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Showing posts from February, 2013

The New Paleo Diet Study: Just the Fats Ma'am

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A Palaeolithic-type diet causes strong tissue-specific effects on ectopic fat deposition in obese postmenopausal women I don't know that this study is worth three posts -- grin -- but I decided to break it up anyway.  I blogged on the diet itself here , and the weight loss here .  This post will address the impact on ectopic fat.  So first, I want to mention the "misleading title" peeves.  Ectopic fat is defined in the abstract: Ectopic fat accumulation in liver and skeletal muscle may be an essential link between abdominal obesity, insulin resistance and increased risk of cardiovascular disease after menopause. Here's the relevant synopsis of the results: Liver triglyceride levels decreased by 49% whereas IMCL [intramyocellular lipid] levels in skeletal muscle were not significantly altered. Which apparently garnered the conclusion: A modified Palaeolithic-type diet has strong and tissue-specific effects on ectopic lipid deposition in postmenopaus

The New Paleo Diet Study: The Weight Loss

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I've written previously about the diet used in the latest paleo diet study. In this post I want to address the results.  Here's the study:   A Palaeolithic-type diet causes strong tissue-specific effects on ectopic fat deposition in obese postmenopausal women .   In this post I am going to address the weight loss (and change in intake) only. On the "con"side we have the following: Small, n=10 No control group Short - 5 weeks On the "pro" side, there appear to be (see small type below) significant controls in place to ensure compliance, accurate reporting of intake, etc. Summary:  This group spontaneously decreased caloric intake by an average of 25% with a mean weight loss of 4.5 kg in 5 weeks.  That works out to 2 lbs per week weight loss ... a decent clip.  Two things I would like to highlight:

The New Paleo Diet Study: Paleo-type-style-ish Diets vs. "Paleo"

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There's a new Swedish paleo diet study out: A Palaeolithic-type diet causes strong tissue-specific effects on ectopic fat deposition in obese postmenopausal women .   The title sounds promising, but my first reaction to it, sadly, not so much about the potential findings, but, what exactly is this paleo- TYPE diet??  It would appear to be based loosely on Cordain's original Paleo Diet (I hear that's trademarked).   This was a small study, 10 women, no control group, lasting only 5 weeks.  There were some benefits including around 10 lbs average weight loss and almost 50% reduction in liver fat.  This shall be for another blog post.  But what diet was tested?  Here's the diet description from the full text: Participants were given prepared meal portions that were intended to provide an average intake of about 30 energy percentage (E%) protein, 40 E% fat (mostly unsaturated) and 30 E% carbohydrates for breakfast, lunch and dinner, together with 40 g nuts (walnut

Too funny not to post a blog on

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No idea who @PALEO_HULK is, but this is hysterical:

What's wrong with food in the Incestral Health Community

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A little trifecta for you here of things are responsible for the evolution of the term "paleotard" through neolithic times and flourishing in the present.  Some examples of dietary dogma to chew on the next time you consider what foods are *OK*  to eat. Mark Sisson First up, the man himself, the guy with the advice column "Is it Primal?"  I've read these for years now and they seem to get evermore ridiculous.   I vividly recall reading my first installment before the IIP roundups became more the rage, a "Dear Mark" about buckwheat.    At first glance, buckwheat certainly looks promising . Unlike grains, it’s not a grass, but rather a flowering pseudocereal. The triangular seed from the buckwheat plant, called a groat, is harvested and can be milled into flour or used whole in cereals. Seed? Seeds work, right? Not necessarily. While I love most seeds for their high fat content and protein, they do have to be low in carbs to pass the test.

Empty Calories

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How many times a day does a regular about the nutrition internets hear this term?  One, two ... a dozen?  In this community, it is often carbohydrates that are slapped with this tag.  I find it ridiculous to label a class of molecules as "empty" with no mention of the context in which they are found and consumed.  It is also rather warped that most of the residents of relatively wealthy countries view calories for the sake of the life sustaining energy -- so that the body doesn't have to cannibalize itself -- in a negative light.   Does anyone really think paleolithic humans thought about whether their food came with an appropriate density of vitamins and minerals?  Of course there would have been little opportunity for them to consume such foods ... those are processed/refined foods.  I also cannot envision our ancestors passing up starchy plants to consume non-digestible fibers, but that's a topic for another day.

ATP, Thermogenesis and Leptin Man's Electrons

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A little update on the adventures of a man we call Leptin Man here at The Asylum, Jack Kruse.  I skimmed his latest (6 page!) manifesto , and near as I can figure, his focus is on ATP stores.  His metabolic pathway du jour is the Pentose Phosphate Pathway (PPP).  Among many many words, he writes: TRUTH BOMB:   This pathway has only a few major endpoints, but they are all massively important for human life.  It is designed to optimally restore RNA and DNA synthesis by providing maximum recycling of ATP;  and it allows for optimal formation of bio-energenic substrates to make replenish the mitochondria’s ability to increase  total adenine nucleotides   to re-establish optimal ATP stores from beta oxidation of fats .

