances. And it's not like you expected Clooney to be mixin' and mingling with the audience before and after the performance anyway ... you just hoped to get a close-up look or perhaps a quick autograph.

Superhuman Efforts for Weight Loss/Maintenance

2012-01-10T11:30:00.000-05:00

Well, Gary's publicity stunt has created quite a bit of internet buzz over Tara Parker-Pope's Fat Trap article. I've read a veritable cornucopia of reactions to the piece, including some of the over 1000 comments on her Well blog. Some of the responses made me wonder if others had even read the same article I did.

You may be interested to learn that the Eades are on a diet again! For some reason they're not going on their own 6WC diet, but they overdid it a bit on the holidays. I think I might have some things to say about some other parts of the post another day. But in a cheerleading post on resolving to diet, Eades had this to say:

I want to forewarn you, though, that you’ve got to get your head right if you seriously plan to succeed. Don’t be a Tara Parker-Pope.

Anthony Colpo Rawks!

2012-01-09T10:34:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: The comments were just too good to take this down, but I do not want to be part and parcel to internet spoofing which is apparently what went on here. So in case you don't read the comments, I want to make it clear: Anthony Colpo did NOT sign the petition. This was an impostor.

Anthony signs Gary Taubes' petition.

Name: Anthony Colpo on Jan 9, 2012

Affiliation: anthonycolpo.com, avid cyclist and bodybuilder

Comments: Oh yeah, carbs rock for training hard, but I learned from Gary's tutoring that all I really need for training is to not exercise too much or I would one day get fat from all the activity induced hunger.

LOL is all I can say!!

Gary Taubes' Latest Publicity Stunt

2012-01-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, the New York Times Magazine published an article by Tara Parker-Pope entitled The Fat Trap. This has apparently caused the ego supremous nerve in the whydablitome region of Gary Taubes' cortex to fire uncontrollably. The result? Well, a petition, cloaked as a "Letter to the Editor" of the NYT.

When I first heard about this I was astounded. Huh? Here you have Gary Taubes ... THE Gary Taubes! ... Award winning science journalist who penned the classic "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie" in the very same publication, author of the NYT Bestseller Good Calories Bad Calories ... Yes, THAT Gary Taubes. The same man who had the lay-friendly version of GCBC published not much more than a year ago, Why We Get Fat. Yes, the very same Gary Taubes who was on the nationally syndicated TV show of one Dr. Oz ... not to mention countless radio and print interviews in the mainstream press in a publicity flurry surrounding the book. That journalistic exposure is not even including the three interviews with Jimmy Moore and several other low carb "luminaries" and even a few lesser knowns.

Chill out, live longer? How do VLC & caloric restriction factor in?

2012-01-05T12:40:00.001-05:00

I've been working on a related post when I came across an interesting study that I thought was worth a blog post on by its own and was more timely for other studies I've been looking at more recently. A sidebar of looking into the claims of L.Ron Rosedale is that he's really all about longevity and believes his diet will deliver on that promise. What I'm about to say may shock some of you, but, there's some evidence out there that he might just be right! The Catch 22, however, is that where he's correct it flies in direct conflict to the claims and theories espoused by the other ardent evangelists of carbohydrate restriction.

Any research into aging and longevity these days inevitably lands one into a sea of studies on teeny tiny worms known as C. elegans. I have some stuff in the pike on these worms, but basically, two ways of "naturally" extending the lifespans of wild type C. elegans are (1) growing them under lower temperature conditions, and (2) forcing the worms through a dauer state (essentially dormant) developmental phase as larva through "starvation". Both of these manipulations have the effect of producing adult worms with reduced metabolic rate. (Worms are not intended to be the topic of this post, but here is one review on metabolic rate and longevity for those interested). The other popular species for longevity experiments is mice. Caloric restriction in mice has resulted in extended lifespan coupled with a reduced metabolic rate. At first glance, run hotter/faster, burn out, run cooler/slower ... fade away?

In any case, with worms, the body temperature is easily controlled by manipulating the environmental temperature. But what of warm blooded animals? You put a warm blooded animal in a cold environment and their metabolism increases. In the case of small animals like mice, they are blessed with relatively (to total fat and body mass) large amounts of brown fat (BAT) which is the thermogenic fat in such animals. As an aside, the original uncoupling protein (UCP1) is that which generates heat in BAT. Warm blooded animals have a vested interest in keeping their body temperatures within a relatively narrow operating range. So ... you put a worm in a cold climate and it's metabolism goes down, you put a mouse in one, and it goes up. A transgenic mouse to the rescue!

Physician Phollies ~ I: Dr. Cate Shanahan

2012-01-04T08:37:00.001-05:00

As often happens with me, certain potential themes for blog series float through my head. A stream of thought that connects things I see, read and hear about the web. One of those themes lately has to do with the quality of information coming from a number of bloggers and otherwise-advocates of low carbing who are by all accounts actively practicing physicians. Many of these physicians routinely chastise, mock and otherwise scorn their fellow practitioners in the course of promoting their views.

This series will highlight the more ridiculous claims made by these doctors, but not so much on the minutia of their entire pro-low carb message. In other words, a bit less about the overarching erroneous themes, and a bit more about individual "schtick" or just what I would call absurd random statments they make. And I guess with each installment of this series, I would ask:

Why would (s)he even say that?

Google Giggles

2012-01-03T18:28:00.000-05:00

Every now and then I share funny search phrases that land folks here at the Asylum. This one really made me laugh!

perky moobs

I'm being spoofed

2012-01-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

This has happened before, and I'm pretty sure I know who is doing it. It is being done to stir up trouble on other blogs. Hopefully the owners of the sites where these comments show up are aware that it is not me, but apparently some have been fooled.

I comment as Evelyn aka CarbSane with my Google ID as exclusively as possible. If not by logging into that ID, the email provided is my gmail account. The person posting as "carbsanity", a Discus ID linking back to a blank Wordpress blog of the same name, is not me.

If anyone comes across this type of stuff, I greatly appreciate you letting me know. A comment to any post here, a tweet to @carbsane, or via email: carbsane at gmail dot com.

If you're the spoofer reading this, well, all I can say is get a life. Sheesh :(

The 2011 Annual Report

2012-01-02T11:20:00.002-05:00

The 2011 InSanies

2011-12-31T13:49:00.000-05:00

The first ever awards to be handed out here at My Carb Sane-Asylum. We'll honor here the most insane goings on in the low carb world in 2011. These honors are bestowed with lighthearted humor, even if some were earned for actions of a more serious nature. So, with out further delay, in no particular order, I present

The 2011 InSanies

Weight Loss Advocacy

2011-12-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

Should I post the real version of this?

Let's imagine that Jane Smith has a bit of a weight problem growing up, gets married, has a couple of kids and some acknowledged issues with "emotional eating". Jane has tried everything and nothing else seemed to work. Around a decade ago, at 180 lbs, she discovers Weight-B-Gone, just enough different that she decides she might as well give it a try. Over the next year following the WBG program, Jane loses 45 lbs. Jane loves the WBG! Woo hoo! Jane keeps the weight off for six months but then some life issues arise. She stops going to the gym regularly and does the diet plan half-assed on and off for several years. Four years later she finds herself weighing in at 210 lbs.

Starch is Paleo?

2011-12-27T18:28:00.000-05:00

Tsimblist brought this presentation Dr. Nathaniel Dominy to my attention recently.

Something commonly raised in favor of a high (animal) fat diet in paleolithic humans is the notion that this was required and/or precipitated the increase in human brain size. He seems to be saying this is not so much the case as is often cited. (Around the 9 minute mark). This is a huge point!! Dominy does not come across as some vegan shill, that's for sure. He pretty much comes out and says that meat eating is a no-brainer -- we're not herbivores -- but favors a higher percentage of plant foods likely comprising our ancestral diet. Worth a watch/listen.

The Low Carb W.O.E.ating Disorders

2011-12-27T15:57:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, this post has been in my draft bin getting retooled and almost published several times over since last March! But I've always never quite gotten it to publish ready, or whatever sparked the rant died down a bit so it got shelved for another day. But recently the topic of eating disorders was inadvertently brought to the fore by Jimmy Moore in his Jessica Biel spiel. So dust off this one I did ... and still, it sort of languished until something happened the past couple of days over at PaleoHacks. Someone asked about purging -- as in bulimia -- contemplating inducing vomiting to rid themselves of the holiday indulgences. There were several, I thought, constructive responses and no nastiness ensued that I was aware of. Perhaps the initial question was a joke or whatever, but in rather short order the question disappeared entirely! Not closed, but vaporized. Which left a bad taste in my mouth. Not because of anything against the PH people, they are free to run their site by their rules and such, but because there seems to be a pattern I'm seeing in such circles of avoiding the topic of eating disorders altogether. ED ain't paleo. Shhhhhhhhh.....

Fat Tissue Regulation ~ Part VII: Changes in Fat Cells with Weight Loss

2011-12-27T10:55:00.000-05:00

I came across this one a while back and found it fascinating.

The Physiologic Effects of Caloric Restriction Are Reﬂected in the in Vivo Adipocyte-Enriched Proteome of Overweight/Obese Subjects

In this study, 8 overweight/obese individuals (4M/4F, 30-60 y.o.a., BMI ≥ 27, otherwise healthy) were treated with a very low calorie diet (500 cal/day shakes + unlimited veggies) for 5 weeks followed by a weight stabilizing diet for 3 weeks. Abdominal subcutaneous fat biopsies were taken before and after the 8 week intervention.

There's a lot more here than what I'll address in this post. I hope to return to this at some future date, but in keeping with this series, I want to focus on the fat storage portions of the study. I have quite a bit in the pike regarding fatty acid transport and storage in various cell types. While fatty acids can be transported into (and out of) cells by passive means, it became apparent to me a while ago that the relatively rapid clearance of fatty acids into fat cells after a meal likely involved some active transport mechanism. As it turns out, uptake of fatty acids by adipocytes is facilitated by a fatty acid binding protein, FABP4. Triglycerides are stored in adipocytes (and other cells) in what are called lipid droplets, LD. Although the name implies something like a glob of fat, the lipid droplet is "coming of age" of sorts being recognized as a metabolically active organelle within the cell in much the same way as fat tissue has long since come to be recognized as so much more than just some passive depot for caloric excesses. This study looked at a protein known as vimentin which is possibly associated with lipid droplet formation/organization. More on this in a bit.

