The Carb-Sane Asylum

Who'lda thunk anyone would find My Carb Sane-Asylum googling: cute c57bl mouse

There's quite a bit of discussion going on over this topic in the comments HERE . Archibald posted a link to Issues and Misconceptions About Obesity , the infamous Flatt paper. Since this part was "hot" right now, I decided to blog on this, also because the issue has come up in other recent comments. 9. Conditions for body weight stability: “settling point” vs. “set point” Although less obvious than the fact that energy intake must be equal to energy expenditure, weight stability also requires that the substrate mixture oxidized be equivalent, on average, to the composition of the nutrient mix consumed. When “substrate balance” is not achieved, changes in body composition occur, which in time are bound to elicit adjustments in food intake.  Weight maintenance thus tends to become established for a particular body composition in a given individual living under a particular set of circumstances. This corresponds to a “settling point”. Such a view accommodates the fact th

This post is a bit of a "rush to publish" w/o any scientific literature or blog linking, etc.  I'll hopefully get to put the finishing touches on further installments addressing some studies (some James Krieger has discussed in posts on his blog and in comments here, and some others) and such.   But the discussion came up again in the comments HERE   , and I figured this might be as good a time as any to put at least a few general comments together.

Free Fatty Acids and Cytokines Induce Pancreatic ß-Cell Apoptosis by Different Mechanisms (I've scrubbed the distracting reference numbers from some excerpts of the introduction and I'm also going to try to cite only the information pertinent to T2) Hypercaloric diets containing large amounts of fat, also called the Western diet, contribute to a major extent to the increasing prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). T2DM is characterized by peripheral insulin resistance, pancreatic ß-cell dysfunction, and decreased ß-cell mass associated with increased rates of ß-cell apoptosis. Elevated levels of circulating free fatty acids (FFAs) contribute to the pathogenesis of T2DM. High concentrations of FFAs lead to both impairment of insulin action and ß-cell dysfunction.  Moreover, FFAs have been shown to cause ß -cell death, mainly by apoptosis.  Of note, increased adiposity is associated not only with increased FFA release but also with adipocyte secretion o

... but it really is besides the point. I've finally fixed the picture issues over at my Who Is CarbSane page and it's been an interesting several weeks to read the musings about the internet about my weight, etc. based on my face shot.  I must be a cannonball, there's no way I can fit into the sizes I do, whatever ...

Ripe for the weekend ... Has Gary Taubes been right all along? Is the whole tautology of the First Law of Thermodynamics whacked? Do we have this direction wrong?  Well, apparently quite a few have seen the paper I'll be sharing with you through Google Docs, and thought just that!  First, I'd like to thank  Matt Metzgar for the PDF.   OK, so what's this all about?   Obesity and energy balance: is the tail wagging the dog? JCK Wells and M Siervo .   European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2011), 1–17. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE FOLKS But marilynb aka mhb here has decided to share my link over at the LLVLC discussion board attributing the sharing to Matt.  Yes, he provided me with the PDF, and it's not "my" (or his) PDF, but I was sharing it through my Google Docs account via a link for my readers for the purpose of discussion.  I do not appreciate that being linked about without even properly acknowledging the source.  If you want to share and discus

At the time of posting, my installment in this series about Laura Dolson didn't catch much flack.   Of course later it was picked up on a bit, but in general I believe the lack of "backlash" on this one was that it spoke of an obvious truth -- and about someone who doesn't seem to have an active "internet personality" presence.   By that I mean Dolson blogs semiregularly over there w/o mentioning much about her personal weight issues.  Said weight issues one would have pretty much no idea about looking at her (likely Photo-shopped) face shot.  And let's read her bio , shall we? Experience: Laura has been developing health and education Web sites for over 10 years. She was a writer and cancer support provider at Mediconsult.com, and has taught health and nutrition classes at a junior high charter school in California. She has been focusing on low-carb and low-glycemic eating for over a decade -- investigating the emerging science related to low-carb eat

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/low-carb-conversations-podcast-episode-19-tony-kenck-and-kim-bosold-decry-the-war-on-fats/11384#comment-73690 Someone named "Evelyn" was having a little fun with Jimmy Moore.  Not me!