How a β-cell Works

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In the next day or few, I'm going to be discussing diabetes. What it is, and what the science says causes it -- at least to the current state of knowledge and understanding.  This will serve as a prelude to  a larger discussion on hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance in the pathogenesis of Type 2 diabetes.   Diabetes is   β-cell dysfunction. Period. This does not mean that other organs and the organism as a whole are not involved in this dysfunction developing, but diabetes is, ultimately, an insulin deficiency syndrome.   If that sounds "off" because of the hyperinsulinemia associated with T2, stay tuned! So I'm going to cobble together a few sources to introduce (or reintroduce) some terminology and basics of    β-cell function that will be used in future posts on this.   Molecular Formation of Insulin On a molecular level, the final product, insulin, starts out as preproinsulin, is converted to proinsulin and then finally to the insulin.  This is sho

Wagons, Wheels and Eating Disorders

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This post is a little past its shelf life, but I figured I'd publish it up anyway.  On the tail of Angelo Coppola's remarks on Jimmy Moore's 10 Things Paleo needs to address so I can continue scamming off of "paleo" post -- blogged on here -- Emily Deans over at Evolutionary Psychiatry picked up on another aspect of Angelo's remarks.  If you missed it, the first post was Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community , and she followed up with  Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community: Further Considerations .  If I have one general criticism it is that I'm not entirely sure Angelo was talking about orthorexia when he listed "Recognizing and addressing eating disorders among those who are trying Paleo approaches" among his suggestions countering Jimmy's. So while they are excellent posts, I fear the focus on the more controversial orthorexia overshadows what I see/saw quite frequently -- the development of binge eating disorders.  I'm not

More Hyperinsulinemia, Insulin-Suppressive Drugs & Obesity (and Lustig)

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Building on my last post   on this topic ... So far I've spent most of the blogging on a study comparing 3 doses of octreotide, an insulin suppressing drug, vs. placebo in a subset of obese people pre-tested and determined to be insulin hypersecreters as defined by a corrected ratio for insulin to glucose levels.  This post will focus more on two other studies using this drug, perhaps just the first ... let's see how long this gets ;-)    I think it will be easiest to number the 3 studies, all bearing Lustig's name: Study 1: Suppression of insulin secretion is associated with weight loss and altered macronutrient intake and preference in a subset of obese adults  (2003) Study 2: Obesity, leptin resistance, and the effects of insulin reduction   (2004) Study 3: A multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-finding trial of a long-acting formulation of octreotide in promoting weight loss in obese adults with insulin hypersecretion .  (2006) I

Quantum Bullshit

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I don't follow Jack Kruse's antics much any more.  Every now and then, however, he comes up in a social media or email note.  He's still at it -- though there is no longer an answer at his practice phone number, so hopefully that means he's no longer actively performing neurosurgery.  From a Krusite on FB :   Humans are designed to eat an electron dense diet because they have a shortened gut and expanded brain that steepens their energy needs and restricts their sleep needs to 7.5- 8.5 hours. This implies that humans must have evolved around a diet high in electron density from food and their environment. It is hard to believe Jack has been talking this electron nonsense for going on two years now.  I suppose this is what happens in a community that fails to police itself when it comes to science ... but I digress. In any case, I have apparently missed the first however many incoherences Jack has created in his EMF series but since he's still on the rada

Jimmy Moore's latest NuttyK Update

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Yep folks, more lies!   I'll send you to Facebook for this update ;-) , you'll see why in a minute.  Well Jimmy has lost a bit more weight and is now at 240.2 which puts him at the brink of seeing a 23_ on the scale any day now.  This means he's now only 10 lbs over his "goal weight" from 2004.   However, he has lied once again to his readers when in his blog post he says  My current weight of 240.2 is the lowest I’ve been since I started this experiment and I’m within a whisker of being back in the 230′s again…something I haven’t seen since 2006.  Umm.  Not true.  And I'd love to hear the speculation as to why he would lie like this ... repeatedly ... about something he hasn't purged from the internet and of which there is such a clear record!  

Another Non-Profit for the Incestral Health Community!

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It seems like non-profits are quickly becoming *the* way to go in the IHC.  The most ballyhooed among them is NuSI which should provide an income stream for founders Gary Taubes and Peter Attia, and some degree of gravitas to boost the waning enthusiasm over the whole carbs = insulin = obesity meme, for years to come.   There are others, like Adele Hite's low carb front supposedly out to change the national nutritional recommendations.  I have to snicker, sorry, because so long as Gatewing (Adam Kosloff --depicted here with his KKKonfederacy of Dunces benefactor) is their outreach guy, I simply cannot take such an organization seriously.   But today I learn that Jonathan Bailor is launching his own non-profit, called Slim Is Simple (SIS) today.  There's not much there yet, as of this posting, with the exception of a logo -- portraying women through the ages, apparently -- that is nominally to highly offensive, depending on how long one scrutinizes it, and considering tha

The problem with (NOT) giving medical advice in the Incestral Health Community

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Just about every major blogger and guru in the IHC has a lengthy medical disclaimer page.  They are not providing medical advice on the internet because if they are an MD it's illegal (my understanding of the law, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here),  and if they are not, it's illegal to practice without a license.  Same goes for nutritional advice and all that.   Right after the medical disclaimer, where you've usually been given the "I have no special training in what I'm about to convey" spiel, or, the flipside, the disclaimer is signed with a name and a litany of letters after it.  And from time to time, you get nothing more than a telling of someone's story on how they cured themselves.  The IHC is big on this.  One of the more recent trends in the IHC is the promotion of ketogenic diets for curing cancer.  I consider this to be wholly irresponsible unless there is a focus on using the diet in conjunction with medical therapies that