The table below summarizes the metabolic markers which were assessed in Week 6 immediately following the 5 week VLCD.

So the subjects lost an average of 9.5 kg or just over 20 lbs body weight, 7.1 kg (almost 16 lbs) of which was fat. Now I'm sure we'll get the usual "well, the diet was so low in calories it was effectively low carb" spiel as to why this diet worked, but such shake diets often do contain more carbs than some low carbers eat in a month. In any case, let's focus on that dastardly hormone insulin. Imposing a significant energy deficit on the adipocytes resulted in a more than 25% decrease in fasting insulin levels (the p-value of > 0.05 would not be statistically significant) and a 7% decrease in fasting blood glucose (the p-value of about 0.01 is statistically significant). Check out those NEFA/FFA!! Circulating free fatty acids were almost dropped in half!! You see, when the 8 subjects were weight stable at approximately 20 lbs heavier weights, their blood was swimming with free fatty acids -- you know, those NEFA the low carb shills claim are being locked away in your fat cells by your carb-induced insulin baths.

Here's what else they found:

... the uptake of fatty acids seems improved because on average there is a 40% increase in the abundance of FABP4 after the intervention. ... this provides evidence that weight reduction, in particular loss of fat mass, stimulates the basal function of triglyceride storage by adipocytes.

Note the adipocyte proteins were assessed after the full 8 weeks (3 weeks energy balance) so that the effect of an energy deficit was eliminated (or at least mitigated). From a formerly obese point of view, this is somewhat depressing news as always. At first glance, it seems that losing weight only primes the fat cells to gain it back. But let's pan back a bit and look at this whole picture of the purpose of our fat cells: to store energy for when we need it and keep excessive levels from circulation. So this is actually good news! Just 5 weeks and adipose tissue is dramatically transformed from overfilled and dysfunctional to doing it's thang protecting your non-adipose tissue from metabolic damage!

But here we see yet another contradiction in the woefully misguided TWICHOO. Yes, folks, what happens when you lower insulin, as was done in this study? The fat cells seem to have established a more fat-accumulation friendly environment upregulating FABP4. But something else also happens, what is described as "a reduced intracellular scaffolding of GLUT4" Hmmmm. So fewer glucose transporters but more fatty acid transporters. Remind me again what we store in our fat cells? Perhaps some comedians should stick to their day jobs rather than formulating garbage theories about how our fat mass expands to accomodate glucose. Sigh. But to sum up:

Before: Higher insulin, higher GLUT4 scaffolding (to support glucose transport), lower FABP4 (to facilitate fatty acid uptake), elevated circulating NEFA.
After: Lower insulin, lower GLUT4 scaffolding, higher FABP4, lower circulating NEFA.

Fat cells don't go wild accumulating fatty acids, rather they're fed up and just can't take it anymore! OK, sarcasm aside, this is yet another study that shows some rather dramatic changes in metabolic health with relatively minor changes in weight. I believe the findings here are important with respect to hormones and circulating metabolites. Although not statistically significant (probably due more to the small sample size and variation in levels than anything), the observed drop in fasting insulin levels of 25% is physiologically significant, and yet this was accompanied by an only 7% reduction in fasting glucose. What, yet again, seems to have changed the most? Those NEFA.

I'm going to save my analysis of Keith Frayn's latest review paper for the new year, but the findings here dovetail nicely with Frayn's more recent thinkings on fatty acids. Specifically, that adipocyte IR on the release side (inefficient suppression of HSL ) may be less important in the etiology of metabolic syndrome and diabetes, but rather that the defect occurs at the uptake side of the equation. This leads to inappropriately elevated basal circulating free fatty acids as well as inappropriately elevated postprandial NEFA with the composition of said fatty acids being potentially troublesome. Both lead to too much fatty acid storage in inappropriate places. Metabolically healthy lean individuals would have highly responsive fat tissue, presumably with sufficient FABP levels to whisk fat out of the bloodstream when called upon. That the obese have less fat accumulating proteins than their leaner selves is also in contrast to TWICHOO. The leaner "after" folks here had a more fat-trapping milieu than their "before" situations. The lean generally trap fat very efficiently (though some with insufficient adipose tissue do not). Clearly, the individual components of what drives fat uptake/esterification and lipolysis/release, do not regulate the NET accumulation of fat. This study adds to the evidence in support of this statement.

Before I go ... speaking of Frayn ... If you're relatively new to the Asylum, you may hear his name bantied about here often, but I've not blogged all that much on his work of late. If you don't know what I was talking about just now, may I suggest the following older blog posts (in reverse chronological order): Fatty Acid Trafficking , Adipose tissue as a buffer for daily lipid flux ~ Keith Frayn 2002 , Non-esteriﬁed fatty acid metabolism and postprandial lipaemia , Insulin Resistance ~ Taubes v. Frayn.

Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-24T13:33:00.000-05:00

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you who celebrates the birth of Our Savior a very Merry Christmas! May you stay safe, warm and healthy at this joyous time.

While many bloggers will probably be scarce until after the New Year, yours truly will likely be blogging up a storm as my day job is on hiatus for a month. Hope to "see" you around, but if not, that's OK too ... I'll see you in 2011. This afternoon I'm cooking up traditional Christmas Eve fare of my husband's ethnic tradition. Perhaps I'll have some pics to post over in the Culinary Concoctions blog.

Thanks for reading and contributing here, it means a lot to me.

Insulin: A-to-Z and More

2011-12-22T07:11:00.001-05:00

Well folks, as 2011 draws to a close, it seems the reason for the Asylum's very existence has all but evaporated into thin air. What? You didn't know? Yes indeed! Apparently my work here is done as nobody really believes that carbs cause insulin cause fat accumulation stuff anymore. But I'm hopelessly mired in debunk mode so, of course, I just happen to glance at the insulin levels in studies when I read them, and so it was when I revisited the Dansinger diet study recently. And so, just in case there's even a single person out there who still believes that their low carb diet is working by lowering their insulin levels, I thought I'd start this first ever compilation post here.

OK, I'll knock off the sarcasm now. Yes, I know most of my readers will find this post repetitive of what I've already presented ample evidence for here. But since part of the purpose of this blog in the first place was for me to organize information I gather, I thought having a post like this, that I will update with data from any studies providing relevant information, would be just that sort of thing. Depending on how often I add to this, I may bump it each time I update, or just periodically (I have no intent of this post cluttering feed readers out there every few days!). So, without further ado ...

Just for the fun of it ...

2011-12-21T16:21:00.000-05:00

From the comments on PaleoOD, something Kurt Harris said prompted this t-shirt slogan idea by bentleyj74:

"I'm wrong with all the right people"

Which got me thinking ... would you rather be:

Wrong with all the right people ... or
Right with all the wrong people??

Of course, I'm always right so ...

Just kidding ... If this generates some discussion I'll chime in on the comments with my own thoughts.

Random(ized) Thoughts on Replication and Control

2011-12-21T14:55:00.003-05:00

I had started this post as a follow-up to my A Matter of Control post before Chris Masterjohn posted the following over on his Daily Lipid blog: When Standing At the Brink of the Abyss, Staring Into the Great Unknown, We Randomize.

I think Chris highlights some of the reasons why randomization is important in studies, but in my opinion, he does overreach some as to the power and purpose of randomization. I'll address those concerns towards the end of this post. Still, his post is spot on regarding two of the important reasons why randomizing is important in studies:

Selection (self or assigned by investigator) bias, and
Unknown confounders

PaleOD

2011-12-19T14:20:00.000-05:00

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but is anyone else suffering Paleo Fatigue Syndrome? Over dosing on just hearing the term "paleo" these days?

I am.

I've spent some stretches hanging out over on Paleo Hacks, and I keep my eye on various blogs and such low carb, which, these days, seems to be all the rage paleo. My blog feed is even included at PaleoBuzz.com.

But, does anyone else find it strange when Mister Livin la Vida Low Carb himself now promotes "XX new blogs posts" with the word Paleo BEFORE low carb? (Not to mention some paleo speakers on the 2012 cruise are decidedly not low carb dogmatists!) I don't think Jimmy reviews his latest and greatest lists too well (hee hee, I made one I think sometime summer 2010 back when he only listed like 25 at a pop). It wouldn't surprise me if along with some blogs that haven't been updated in months you might just find a carbivore paleo or three. But I digress ...

Fasting Insulin & Diet ~ Time for some Cognitive Dissonance?

2011-12-17T09:28:00.000-05:00

Reader Josh brings this study to our attention:

High saturated fat and low starch and fibre are associated with hyperinsulinaemia in a non-diabetic population

Huh? They compared dietary intake (24 hour recall) for 1069 non-diabetics (assessed by administering a glucose tolerance test) with fasting insulin levels.

Subjects were seen for up to three visits from 1984 to 1992. A 24-h diet recall and fasting insulin concentrations were collected at all visits....

... High total and saturated fat intake were associated with higher fasting insulin concentrations after adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, body mass index, waist circumference, total energy intake and physical activity. Dietary fibre and starch intake were inversely associated with fasting insulin concentrations....

... Associations were similar in men and women and for active and inactive subjects, though associations of fibre and starch intake with insulin concentrations were strongest in lean subjects.

Safe v. Non-Toxic

2011-12-15T14:21:00.000-05:00

I've been listening and reading about the web, and the "buzz" over so-called "safe starches" continues. One of the sentiments that goes with this is the idea that somehow Paul Jaminet is being irresponsible by promoting starch consumption. The rationale is that because some minority of the population is intolerant to certain starchy foods, at best we should be labeling foods like potatoes and white rice "non-toxic" starches. I disagree. Firstly, in their book and on the blog, the Jaminets' reason for designating certain starches as safe couldn't be much more clear. Secondly, I don't like the word toxic associated with a substance found in natural foods that has sustained billions of human lives throughout many millenia.