When the recent news broke that a Crash Diet (600 cal/day) cured diabetes, discussed HERE ,   HERE ,   HERE , there was the inevitable invoking of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in the low carb circles.   A while back, I addressed the MSE in a post entitled Starvation Diets  shortly after I had blogged on a study in which one part involved putting three obese women on a 1500 cal/day liquid reducing diet. The point of that last blog post was that  in the 1970's, the average intake of American women was 1550 cals.   Now folks, keep in mind that averages mean that some women ate less and some ate more.   Dr. Michael Dansinger -- he of the famous diet comparison study and consultant on The Biggest Loser -- told Jimmy during his interview with him that they generally cut the contestants' intake in half on that show.  I don't have time to go back and listen, and the exact numbers aren't really all that important, but the women generally start out eating around 300

*** WARNING *** This turned out to be a long post.  There's no science in it, it's mostly about personalities and such. This is directed towards anyone looking towards anyone in the LLVLC and "friends" community and such for advice or even a bit of inspiration.  If that's not you, I suggest just moving on and waiting for me to return to more science based blogging. It's coming back, I promise.  But if it is you, this is a must read if you're interested in knowing the full story behind the real Jiiiiiiimyeeeee Mooooooooore!

There are at least two bona fide dietary approaches for the overweight individual -- restricting calories and restricting carbohydrates.  Both approaches, in my opinion, are meritorious and generally beneficial to most persons who are overweight, and both represent a decided improvement over the use of amphetamines or other medications, useless gadgets or doing nothing at all. Statement of Robert C. Atkins, MD to the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs April 12, 1973

There were actually two different papers from the Women's Health Initiative low fat diet trial brought up in the comments of another post.  It seems this one engendered more discussion and I mixed up who cited which paper.  So I started this thread.   Since this is a new concept, I'll briefly describe what I'm doing here and let y'all have at it!  I am embedding a discussion topic from the Meeting Rooms in this blog post (this time I'll shut off comments, if you want to give some input/feedback on this concept in general, add your thoughts to  the comments on the inaugural post ).   All are welcome to join and I hope you will!  I have some thoughts on this one, too, but will probably lurk and wait until hopefully a few folks have added their says.  I realize some made comments already on another thread regarding this.  If I haven't done so already by the time you read this, I will copy them to the discussion.   Hat tip to Lucas Tafur for bringing this topic up.

This seemed like a good paper to discuss in our next installment of the discussion of scientific literature.  Since this is a new concept, I'll briefly describe what I'm doing here and let y'all have at it!  I am embedding a discussion topic from the Meeting Rooms in this blog post (this time I'll shut off comments, if you want to give some input/feedback on this concept in general, add your thoughts to the comments on the inaugural post ).  This time the PDF is being shared through Google docs so everyone can have access to the full text.  All are welcome to join and I hope you will!  I have some thoughts on this one, but will probably lurk and wait until hopefully a few folks have added their says.  I realize some made comments already on another thread regarding this.  If it's not too much trouble perhaps you can C&P them into the discussion here.   Hat tip to O'Primitivo for bringing this up. Let's discuss! Effects of LF Diet on glucose, insulin an

From Guenther Boden's group at Temple   Acute Lowering of Plasma Fatty Acids Lowers Basal Insulin Secretion in Diabetic and Nondiabetic Subjects In this study, these researchers used nicotinic acid (NA, aka niacin) to lower fasting/basal free fatty acid (FFA aka NEFA) levels and looked at basal/fasting insulin secretion rates (ISR's).   They also measured beta-hydroxybutyrate (they use β-OHB abbreviation in the manuscript), otherwise known as ketones.   The NA was administered orally every 30 min for the four hour duration of the test for subjects in the fasted state.   They essentially compared two groups of diabetics with non-diabetic controls.  Euglycemic clamps were used in one group of diabetics and controls -- blood glucose held constant at normal levels -- mean glucose 5.3 and 5.1 mmol/l  respectively.  They also tested a group of diabetics at elevated fasting glucose with an isoglycemic clamp -- again blood glucose held constant but this time at 10 mmol/l.  To rule o

The web went ablaze this past week or so over the ADA's Hope Warshaw, who penned a piece for Diabetes Health .  Judging from the reaction some might think is was akin to Mein Kamf   or something.  I mean the hypocrisy of those in the extended LLVLC community is just too much to bear at times.  What did Hope Warshaw write that was so inflammatory?  It's a short piece, but it boils down to this: Apparently Warshaw makes the claim that low carb is "old dogma" in diabetes circles, and Warshaw advocates eating a slightly higher carb (45%-65%) diet that by virtue of macronutrient ratios will result in a lower fat intake compared to the current (45%) average carb consumption.   Advocacy of earlier pharmaceutical intervention upon diagnosis. Cognition that weight loss is most effective in the first months or years following diagnosis and basically that we should be proactive with "prediabetes" screenings and diagnoses. Oh the horror!  String her up now!!