There are a certain number of people who are wildly allergic to peanuts. Should every book or nutritionist that allows peanuts, or even encourages peanut butter as a good choice for snacks tag them semi-toxic? In my opinion, the fact that there are some folks with celiac does not justify the demonization of wheat consumption for all people. Then we have nightshades. Should we start talking about "non-toxic" fruits and veggies because some seem sensitive to these foods?

Another 1500 Calorie Lesson in Reality

2011-12-13T09:36:00.000-05:00

The apparent ineffectiveness of "conventional diets" for weight loss was somewhat lost in the excitement of the recent intermittent LC study. Well, maybe not lost entirely ... there's always lots of "see, counting calories is useless" to go around. But it struck me, yet again, that part of the problem with such traditional weight loss diets is that they are simply too high in calories to produce significant losses.

Harvie's group has done a number of studies (I hope to discuss some when I get time and if I can get the full text of some) in pre-to-post menopausal age women with a focus on breast cancer risk. Her group's "standard diet" seems to be a 1500 cal/day diet. In the study presented at the San Antonio conference, the control group followed a 1500 cal/day Mediterranean style diet, and lost a piddly 4 pounds over 4 months. See? They don't work!! Perhaps the reason why they don't work, however, is because that is simply not a weight loss level of calories for most women. Now, this is a tough pill for many of us to swallow, but swallow it we must or we'll tear our hair out wondering over our metabolic derangements and hormonal dysfunction (or is that metabolic dysfunction and hormonal derangements ... or does it matter? ...).

Lingering Flavors ... Emulsifiers & Stabilizers

2011-12-12T09:13:00.000-05:00

You can file this one in the random thoughts file ;-)

Think about foods you tend to overeat once you have some. Nuts come to mind. They are usually salted, and something about the yummy nut flavor mixed with the salt seems to stay on the tongue longer. It lingers. I know that if I'm having cashews (yes, I know, not technically a nut) I want more and more and more if there is a ready supply of more. So I tend to grab nuts, when I do, in single serve packets or on the way out the door. If I have them in the house, I take a handful or whatever from the kitchen and go eat in another room. But when that handful is done, while that flavor persists in my mouth, I always want more, and it's not hunger or craving or any desire to binge. It seems to be the lingering flavor. (Brushing one's teeth helps with this big time!)

So wheat gives the dudes moobs ...

2011-12-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

... but the ladies will go from deflated flatter chested pears, to round and perky Barbies if they just lose the wheat. Yeah, that's how it's always worked for me! WheatBelly is a JOKE. Odd none of the LC ladies will call this guy on this crap ...

The Latest LC Beats Other Diets Study

2011-12-11T09:36:00.001-05:00

I'm hesitant to discuss this one, because we don't even have an abstract of a published paper. But since it's going to be bantied about the LC web anyway, I might as well comment on what information we have.

Here's the press release from the conference at which it was presented:

Intermittent, Low-Carbohydrate Diets More Successful Than Standard Dieting, Present Possible Intervention for Breast Cancer Prevention

Here's an article that provides some additional info: Cutting carbs just 2 days a week can spur weight loss

Piecing together the information provided together it appears that they compared weight loss and changes in biomarkers for breast cancer risk in women over a four month period. The diet details are sketchy, but it seems they compared the following diets:

A Matter of Control

2011-12-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

It seems to me that many people misinterpret -- at least in their minds -- the meaning of this word when it is used in the scientific context. While most of those no doubt understand the concept, after hearing the term enough, it just seems it comes to mean something else to them after a while. I submit as evidence, statements made by two popular bloggers.

First up, J. Stanton at gnolls.org with How “Heart-Healthy Whole Grains” Make Us Fat. Wait!! Did you click that link already? I forgot to caution you that the post you are about to read contains science, so you might want to proceed with caution. < / sarcasm > . Anyway, the study he discusses in that post is: High Glycemic Index Foods, Overeating, and Obesity. Stanton prefaces his discussion with the following:

Yes, I admit to a degree of hyperbole—but this study is so well instrumented and controlled, and its results so informative, that I believe it’s important for everyone to read it.

Scientist Bashing II ~ The only sport approved by your favorite VLC guru?

2011-12-09T14:09:00.001-05:00

As mentioned in my first rant on this issue, I had intended this post to be part of it. But it's a somewhat different topic -- condescension of gurus sporting MD's against those lowly PhD's, or "just scientists" in general -- and lengthy enough (per my usual - grin) in its own right.

A short while back, Dr. Mercola weighed in on the whole "safe starch" debate. However collegial the meeting at the WAPF conference between Paul Jaminet and Mercola, it did not keep Mercola from taking pot shots. The evolution of the title of the piece is interesting in and of itself. Mousing over the tab on my browser, and the URL reveal the original title: "Experts Discuss The Benefits of a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet", but on the actual post? Initially it was: "Expert_ {singular} Explains Why You Don't Need Non Fiber Carbs". Huh? That sounded strange for a post that prominently displayed the PHD Apple/Plate, but OK. But shortly after that it was changed to: "These Two Natural Foods Will Throw Your Blood Sugar Out-of-Whack". Well, that's more what you might (or what I might expect) from Dr. Mercola. Although Mercola seems to be receptive to Paul & Shou Ching's diet, it is clear which side he comes down on and who he feels is the real "expert" here: Rosedale. If there was any doubt, here is what Mercola says almost from the get go:

This might be interesting - Totally Anonymous Medicine

2011-12-07T10:59:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about the state of medical care lately and thought this would be an interesting experiment (but not likely doable).

Imagine, if you will, a one month Metabolic Cruise. To replicate real life as much as possible, no food or drink would be free. It would be available as it is in every day life at normal market values in a variety of stores, restaurants and bars on the ship. There is 24/7 video surveillance and each person has a GPS tracking advice. Each person uses a card to purchase what they consume and places unconsumed foods in a receptacle to be analyzed. In other words, a sort of free-living metabolic ward. Of course rooms would need a kitchenette too. But this cruise to nowhere would not allow for foods from outside sources. Legally solid assurances were made from the outset that all video and such would be destroyed following analysis for compliance.

Scientist Bashing I ~ The only sport approved by your favorite VLC guru?

2011-12-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

This started as a comment over on Stephan's blog, but started getting a bit long. So I hope Stephan won't mind too much if I move it over here. Plus it contains thoughts about various and sundry names in the LC webosphere with whom I've had brief exchanges. Those exchanged have had these thoughts brewing for quite some time, but in the end it seems to go back to the ultimate arrogant anti-scientist supreme: One Mr. Gary Taubes.

When I first read Taubes, I got the impression that he had little understanding of how science really works. That first impression has been confirmed many times over in the intervening years. I have always wondered over why medical schools and such would bring in a science journalist to lecture medical students on such a topic. If one doesn't have a PhD in the exact field these days it is difficult to teach at the college level at all for example. Gary has a bachelors in physics, with no apparent experience as a "scientist". Apparently he practically lived in a lab for a while, and I guess this is where he believes he amassed the knowledge to view researchers critically and offer up his sage advice on how they ought to be doing their jobs. Given his influence in certain circles, I think he's responsible for the wave of scientist bashing replete with a warped understanding of what science actually is and how it's done.

The Best Diet & Fitness Regime for Health, Weight Loss

2011-12-03T09:10:00.000-05:00

There's a nice conversation going on in the comments of my last post about the state of the nutrition and fitness communities. One comment exchange just summed it all up and struck me as a "Nail ... Head" moment. Before I highlight it, let's all think for a moment why we're in this in the first place. For me? I achieved significant but not complete weight loss and vastly improved health eating a pretty clean (no frankenfoods) VLC-based diet with planned cheats on those "normal" foods I enjoyed eating from time to time. When the weight plateaued out, I wanted mostly to assure myself that the way I was eating was going to be healthy for me in the long haul. And I've shared many of those concerns here before. Regardless of how I felt, there was always this nagging concern over the shift of the distribution of where I carried the fat that remained, as well as racing heart issues I had experienced a prior stint eating this way.

Why is it never their diet for "Healthy" Low Carbers?

2011-12-01T10:26:00.001-05:00

Before I get to the subject of this piece, allow me to remind older readers, and inform newer readers of "where I'm coming from". I used a VLC diet (with planned cheats) to lose a ton of weight several years ago. After plateauing out, I wanted to assure myself that the way I was eating was the healthiest for me in the long term. That way was such second nature to me I truly wanted to find that it was optimal. Now two and a half years into that inquiry, I still don't have all the answers, but I have become more and more skeptical that a VLC diet is advisable for the long term. I remain a huge fan for the approach for weight loss.

I've been criticized for being critical of the weights/appearances of low carb advocates. While possibly fair, I think these critics don't really get the point here. If So-and-So is saying "my diet rocks, baybeee!", goes on and on about how they are never hungry, healthy as a horse, etc., etc., I would say looks and results most certainly matter. I'm also well familiar with the fact that, without surgery, it is almost impossible for someone who has been truly obese to return to a normal weight/size and not have lingering baggage (aka sagging skin and such). And many of us struggle mightily with weight as we reach middle-agedom regardless of our diets. I get it. Really, I do.

Virgin Leptinade Poisoning! Last Glass of the Stuff!!

2011-11-29T09:21:00.000-05:00

This will probably be the last post, other than perhaps dumping articles over in the library, regarding "leptin spikes". And I don't normally link to and discuss abstracts, but in this case the abstract says it all. Over on Mercola's hatchet job on starch, as discussed in my previous post, Ron Rosedale MD provided that science he's supposedly bridging over into medicine to support his contention that carbs "spike" leptin. Here was the first comment addressing yours truly:

Because you do not know the science, does not mean that it doesn't exist. This is over 10 years old. There are many articles subsequently that support and verify this. "Evidence That Glucose Metabolism Regulates Leptin Secretion from Cultured Rat Adipocytes" www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../9449624 Endocrinology,1998 Feb;139(2):551-8 "We conclude that glucose transport and metabolism are important factors in the regulation of leptin expression and secretion."

His repetition of the citation later in comments is illustrative of Rosedale's debate tactics. The strategy is to (a) allude to a wealth of research supporting one's opinion, (b) cite one study that appears to support one's contention but not really, and (c) repeat as often as necessary using the same one cite, and apparently (d) hoping nobody will notice that the "many articles" and "robust evidence" has never materialized. I've called him on the in vitro study previously, and it is amazing the ease with which one can assemble a landslide of research that demolishes his claim. I'm going to leave you with this last one:

A Glass of Extra Virgin Unspiked Lepitinade Please!

2011-11-27T18:47:00.001-05:00

Why do some of these things land in my lap when life gets so busy? Over on Mercola's site, I've been tangling up a bit with Ron "Spiked Leptinade with my Science Krispies" Rosedale. Now I don't expect Rosedale to start following my blog or anything, but I did post links to certain posts over there to support my contention that carbs do NOT spike leptin. By any definition, they do not. Instead of recognizing this and backing off (and hoping nobody notices, a la Taubes), Rosedale has doubled down on his assertion that carbs spike leptin. In support of his contention, the science he offers up is ... drumroll please ... a more than decade old study on isolated cultured rat adipocytes. This wouldn't drip so with irony were it not for the fact that Rosedale shoves his massive clinical experience with live humans in yo' face every chance he gets. You see, I don't possess his vast clinical experience so I must be in error interpreting the whole blood v. plasma blood glucose level data in a 45+ year old study (more on that to come!!) Yet, when presented with a sampling of human data from clinical studies ... then Rosedale turns a blind eye. It gets worse. I called him on relying on this study to advance his point. His response? More of the same about how I don't know the science. Here's what he said:

Taubes' Rat Problem

2011-11-27T14:59:00.002-05:00

No ... rats have not infested Taubes' batcave replica of the AHS lecture hall. Rather, Gary steps in it yet again with his discussion of the Cafeteria rat study in one of his lame attempts to debunk Stephan Guyenet's works on food reward. The Cafeteria rat study he was referring to is, in my opinion, the most relevant animal study on the etiology of the modern obesity epidemic in Westernized countries. Let's revisit the study with a post of mine: Why We Get Fat ... Lessons from a Cafeteria Rat. In short, you can get "normal" rats to become fat by replacing their usual chow with a high fat chow and/or a high sugar-containing chow. But how do you get them to become really really fat? Feed them modern American junk foods. I'll repost some pertinent graphics from that post here. The so-called "cafeteria rats" were provided ad libitum standard chow along with a rotating selection of three items from the list below:

L. Ron Rosedale's Church of Scikrispology

2011-11-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

L*. Ron Rosedale's Church of Scikrispology

Creating a chasm between science and medicine.

Jimmy's original data dump "debate" over safe starches seems to have taken on a little life of its own of late. For many of us it merely served to further draw the curtain back to reveal the lack of critical thinking in LLVLClue land. But it also seems to have ignited a resurgence of another LC guru: Dr. Ron Rosedale. Rosedale hogged the most "cyber ink" in Jimmy's post, and also posted advanced snippets on his Facebook page.

If the Taubesian-led LLVLC circle seems cultish, you really gotta get a load of Rosedale. After all, Taubes may surely be enjoying his supreme guru status, but he didn't cultivate it as a populist movement (although he does have delusions of grandeur thinking if only all these idjuts in research and medicine would just listen to him). Rosedale, on the other hand, sees himself as a visionary leader of a movement. I had heard of Rosedale, and knew something about him and leptin. There was a thread or two about him and his book on Jimmy's forum but not much of a following even there. When I went to Rosedale's FB page, the first thing that struck me was the imagery. What's with the televangelist schtick? Or is that just me noticing this?

I'm on Twitter ... Sort of

2011-11-24T07:05:00.001-05:00

Hi Gang!

Some have already noticed the new "What I'm Reading & Tweeting" widget over on the right hand side bar. I got the idea to do this from Chris over at Conditioning Research. He used to have a scrolling "What I'm Reading" box on his blog, that apparently was a widget from Blogger/Google that let him share selections from his reader. Apparently that feature is no longer available through Google ... bummer as I was looking for something a little different than a blogroll and such. So he told his readers that for now to follow on Twitter. I have noticed many blogs with Recent Tweets widgets. Lightbulb ... head ...

So, I decided to get on Twitter and put that widget here. My intent at this point is to share with my blog readers those things around the web that I'm reading and find interesting and worth sharing. I would like to keep the outgoing tweets "clean" in this regard. A one-way street if you will. Not to be antisocial, but I prefer to keep conversations to comments & the discussion board here and email ... I think I'd go nuts trying to do that with Twitter too. (I already get backlogged with emails and the disco board). So for now please don't expect replies on Twitter. If I ever get into that action, I'll probably set up separate accounts for the Asylum and personal communication. Hope you all understand.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!!

Is MightyMeta Mouse Relevant to Real Humans?

2011-11-23T09:23:00.001-05:00

In my last post, I discussed a study demonstrating that mice on a ketogenic diet ate the same number of calories as both mice on standard chow and the obesogenic high fat+sucrose diet, but lost body weight comparable to that seen in mice constricted to eating 66% of the standard chow calories. I dubbed this a metabolic Mighty Mouse of sorts, MightyMeta Mouse. I don't think we'll have enough installments of this to warrant an acronym -{grin} - I'll just use short nicks when I tire of typing it out.

In any case, this study seems to validate some of the magical metabolic claims made by those who are able to eat thousands of calories on VLC diets while having been unable to lose or in some cases even maintain weight eating stand CRD level calories. Well, I did the math in the prior post, and although Mighty does seem to manifest a metabolic advantage of sorts, this would not translate to much for the humans in question. A couple of hundred calories a day tops.

Mighty Metabolism Mouse?

2011-11-22T10:03:00.001-05:00

HERE I COME TO SAVE
THE DAY (for TWICHOO)!!

Thanks to Amber for bringing the following study to my attention: A high-fat, ketogenic diet induces a unique metabolic state in mice. Does it appear that MightyMeta Mouse is on his way?? Perhaps ... for mice anyway. The KD fed mice attained the same reduced body mass as the calorie restricted (to 66% ad libitum of control chow fed) mice. A fourth group were fed the usual high fat + sucrose diet to induce obesity. Anthony Colpo ... pay up!?*

More on Magic Metabolisms ~ Super What?

2011-11-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

As predicted, when I posted my challenge a few days ago, the anecdotal magic metabolism or two came out to play. There is certainly a cadre out there who believes:

VLC → lower insulin → faster fat burning metabolism

Some version of this is the purported Metabolic Advantage championed most prominently by Dr. Mike Eades. The nutshell version of this is that when you are low carb, excess fat consumed will be "blown off" through futile cycling and uncoupling. Despite admitting to eating a "starvation calorie level" diet himself, Eades perpetuates this myth of low carb magic.

What sparked this post, was a very well referenced post by Ambimorph over on PaleoHacks: Is lowered T3 resulting from a low carb diet problematic? She, along with another respondent on the thread, provides a long list of studies that show VLC lowers T3. Dr. Ron Rosedale (of Science Krispie Leptinade fame here at the Asylum) weighed in. He believes that this lowered T3 is a longevity-promoting benefit of VLC diets. Make no mistake, Rosedale advocates what Atkins referred to as a "biologically zero" carb diet - non-dairy protein and leafy greens. Lower T3 dials down your metabolic rate. This is seen as a good thing as stated by Andre Chimene in his answer: "having a fast metabolism is like idling your car at high RPMs... for your life." Additional comments bring up a good point: "You don't want your car idling roughly or stalling either." So this claim is:

VLC → lower insulin → slower efficient metabolism

Gary Debunks Taubes ~ It's the Fructose Stupid!

2011-11-19T14:05:00.002-05:00

The Marquee:

Gary Debunks Taubes ~ It's the Fructose Stupid!

Starring Gary Taubes

Special guest appearance by Stephan Guyenet

The Scene:

Curtain rises

Gary Taubes, clad in grey corduroy pajamas and bunny slippers is in the basement of his home, that he has fastidiously transformed into an exact replica of the lecture hall where he infamously confronted Stephan Guyenet, PhD. At the lectern stands a life-sized voodoo doll bearing a striking resemblence to Stephan. While poking imaginary pins into the doll ...

Ladies & Gentlemen, Now playing in the Asylum Theater: Gary Debunks Taubes

2011-11-17T06:53:00.001-05:00

Narrated by CarbSane
Starring Gary Taubes as himself

"A delightful drama about the journey from amateur boxer, to physics major turned journalist, to renowned 'expert' on obesity and human metabolism. The protagonist is befallen by a nasty case of egomonomaniacalis dunshütinfüt but ignores his obesity-researcher-turned-MD's advice when he prescribes digaholedypur arrestin. This disease is a silent killer of reputations, and left unchecked might do just that. Will Gary survive the disease? Or will Gary debunk Taubes?" or maybe Leptin Man will save the day?

It's really rather amusing when a new Taubes blog post lands in my feed reader, and apparently since he promises a lengthy five part series of posts every few days, I'm guessing there will be no end to my amusement any time soon. This has inspired another series of posts that from hereon will be dubbed Gary Debunks Taubes.

What? Another series? Yep. My other GT-inspired series (like the GCBC Reference Checks) have focused on how Taubes cherry picks from. and flat out misrepresents the science contained in many of the references in his book. Other posts are dedicated to debunking the various facets of TWICHOO. But in the past few days, between reading his first blog post in a while, composing my latest installment in that series -- GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VII of ? ~ Julius Bauer's Lipophilia Hypothesis, feeling especially self-torturous and listening to a 2007 lecture on YouTube, and finally making it through blog post number two in less than that many months, it dawned on me. Taubes actually does quite a fine job of debunking himself, and in this regard he does a bang-up job of finding studies that dismantle his hypothesis.

So in the preview, we had Gary citing Julius Bauer stating that nervous centers (some call that the brain) regulate and dominate the metabolism of fat tissue. Coming up, more quotes from GCBC, but first I'll have at those blog posts.

Each show a different play! Playing indefinitely in the Theater here at the Asylum.
Admission is free, but please consider a donation towards finding a cure for ED.
Conflict Disclosure: The Theater at the Asylum is really sponsored by Carbsaneuticals Inc., makers of digaholedypur arrestin.