Hi gang!  I'm going to try something a little different here with my blog.  Mirrorball had the idea to start a Scientific Discussion Group of sorts over at the Meeting Rooms, but we're not getting much in the way of takers.    So I thought I'd try a few things. The first is this post per se, because I know far more people read feeds, etc., to see if we can't snag a few more interested takers for such a thing. The second is that the really cool thing about my discussion board system is that I can embed a topic right here in this blog post for everyone to talk amongst themselves without going anywhere, yet this thread will be over in the Scientific Discussion sub-forum at the Meeting Rooms.  This should also give those who have trouble logging into blogger the ability to join in as well.  The default is a flat style display, but this should also allow for greater ease in following discussions that have, at times, become very difficult to follow in the comments here.  Wi

A HUGE bit of prefacing here ... If you're anxious to skip that and get to the subject matter, use your browser's search function to find **** to blow right on by.   In the coming days (perhaps weeks, hopefully not months but who knows ... life's busy these days),  I'll have more to say regarding Diabetes 101's Jenny Ruhl's interview with Jimmy Moore .  Cliff Notes version is that I'm glad I listened to the whole thing because although I found myself shaking my head at times in the  beginning, later in the interview I found myself nodding more in agreement.  A huge hats off to Jenny for her amazing composure and articulation.  Wow, you would think she did this sort of thing every day!

I've got to say, I about fell off my chair reading the following comment from Stephan Guyenet over at Whole Health Source blog as it flittered through my feed reader.  In response to a comment by Thomas , basically asking if insulin surges or calories ultimately govern weight loss/gain, Stephan had this to say: Yes, the excess calorie consumption is the key. Insulin spikes do not increase food intake unless they cause hypoglycemia. In fact, insulin is kind of like leptin's kid brother: it acts in the brain to constrain fat mass. Also, insulin is co-secreted with amylin, which also constrains fat mass by increasing satiation and possibly leptin sensitivity. All this postprandial insulin spikes = fat gain stuff is nonsense as far as I can tell. I still haven't seen a shred of convincing evidence to support it, and in fact, the evidence I've seen mostly supports the opposite hypothesis, that insulin spikes oppose fat gain. The idea that postprandial insulin causes fat ga

This is a philosophical post of sorts that's been knocking around in my head for a while.  I've briefly defined here before the type of intellectual bullying that goes on that I've always referred to in my real life as baffling with bullshit.  A more detailed example can be found in this blog post .  Today I want to talk about another tactic prevalent in the works and writings of pseudoscience journalists and bloggers.  It's the use of the concept of whether or not someone understands something, basically taking advantage of the general lack of knowledge in the population as a whole to make them feel stupid.  This, too, is a form of intellectual bullying folks, there's no doubt about it.  I'm sure there's some fancy Latin phrase for all of this, but I just want to point out how it is used against folks in debate and encourage would be victims to stick up for themselves and not fall for it!

Reading an American website in the UK?  Or reading a European study in the US?  It's a PITA!  If you're looking to put values into the system you're used to, here's about the best list I've ever come across. Clinical Data Unit Converter I found this looking to convert insulin from µU/mL to pmol/L.  The conversion factor is 6.945.   So:  10 µU/mL = 10 * 6.945 = 69.45 pmol/L Going the other way just divide.   So 100 pmol/L = 100 / 6.945 = 14.4 µU/mL

I've received a number of back channel communications -- most from well meaning friends -- regarding my recent calling out of the low carb community in posts like the "Is LC Morphing into HAES" series.   I've also eavesdropped on several discussions about me (from before my interview with Jimmy on through after that blog post series unveiled) where folks really "don't get me". At this point I want all of my readers to realize that, yes, there is a personal component to my relationship with, and opinion of, Jimmy Moore.  We had exchanged an email/PM or few regarding discussions on his forum as well as my commenting several times on his menus blog regarding his weight struggles over time since I joined up on his forum a little over two years ago.  This was all before the LC Chief of Police  (Fred Hahn) found my blog entry on glyceroneogenesis that violated the LC Profanity Code.  Where were my three seashells when I needed them?

I think there were some issues brought up in the comments of my original offering on this topic to warrant a followup post. OnePointFive made the following remarks (excerpts) I'd like to address: I thought that the trial was interesting and that'more research is needed' but with so few subjects and only a 12 week follow up (in the paper) didn't justify the 'cure' headlines. I agree, I think the word *cure* subsequently splashed across headlines is a bit of an overstatement.  Even in the short follow-up period, 3/11 had their diabetes return.   So even though all were theoretically "cured" at 2 months, this was not permanent once they reverted to a normal diet.   Since the average gain was just over 3kg or almost 7 lbs, it would be interesting to see the individual data, and if the three who reverted back were the ones who gained the most due to returning more full bore to their former habits.  My gut says probably!