The Brain Rules ~ But Which Part?

2011-11-16T12:36:00.000-05:00

The fact that the brain, or centralized neural complexes, even exists in multicellular higher organisms is indicative of it's over-arching governing function. Sure, we have feedback loops in our bodies that seem to have little if any mediation by centrally produced signals, but ultimately our organs, including our fat tissue, ultimately relay information to our brains. Our brains then send out signals back to the organ, and to other organs. Renowned endocrinologist Julius Bauer -- heralded originally by Gary Taubes in GCBC, and now in a recent blog post -- said as much.

I've been reading a lot of truly nasty commentary about the web ever since Stephan began rolling out the food reward series. Apparently a lot of people have hurt feelings and think that Stephan is now yet just another young skinny male just looking to blame fat chicks for their obesity, by -- gasp! -- discussing how leptin alters appetite and food intake in the brain. Ya know, I do share the sentiment regarding the seeming dominance of the field of all nature of obesity experts tending to be lean males, trying to figure it all out in a population dominated more by females. But that impacts my views on advice given and such ... I cannot let it cloud my judgment as regards what the science actually says. This is the crux of this matter of obesity research and such. Anyone can fashion a hypothesis that makes sense to them. But if it is not consistent with the actual results observed in carefully controlled experiments, it's just wrong! Conversely, I don't care if Stephan were actually Homer Simpson if the science he's conveying to his audience is sound. And yet, sadly, I think most obese are beyond "repair" in terms of ever experiencing that nirvana of subconscious homeostasis of a lean body weight. That doesn't mean it's not attainable, just that it will take some conscious effort. Before I discuss that a bit, I just can't help but highlight a comment Taubes made recently on his blog:

In Search of the Magic Metabolism ~ A Challenge

2011-11-15T09:13:00.000-05:00

It's comical. Every time Taubes comes out with something new, somehow folks with magic metabolisms come out of the woodwork as well. You know the type. They could not lose weight eating a starvation diet of 1000 cal/day for weeks on end doing hours of cardio a week. Some even claim to gain weight on such regimes! Worse yet they were hungry all the time. But then they read GCBC and went low carb and stopped exercising! Suddenly, they were never hungry, but managed to wolf down 2000 cal/day of fat and protein and lost 20,30,100 or more pounds effortlessly in a week/month/whatever unbelievably short timeframe.

This is utter nonsense. Even Taubes acknowledges ultimately that if someone gains fat mass they are in caloric surplus and if someone loses fat mass they are in caloric deficit. He just claims that you are eating more because your fat cells have gone rogue and hog your energy, and if you're losing weight, you are eating less because the fat cells are releasing their stores so you don't need to eat. Whatever.

Bloggo Science ~ LIRKO Wars Edition

2011-11-14T10:43:00.000-05:00

Well, a little back and forth is going on these days over the LIRKO mouse. What's a LIRKO mouse? Well, the acronym says it all, LIRKO = Liver Insulin Receptor Knock Out. This mouse's liver doesn't see insulin.

So back in May, Peter/Hyperlipid posted about the LIRKO mouse, LIRKO mice (1). This post referenced this study: Loss of Insulin Signaling in Hepatocytes Leads to Severe Insulin Resistance and Progressive Hepatic Dysfunction. Almost simultaneously he posted LIRKO mice (2) which dealt with this study: High Circulating Leptin Receptors with Normal Leptin Sensitivity in Liver-specific Insulin Receptor Knock-out (LIRKO) Mice. (A peeve: The full texts of both of the studies referenced in these posts are available free online. Why not link directly to the full text?)

About a week or so ago, continuing with his own dismantling of TWICHOO, Stephan Guyenet posted Does High Circulating Insulin Drive Body Fat Accumulation? Answers from Genetically Modified Mice. Single line smackdown: A lot of hyperinsulinemic mice out there aren't accumulating fat tissue as a result. One of the gen mod mice Stephan mentions just so happened to be Peter's friend LIRKO.

GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VII of ? ~ Julius Bauer's Lipophilia Hypothesis

2011-11-12T10:05:00.000-05:00

The following is a quote from Good Calories Bad Calories:

Bergmann and Julius Bauer, the “noted Vienna authority on internal diseases,” as the New York Times called him, were the two most prominent proponents of the lipophilia hypothesis, but only Bauer wrote about the hypothesis in English, attempting to influence how obesity would be perceived by physicians in the United States. Bauer’s expertise was in the application of genetics and endocrinology to clinical medicine, a field he arguably pioneered in a 1917 monograph entitled Constitution and Disease. Bauer had taken case histories from 275 obese patients and reported that nearly 75 percent had one or both parents who were also obese. He considered this compelling evidence that the condition had a genetic component, which in turn implied the existence of genetically determined hormonal and metabolic factors that would bestow a constitutional disposition to put on excessive fat. “The genes responsible for obesity,” Bauer wrote, “act upon the local tendency of the adipose tissue to accumulate fat (lipophilia) as well as upon the endocrine glands and those nervous centers which regulate lipophilia and dominate metabolic functions and the general feelings ruling the intake of food and the expenditure of energy. Only a broader conception such as this can satisfactorily explain the facts.”

And now let's see what Gary writes in his latest blog post, shall we? In giving us his 20¢ on the "Body Rules" concept:

Thanks for Reading!

2011-11-11T10:59:00.000-05:00

It's been a wild and wonderful ride.
Read more »

Is a New Hypothesis in the Works?

2011-11-10T07:14:00.001-05:00

I have to admit, my eyes glaze over reading most of what Gary Taubes has to offer these days. His latest seemed so much more of the same old same old. Old paradigm, new paradigm ... research will never move forward until they embrace the new paradigm. Thousands of scientists can't be right when Gary Taubes knows they're wrong.

But Taubes tucked something new into his latest post that I missed on the first read:

In this paradigm, meals stimulate hormonal responses—insulin, in particular, either in the short term (glucose) or the long term (fructose)— and this in turn directly influences both the storage of fat and the oxidation of fatty acids elsewhere in the body.

In recent lectures Gary has been turning his ire towards fructose/sugar as the ultimate cause of obesity. He has in the past tried to explain the Japanese away by claiming they eat very little sugar. I suppose compared to the SAD this is true, but they do eat sugar (and they don't eat brown rice either, but can't we cut Taubes some slack when he makes stuff up? Swallow one for the cause!) Myself and others have pointed out the problem with this and TWICHOO -- that being that fructose does not stimulate an insulin response. Therefore it does not fit into TWICHOO as stated in GCBC or WWGF . Is he about to change his tune a bit by introducing some long term influence of fructose on insulin behavior? His toothpick of a fork tine is bent so badly at this point he's gotta fashion something to do his cherry picking with. Only to do that, he'll have to do some more cherry picking.

He's Alive! Gary Taubes posts ...

2011-11-09T16:55:00.000-05:00

Catching up , yada yada

I see the website has been reformatted a bit. Priorities, priorities.

Eh ... is there much to say about this one? Not really. Except to highlight this:

A caveat here: I’m willing to be convinced that this hypothesis is not an energy balance hypothesis, and so not a brain-rules-and-the-fat-passively-follows notion, but so far I haven’t seen an argument that’s convincing. I confess, though, that I find the hypothesis surprisingly difficult to understand, which suggests that either I’m losing my intellectual facilities in my dotage — always possible — or that I’m so blinded by my love of my own hypothesis that I refuse to understand it—at least equally likely — or maybe, just maybe, that Dr. Guyenet and other proponents of the hypothesis don’t really understand it either.

Bingo Mr. Taubes. Rather than several more parts trying to unravel Stephan's work, perhaps just one that actually addresses the problems he (and others, like yours truly) have raised with yours is in order. Take your time, there's a ton to deal with there, but if you have the time for this sort of random rambling, surely you have the time and passion to address the SCIENCE and your so-called hypothesis.

Is HCG the "Dirty Little Secret" of Low Carbers?

2011-11-09T13:48:00.001-05:00

There's a popular diet plan out there that is supposed to melt the pounds off of you. Inject yourself with HCG a hormone produced by the placenta of pregnant women. This has been around since the 1950's when Dr. Simeon devised the original program. Perhaps spurred by Kevin Trudeau's 2007 book on the diet, it seems to have experienced a resurgence in recent years. The diet itself lasts for several weeks where someone eats 500 calories/day in two meals. Here's Simeon's original plan:

125 I.U. of HCG daily (except during menstruation) until 40 injections have been given.
Until 3rd injection forced feeding.
After 3rd injection, 500 Calorie diet to be continued until 72 hours after the last injection.
For the following 3 weeks, all foods allowed except starch and sugar in any form (careful with very sweet fruit).
After 3 weeks, very gradually add starch in small quantities, always controlled by morning weighing.

This amounts to 3 days of overfeeding, almost 6 weeks of 500 cal/day, followed by 3 weeks of ad libitum VLC (e.g. Atkins Induction). After that you get to add starches in as the bathroom scale permits. Is it any wonder most struggle with that last phase? And here's a sample menu:

Un-Sanie Ideas?

2011-11-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

Yes, as 2011 comes to a close, like other bloggers I look back on what has transpired this year. So, what's a blog like the Asylum if not to have a little fun, eh? And so I'm announcing today that some time in December I'll be announcing the awarding of my first annual Un-Sanies. I'm not really sure yet if I'll choose a top 5,10,whatever format or have categories (e.g. most Un-Sane book, blog post, quotation, etc.). I.'m not even sure I've settled on the Un-Sanies (In-Sanies were another option). But I'd like to identify some of the most outrageous statements -- in print or otherwise on the net -- made in the promotion of or defense of radical carbohydrate restriction. Off the top of my head Wheat Belly's battery acid, Eades' just totally "eew creepy" reference to moisture and young ladies, and more recently the reference of Joel Osteen impersonator Ron Rosedale to all of us as some degree of diabetic are worthy of consideration. And yeah! I didn't even tap the wealth of material from Taubes yet. Oh ... and yes ... who can forget at AHS. Perhaps I need to award some Sanies too?!

So ... if you have anything in mind you think I should consider or may have missed or forgotten, chime in here with your comments. If you'd prefer to remain anonymous, shoot me an email with suggestions through my profile.

I'm hoping we can have some good old Sane-Asylum fun with this here!

Fat Tissue Regulation ~ Part VI: Journey & Fate of Dietary Fat

2011-11-08T12:38:00.003-05:00

Regulation of fatty acid transport and storage: influence of acylation-stimulating protein

Katherine Cianflone and Sabina Paglialunga, 2006

Commonly, the dietary sources of fat exceed the actual needs and the tissues are faced with dealing with the excess. Under these circumstances, the removal process of dietary triglycerides and fatty acids becomes overloaded, resulting in excessive postprandial lipemia and accumulation of chylomicrons, remnant particles and non-esterified fatty acids. These particles are associated with disruptions in lipoprotein metabolism and changes in inflammatory factors, thus their association with cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and diabetes is not surprising. Dietary factors, not just fat, influence postprandial fluxes. This leads to the question: do we need a standardized fat tolerance test?

I've been reading a lot of studies lately dealing with postprandial clearance of fats from the blood and it certainly seems to me that these are coalescing to a hypothesis that the fat tissue fails first. Oh but CarbSane, you've been saying this for over a year now This is news? Well, yes, in a way. Gratuitous third person self referencing aside, it does still appear that a breakdown in fat tissue regulation is the precipitating factor in the metabolic dysfunction cascade in the majority of cases. However this initial breakdown appears to occur on the uptake side of the adipocyte. Impaired fatty acid uptake by adipose tissue leads to elevated postprandial circulating NEFA that are:

Excessive in the postprandial phase when they should be low, and/or
Different in composition, reflecting dietary intake, from the types of fatty acids released from stored body fat.

I'm officially old ... and find this so sad.

2011-11-05T09:29:00.000-04:00

I overheard a student the other day discussing her, apparently mandatory, meal card. I remember that well. All freshmen living in dorms at almost every college/university must participate. My first semester I rarely ate in the cafeteria because the food sickened me.

So one of my students was saying that she had over $1000 on her meal card. WOW! I can't help but think what that amount of money can buy. I find this so very sad.

Why do I feel so old? Well, because I can't help but think about the costs of things. In my day most rented those little cubicle dorm fridges for like $50/year or semester even. Now? You can buy a small fridge/freezer that is separate for not much more!! There were no Home Depots, Lowes, WalMarts, Costcos, Sam's Club, BJ's back then. And yet with all that they have available, *kids* these days are (a) on the one hand still forced into ridiculous mealplans and such , and (b) on the other hand so absolutely clueless that they cannot fend for themselves and realize how cheap that can really be! All this not to mention your mega supermarkets.

With food so cheap, I cringe at all meals provided by educational establishments. Even back in my day we had community kitchens in the dorms. I can get no hot pots and such for safety reasons, but a micro? Between this there should be no reason to require meal plans.

My student was lamenting not being able to spend those $ on clothes. I concur. But all of this "in my day" stuff, and being older than most of my students' parents is making me feel awfully OLD :(

The LoBAG Diets for treatment of Type II Diabetes and IGF-I: Updated & Expanded

2011-11-04T08:09:00.001-04:00

Another Bumpity Bump Bump from yesteryear when my blog had one tenth the readership it has today. Why am I bumping this one? Well, for one, Paul Jaminet cited one of these studies in his excellent, as always, rebuttal to Rosedale in the whole safe starch debate. It is worth noting that Dr. Mary Gannon is also a darling of Feinman's Nutrition & Metabolism society, see, for example, here. I'm going to add some comments on that paper at the end of this post. So Gannon & Nuttal have been advocating for some carbs for some time. They are for lowering carbs, but not to levels that the strident low carbers advocate. These researchers also unabashedly identify their diets as high protein. Not that it's super relevant, but I guess one could describe my diet these days as a higher protein (thus lower fat) PHD, which probably works out to LoBAG25. So, first the original article (I've tidied the formatting but not altered content in any significant manner) and blogging:

Glycine Power?!

2011-11-02T11:25:00.001-04:00

One of the things I've been doing regularly for the past year or so is making carcass broths and bone broths and making stews and soups with it. I make the distinction of carcass v. bone because I mostly make two versions: (1) pork from pork shoulder bones my amazing pork guy provides me free by the bagful (so I don't have to save up bones in the freezer which is a huge bonus!) and (2) chicken from the whole carcass from chickens or everything from the parts -- e.g. a fair amount of skin and cartilage and "stuff".

There was a question about pork rinds and satiety the other day on PaleoHacks that reminded me of a few things. One was that whenever I would hear of the health bennies of gelatin protein, I always remembered reading that it was not a good major protein source because it is not a complete protein. Well, the protein from such broths may not be complete, but it is special indeed. I'm not one for anecdotes but my less-than-perfect-diet hubby is prone to getting bronchitis or worse at least a couple of times every winter and he's had issues with prolonged bouts that turn into one long episode. Last winter? One short cold! I tend to think that's no coinky dink.

Is Glycemia a Continuum?

2011-11-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

Something has been "egging me" since I wrote my last two blog posts (Some Spiked Leptinade with My Science Krispies Please! and Keep the Leptinade flowing! I'm going to die from my glucose anyway ...) on two of the studies Dr. Rosedale cited in support of his starch-is-never-safe stance. Put another way, in his own words,

...there is really no totally safe level of blood sugar that will not cause non-enzymatic glycation or damage. The thresholds for diagnosing diabetes are arbitrary numbers. As such, I consider most everybody to have diabetes; just different degrees.

I'm a little confused over Rosedale's stance, but I can't really get bogged down because, frankly, he's not talking straight. He seems to be saying hyperglycemia is not diabetes it's the underlying hormonal imbalance, insulin and leptin resistance specifically. He seems to be under the mistaken notion that

When one is relatively young or pre-diabetic, the secretion of insulin and leptin when one eats non fiber carbohydrates can compensate for the moderate intake of starch and other sugars, but it does so at the expense of greater and greater insulin and leptin resistance accumulated over months and years.

Diabetes Treatment: New Dogma, Old Dogma or Just Carbophobic Myopia?

2011-10-30T12:50:00.002-04:00

One of the points of contention raised in my brief exchange with Dr. Ron Rosedale over on the PaleoHacks forum is the notion that insulin is a harmful drug, and that diabetes should not be treated with insulin to "cover" dietary glucose. This will only make the diabetic sicker and move them down the path of progression of their disease. This reminded me of the flurry of blog hit pieces on the ADA's Hope Warshaw a while back. One of the things these bloggers took special exception to was Warshaw's use of the term dogma and calling LC "old" dogma. For starters:

Old Dogma: Losing weight will make blood glucose levels plummet no matter how long you have had type 2 diabetes. The message that people continually hear from their providers is "If you'd only lose weight, your blood glucose would go down." And the common reply from people with type 2 is "I'll try harder with my 'diet' over the next few months, but please don't put me on a diabetes medication."

New Reality: Research shows that the greatest impact of weight loss on blood glucose is in the first few months and years after diagnosis. (Read the Look AHEAD trial results, a study about the effect of weight loss on heart disease in type 2 diabetes.) In fact, the biggest bang for the effort per pound is likely in the prediabetes phase. (The sad fact is that most people don't know that they have prediabetes.)Large studies have shown that with loss of five to seven percent of body weight (approximately 10 to 20 pounds) and 150 minutes of physical activity (30 minutes five times a week), people can prevent or delay the progression to type 2. Once insulin production is on a dwindling course (particularly after 10 years with type 2), weight loss has less impact on glucose control.

My Carbon Dioxide Sane-Asylum

2011-10-29T16:24:00.000-04:00

Well folks, here in the NorthEast U.S.of.A we're having a snowstorm! That's right! This time last year I was getting in some last minute VitD sessions in the back yard, but as of now there's around 5" of snow here. Global warming? Ha! Don't get me started on that fiasco!! :-)

My 10' lilacs are bent over to the ground as they still have their leaves. My big maple looks to be OK but weighted down. I managed to bring quite a bit of wood up onto our covered deck and to the small pile nearby that's covered with a tarp before this started. It's supposed to be in the mid 40's tomorrow so this should all be gone almost as quickly as it came. I'm just hoping and praying that the one limb of a tree at the corner of our lot (that they didn't cut when they came around over the summer for every other leaner on the block despite this one leaning on the power lines) holds. It's really leaning big time over the street with all it's leaves in their grandeur. I've shoveled the walk once and will need to do it again when hubby is set to arrive home. In my sneakers no less b/c winter boots? Where are those? Gloves? But meantime the fire's roaring!

Hope y'all folks in the general vicissitude stay safe and warm! Happy Saturday :-)

Keep the Leptinade flowing! I'm going to die from my glucose anyway ...

2011-10-28T12:17:00.001-04:00

A few general thoughts on this whole "safe starches" tangent into Ron "Everyone's a Diabetic" Rosedale's contentions. I was prompted to look into many of the claims of Rosedale by a short conversation I had with him over at PaleoHacks that can be found scrolling down to his responses here. When one goes and reads the Facebook links in the root post, it is clear that Rosedale's views are pretty extreme as regards blood glucose levels, diabetes, etc. It comes down, really, to viewing all blood glucose, leading to any level of glycation, as harmful. Basically through Rosedale-colored glasses we see circulating glucose as always harmful and to be kept minimal both in circulation and as cellular fuel as much as possible for optimal health. He also advocates getting virtually no glucose from your diet, relying, instead on your liver for all glucose needs. Glycation debilitates, deteriorates and ultimately kills you, and in Rosedale's opinion, there's no "safe" level of glucose and its insidious glycation that causes no harm.

As such, Jimmy Moore published a rebuttal to the rebuttal of sorts by Rosedale in response to Paul Jaminet of Perfect Health Diet. Now, I think it's probably known to most of my readers that Paul is perfectly capable of responding eloquently to this, and I most certainly do not want to be seen as stepping on any toes. But I think Jimmy's massive data dump blog posts -- liberally speckled with various uncalled for responses from LC luminaries -- deserve as many dismantlings as bloggers out there are willing to put up. Law of numbers and all that, and hopefully some of this nonsense can be dispelled before we layer even more myths on a list that is already too long in low carb circles.

And so, with my previous post, I decided to focus on this notion that there is no such thing as a safe starch because there's no such thing as a safe glucose level, and look at some of the references Rosedale provided to make the case that this is "clearly" so.

Glucose Assessments, Safe Starches and Interpretations

2011-10-27T16:12:00.002-04:00

Before I serve up any more leptinade here at the Asylum, I wanted to share some broader thoughts on the analyses and implications of various measures of blood glucose levels as relates to normal and non-T1 diabetics.

The Common Measures:

1. Fasting Blood Glucose (FBG): Usually after at least a 10 hr or 12 hr fast. The implication of this is that it is a measure of basal glucose levels. Probably more than any other parameter, this one is subject to any manner of fluctuations and can vary 10-20 points mg/dL or more from just one aberration in eating the day before. Also the degree of activity and length of time since awakening can dramatically alter FBG as can one's stress levels, medications (even an aspirin) and sleep patterns. This is not going to make as much of a difference with an untreated frank diabetic as their overactive glucose production by the liver likely dominates. But for the non-diabetic, it is easy to have a "bad day" exceeding prediabetic thresholds.

Some Spiked Leptinade with My Science Krispies Please!

2011-10-26T14:56:00.001-04:00

Well, Jimmy Moore is out with another installment of his crusade against "safe starches". Yeah, I know, I know. He's all about learning and helping people get to the truth, moving the debate forward constructively, and above all else protecting people from potentially bad advice such as that a major staple macronutrient for 99.99% of the human population for at least the past 10 millenia and more can actually be "safe". Sorry, but I call things as I see them, baaayybee!

It's another long piece, and I just can't stomach reading much of Jimmy's self-delusions anymore. But I am interested in this whole notion that somehow we're all somewhere on a diabetic spectrum and our carb-induced post-prandial glucose spikes are lining our rat poison sprinkled paths to an early grave. The post includes a long response by Dr. Ron Rosedale, pastor at the Church of the Not-Too-Late-in-the-Day Spiked Leptinade Drinkers.

I'm going to address a few of the cited studies and Rosedale's basic claims. (I'll be breaking this up in parts).

The crux of the ‘safe starches’ argument is that no harm will come of this and it is, in fact, healthy. It is acknowledged that blood glucose will elevate after eating ‘safe starches’, but will generally stay below 140 mg/dl that Jaminet says is perfectly safe. Is it?? The science writing (below) is on the wall and the answer is…clearly no.

It is important to realize that this answer is no; there is no safe intake of sugar, nor a threshold level of blood sugar below which no harm will come, and I will shortly devote a fair amount of time to show this.

Now it would have been nice for Rosedale to include links to his science ... you know, just to make it a bit easier for the curious to go check out the studies in their entirety. But by not doing so only those pesky blogger types like moi will likely bother.

From My Alumni News ~ Weighty Research

2011-10-25T10:42:00.001-04:00

The publication below landed in my mailbox last week. I've watched a video lecture or two by Dr. Friedman, who discovered leptin, but did not know he was an RPI alum!

Rensselaer Alumni Magazine - Fall 2011 (pgs. 18-25)

There's nothing groundbreaking about the article, but I thought I'd share it here. It does make a few things about leptin clear.

Commercial Milk: Full Fat vs. Non-Fat Nutrient Comparison

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

Just the Facts Ma'am from www.nutritiondata.com for Milk

Whole, 3.5% NonFat w/o Vit A

Yes, fat-borne vitamins and minerals are missing from the non-fortified non-fat milk. But (1) low fat is not non-fat, (2) most low fat milk is fortified with vitamins A&D, and (3) The differences are small unless you're talking getting large percentages of daily calories in liquid milk form.

A Potentially Useful Weight Loss Tool?

2011-10-23T08:47:00.000-04:00

Body Weight Simulator

Hat-tip to Sanjeev for finding this. It might be helpful for those trying to lose weight in a more structured manner.

Any time I see Hall's name, I can't help but be reminded of my good buddy Taubes. He is one of those "smart young biophysicists at NIH" who kept trying to set Gary Taubes straight. See Conservation of Energy -- Biophysicist Style , Gary Taubes Names Names. In my opinion, Taubes deliberately misleads his audience on the works of Kevin Hall (and Carson Chow) when he claims that these two still agreed with him that insulin so fundamentally regulates fat mass the whole G3P thing is ultimately irrelevant. For starters, the "can't store fat w/o carbs" used to be a key part of his hypothesis. For another, Taubes is left with scrambled eggs all over his face (cue Frasier episode ending theme) about the G3P issue. This is something when supposedly answering his critics, Taubes preferred ad hominem attacks on yours truly (I'm so confused!) than to address his Newsholme & Start problem.

Taubes insists it's still all about the insulin though, and others will have you think you're at the mercy of your cortisol, leptin, thyroid, etc. A problem here is that no doubt there are those who are legitimately genetically predisposed towards obesity in the mix of those afflicted in the course of this epidemic. For these relatively few, their hormonal milieu is such that their basal metabolisms are unusually slow and their substrate oxidation rates and preferences dysfunctional, etc. This can lead to increased energy intake due to an insatiable appetite or unconquerable fatigue. In this vein, the whole Eat Less Move More, ELMM, prescription may seem cruel (and ineffective) for this small proportion of the obese. But, it does not invalidate the "tautology". And, frankly, it does not speak to those who have become obese (including myself) as part of the wave of the epidemic.

I note that nowhere in this program is there a place to enter one's hormonal status. This model is based on predictions obviously calculated from "average" data. Do hormones come into play? Sure. And metabolic adaptations (reductions in RMR) are highly variable, but no doubt the simulator takes observed averages of this into account as well. Still, basically *if* one can consistently control intake and deliberately maintain a degree of activity, the result will be reduced weight for good.

High Protein Diet Induces Sustained Reduction in Ad Libitum Intake Despite Diurnal Leptin Compensation

2011-10-22T08:05:00.001-04:00

I have made over 600 posts on this blog. There are some, especially from early on in 2010, that I would really like my readers to see, and I sure don't expect folks who are just finding this blog now to go back and read everything to find some that I feel are key. I refer to this study quite often because I think for those finding themselves gaining a little bit each year and not wanting to hop on some "diet rollercoaster", there is merit to -- especially for us women -- upping the protein as a percentage in the diet. So when I was compiling graphics for the 24 Hour Leptin Profiles post, this study was the first I knew to go to for a graphic. So, I'm bumping the original, adding a little emphasis to the text but not changing it, and I'll add some commentary on leptin at the end.

Original Publish Date: 4/30/10

A high-protein diet induces sustained reductions in appetite, ad libitum caloric intake, and body weight despite compensatory changes in diurnal plasma leptin and ghrelin concentrations

Google Giggles

2011-10-21T14:25:00.001-04:00

Another funny from the Blogger stats page ... A phrase that landed someone here :

baby white bunny yawn

I've spent the day unclogging my kitchen sink drain that had the audacity to back up into my dishwasher and spill over into my basement yesterday! So please bear with me if this didn't tickle your funny bone like it did mine!

Hormonal & Appetite Response to Macronutrients

2011-10-20T11:06:00.001-04:00

I came across this paper recently and thought I would share it here on my blog. I think it is rather eye-opening as to the postprandial hormone responses to meals rich in each of the macros (and alcohol) and the ultimate effect on satiety.

Meals with similar energy densities but rich in protein, fat, carbohydrate, or alcohol have different effects on energy expenditure and substrate metabolism but not on appetite and energy intake

This study was done in normal weight healthy humans (9 women, 10 men) in their early 20's. They fed them a meal containing the same calories, but high in one of each nutrient. Each subject was given each diet with a 4-8 week "washout" in between, a standard diet the day before each test day, and subjects fasted 10 hour overnight before testing. Hormones, etc. were measured for 5 hours postprandially, and then were provided an ad libitum meal. Here are the diets tested:

Those NEFA are Pesky Things!

2011-10-18T13:26:00.000-04:00

NEFA = Non-Esterified Fatty Acids aka Free Fatty Acids (FFA)

(By the way, I've just always preferred the NEFA acronym because in my head it sounds out more nicely than "ef ef ay" -- and for whatever reason, I sound it out "knee fah", though a reader once wondered about "neh fay". I don't know there's a correct pronunciation for acronyms like this!)

On a hypothetical Metabolic SAT test NEFA are to lipids what glucose is to carbohydrates and amino acids are to proteins. These are the forms of the three macronutrient classes that are absorbed/transported into and out of cells and circulation and the forms that enter into the energy-producing pathways. By contrast, lipids are stored as triglycerides (aka triacyl glycerols, TAG), while carbs are stored in rather more limited quantities as glycogen, and there exists essentially no true storage depot for protein in excess of "tissue maintenance" needs.

Processed Dairy and Low-Fat Dairy-Phobia

2011-10-18T08:12:00.000-04:00

I brought this topic up once or twice on Jimmy's forum back in the day. Basically, aside from whole raw milk fresh from the cow, all dairy meets the definition of processed food. This was usually met with absurd comparisons claiming I was equating butter with Crisco, or real cheese with Cheetos and Cheese Whiz. Let's please put that strawman to bed right now. I am not equating dairy products such as cream, cheese, yogurt, and butter with InsertNameBrandHere processed cheese food slices. But make no mistake about it, you let raw milk sit around and it does not become any of the aforementioned without *some* processing.

Jimmy is apparently learning "life lessons" from TV these days and thinks Angie Harmon is clueless for promoting milk drinking in children, low fat of course. He misrepresents what she says, but it's useless to try to correct someone Livin la Vida Low Clue. (Harmon cites milk as one way to get essential nutrients, not the only way.)

What are Dysfunctional Mitochondria?

2011-10-16T17:00:00.002-04:00

The confusion with this whole mitochondria-based theory of obesity continues. I'm not sure what's driving this other than a desperate clinging to the notion that one's obesity can not be the result of one's overeating and/or sedentary lifestyle, however they came about. The more I read on this the more bizarre it all seems, but it comes down, once again, this notion that "fat burning" is related to fat accumulation or loss. This is nonsense. If your body requires 2000 cal/day to meet energy needs, it's pretty much all the same to your body where it gets that energy from. And it will always be getting its energy from some mix of substrates: glucose, fatty acids, and yes, amino acids and ketones. Nobody disputes that energy is partitioned and substrates are oxidized in different manners largely at the direction of hormones ... insulin and leptin having well characterized roles in this regard.

Mitochondrial Trial Balloons

2011-10-16T13:12:00.000-04:00

A trial balloon, for those who do not claim English as their primary language, is a term relating to "floating an idea", usually in hypothetical context, to gauge reaction. The notion being one of plausible deniability (I never really meant to say/do that). This is the only explanation I can come up with for why Peter/Hyperlipid is going down this whole mitochondrial dysfunction path of his. In his most recent post, he floats the following (I've numbered the steps):

Mitochondrial dysfunction leads to cytosolic fatty acid derivative accumulation.
This leads to chronic hyperinsulinaemia via insulin resistance.
This leads to adipocyte distension.
This leads to adipocyte insulin resistance.
This leads to increased plasma FFA delivery at a given level of insulin.
This leads to increased cytosolic FFA derivatives.
This leads to mitochondrial ATP production being normalised.

He concludes: "The cost is increased insulin resistance. Oh, and the MECHANISM for improved ATP production is OBESITY. Call this a cost if you wish."

If I understand the premise, Peter is trying to support the notion that IR is the body's reaction to excessive fat accumulation to protect against even more fat accumulation. This is inconsistent with the fact that numerous overweight and obese become insulin resistant yet continue to pile on the pounds for years, but it sounds appealing so let's go with it. Do you see the problem with the above mechanism, however? It's in the bolded statements. If increased FFA derivatives normalized mitochondrial ATP production in step 7, why doesn't the backlog of same in dysfunctional mitochondria not stimulate their own normalization back in step 1? Why would flooding mitochondria with more cytosolic FFA derivatives cause normalization. This makes no sense on its face.

Trial balloon floated.

Keep trying??

Google Giggles

2011-10-16T08:52:00.000-04:00

Regular readers are probably aware that every now and then I find silly Google search key words that land folks here and highlight them in these posts. Today's fun was:

Obi Sane

This just tickled my funny bone because of my Star Wars inspired posts on ASP.

24 Hour Leptin Profiles ... Sleep Off Your Spiked Leptinade?

2011-10-16T08:44:00.000-04:00

In Science Krispies ... Spiked Pink Leptinade Anyone?, I took on Dr. Ron Rosedale's claim that "glucose spikes leptin". The study I highlighted looked at 9-hour insulin and leptin profiles holding protein constant and essentially comparing a near-zero carb meal to a near-zero fat meal and fasting. I've copied that graphic to this post:

A&B = women, C&D = men

OK, so we do see that the HC meal results in slightly elevated leptin, more pronounced in women, delayed about 4-5 hours after the meal vs. HF or fasting. Over on the Perfect Health Diet blog (thanks for the shout out Paul!) , Paul Jaminet wrote:

CarbSane partially confirms Dr. Ron Rosedale: eating carbs does raise leptin levels compared to eating fat, but it is a mild rise over an extended period of time, not a “spike.”

Fat Tissue Regulation ~ Part V: C5L2KO - Meet the New Droid, Kinda Like the Old Droid

2011-10-15T11:13:00.002-04:00

It seems that our friend C3KO city mouse has found his country mouse cousin: C5L2KO. In keeping with the Star Wars saga, albeit stretching things a bit with this one, I've found the depiction of our new friend!

To catch up, C3KO is a knockout mouse lacking the ability to produce Complement 3 (C3) protein which is a precursor for production of acylation stimulating protein, ASP. Therefore C3KO is ASP deficient. The result of this genetic mutation is to produce a mouse that is resistant to obesity, and essentially an ASP equivalent of insulin deficiency -- Type 1 diabetes. If you've not read about C3KO, here are the links to the two relevant installments in this series:
Fat Tissue Regulation ~ Part II: Meet C3KO
Fat Tissue Regulation ~ Part III: C3KO Meets Obi No Leptinobi

It is known that fat tissue expresses insulin receptors. Indeed this has been exploited to more clearly elucidate the roll of insulin acting on fat tissue in the form of insulin receptor knockout mice, the FIRKO mouse (F = fat specific, IR = insulin receptor) to be exact. As it is less well characterized, ASP action on fat tissue is not universally well known or acknowledged. Indeed ASP is pretty much a TWICHOOB's worst nightmare. It seems silly to me to even be having this part of the discussion because it is absolutely not controversial that ASP plays a critical role in clearing dietary fat into the adipose tissue. Or, we are to believe the fat tissue itself manufactures such a hormone for no purpose related controlling its own function. Huh? In any case, one piece of the puzzle that was missing was how ASP works and the absence of an identified receptor. This piece of the puzzle was found in 2005 by Katherine Cianflone's group.

Science Krispies ... Spiked Pink Leptinade Anyone?

2011-10-14T11:58:00.001-04:00

Leptin seems a very confusing hormone to pin down. It's still relatively new, so despite there being a ton of research already, we're still in that era of lots of conflicting research and such. As discussed previously, I think this makes leptin ripe for serving up oversized bowls of Science Krispies. A lot of confusion also exists as regards the relationship between leptin and insulin. Some say they work in concert, some say leptin rules insulin, and others say insulin rules leptin. Insulin production is distinctly different in the basal and postprandial states. How about leptin?

Well if we believe Dr. Ron Rosedale (doing his best Joel Osteen impersonation shown at right, from over on his Facebook page), it's leptin that rules the roost. Rosedale posted a few advance installments of his response to the whole "safe starches" query from Jimmy Moore. Here's one:

It appears to me that the paleo community has now been divided between a faction that backs Taubes who believes that insulin is supreme and the major cause of obesity, and a faction backed by Harris, Jaminet, Guyenet, and others who believe that insulin and glucose is less important and that leptin is more important in obesity and perhaps other diseases, and therefore eating so-called “safe starches” is OK if not even desirable. The major issue and source of confusion that I see, is that they are both half right and half wrong, but opposite halves. Taubes is right that sugars, starch, and elevated insulin are a major source of disease if not obesity that I heralded 2 decades ago, but not fully correct as to why. The Jaminet, Guyenet, Kruse, and Harris** group is right that leptin likely supersedes insulin as far as importance in obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases, at least in humans. However, they (not including Kruse) are quite wrong in believing that it is therefore okay to consume “safe starches” that will largely digest into glucose. Though true that leptin, more than insulin, controls fat storage and perhaps even blood glucose levels, this does not mean that raising insulin levels via glucose is unimportant. It still plays a huge role in the control of genetic expression influencing the aging and chronic disease phenotype.

Do carb burners live longer?

2011-10-12T12:58:00.000-04:00

I've been looking at respiratory quotient a bit after my post series on the Ranneries paper on metabolisms of the formerly obese (Part I, Part II, Part III) and found some interesting things. One is this paper:

Resting Metabolic Rate and Respiratory Quotient in Human Longevity

In this study they compared three groups of women, I've included the table of various parameters below:

Mitochondrial Function and Dysfunction

2011-10-12T08:01:00.001-04:00

Below is a wonderfully simple depiction of the mitochondria that depicts one of the points I've been trying to raise above the current internet noise about mitochondrial dysfunction. That being that when it comes to carb burning (glycolysis) the initial steps occur outside the mitos while fat burning (ß-oxidation) occurs within the mitos. However both create Acetyl-CoA, and from that point on, metabolism and energy production is the same.

Science Krispies ... with a Tall Glass of Leptinade!

2011-10-11T09:47:00.001-04:00

Yes folks, Science Krispies are best enjoyed with tall cold glass of Leptinade, stevia sweetened of course.

Last week over at PaleoHacks, I've gotten to know a bit more about someone I'd heard much about on Jimmy's forum, but never really bothered to look into. Dr. Ron Rosedale, author of The Rosedale Diet. I have a post in mind on some of his claims but we'll see if it floats my boat to post it up. It was an odd coincidence that I was also skim reading through the copy of Nora Gedgaudas' PBPM book a friend bequeathed to me, and came across the section on leptin resistance, complete with referencing and a quotation from none other than Rosedale. And when at PaleoHacks, there's no avoiding "The Quilt", aka Jack Kruse Neurosurgeon! (Whenever I see his name I imagine some movie announcer booming Neurosurgeon! in action hero voice, with Jack as Dr. Evil flipping epigenetic switches on Mini-Me). Jack's stance on everything seems to boil down to either you're leptin resistant or you're sensitive, and all manner of things can be explained with this simple wave of the hand. Can't lose weight? Resistant. Eat 50g protein within an hour of waking and in a few weeks you'll be able to walk on water eating 10,000 calories a day of dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts while losing weight, all thanks to having reclaimed your leptin sensitivity! It's a wonderful philosophy to have because it explains everything!

Not too shabby for a couple with deranged metabolisms

2011-10-10T07:05:00.000-04:00

Gotta brag a bit. On Saturday afternoon my husband got the bug to rent a log splitter so we could split the remaining wood from last year. The hitch sleeve was rusty so it took a bit to even get the hitch on, but by 3pm we had the splitter and went to town. Had built a small pile in a couple hours then showered and went out with friends. I thought for sure I'd be sore yesterday but not really. We gave the neighbors a break and didn't start until noon (plus we didn't want a visit from the police!). We worked for about 5 hours (not constantly).

The big pile ... around 7' high x 12 x 10'

Warning: This food contains starch. Consult your doctor before consuming!

2011-10-10T05:51:00.001-04:00

In the comments section of Jimmy's "safe starch" post, Jimmy had this to say:

I'm still concerned with the use of the phrase "safe starches" because people will think that is universally true--and it may not be. Perhaps calling them "potentially safe starches" with the caveat that you should be checked by a physician to determine if they are safe for you or not would be better.

Has low carb dogma really come to this? Where a couple of scientists with some health issues work them out with what appears to me to be exhaustive research, share their results with others in the form of a book, and are basically being accused of possibly harming people by suggesting that some starches are safe?