Perfect Health Diet Evolving??

Note:  Some of the graphics I'm going to use in this post aren't great, but I don't think I need make much comment as to the changing picture of the so-called Perfect Health Diet.  

Paul Jaminet has called his diet the most scientifically sound version of the paleo diet (small caps).  In his tribute to Seth Roberts, Paul wrote:
The weaknesses of Seth’s approach to science show up best, I think, in how he ate. Although he considered ours the “sanest” diet book, he didn’t eat our diet. He prized his own experimental results above all else. If an experiment persuaded him that eating something would improve his health, he ate it.
To my mind, this led him on a somewhat fanciful peregrination through dietary parameter space. His approach risked two pitfalls:
  • ...
  • ...  most modern health problems take 60 years to develop. So there was no way for Seth to directly appraise whether his diet would generate good health or poor health; ...
It is because of these two problems that our book, Perfect Health Diet, rejected experimental approaches to dietary science, and relied upon novel approaches grounded in evolutionary biology, and molecular and cellular biology.
There can be no doubt that Paul believes his diet is backed by these principles, but if it indeed were, why has the diet changed in the span of around four years?    

[For some of the reasons I do not believe Paul's diet to be backed by the scientific evidence see:  No, Paul Jaminet, the LoBAG Diet Isn't "Close" to the Perfect Health Diet Either (this post contains links to other critiques and/or mentions of the diet).  Also this:  Perfect Health Diet Macronutrient Ratios ~ Part I: Breast Milk .]

from Fat Head Q&A
May 2014
There has been a definitive dialing back of the fat content and upping of the carb content -- a 10% swing.  Carbs are now 30% vs. 20% while fat has been decreased from 65% down to 55% .  This may not seem that consequential, but Paul goes to great lengths to specify optimal ranges for humans based on various rationales.  Further, an increase from 20% to 30% of total energy from carbs constitutes an increase in the absolute carbohydrate intake of 50%.  The decrease in fat content is less pronounced on an absolute level, but significant nonetheless.  



 The Evolution  


2010 e-book



Kindle Version (2011) of the Original Late 2010 Paperback 

'

New Late 2012 Scribner Edition


2014 Version from Perfect Health Diet Retreat













Now, to be fair, these recommendations are similar to the 2012 book ... but in contrast to the infographic presented several times on the pages of that book.  Indeed the ranges of macros in the book go even higher on the carbs and lower on the fat.  (Beginning at Kindle location 203)

The Perfect Health Diet in Brief The Perfect Health Diet is, by calories, a low-to-moderate-carbohydrate (20 to 35 percent), high-fat (50 to 65 percent), moderate-protein (15 percent) diet. However, by weight, the diet is about 65 percent plant foods, 35 percent meats and oils.
Again, it would be nitpicky in general were someone to point out inconsistencies in, say, the diet of a general population.  These are "edicts" for "perfect health" however, based on years of research of human evolution and physiology.  As such, they should not be evolving.
DO eat:  
• About one pound per day— roughly, four fist-sized servings —of “safe starches ”: white rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro, winter squashes, and a few others. Add up to another pound of sugary plants— fruits, berries, beets, carrots, and such— and as many low-calorie vegetables as you like. Be sure to include a bit of seaweed, for minerals. In total, you might eat 2 to 3 pounds of plant foods.
• At least a half pound, probably not more than one pound, of fatty meats, seafood , and eggs. Once a week, eat salmon or other cold-water fish for omega-3 fatty acids.
• Eat 2 to 4 tablespoons of healthful cooking oils and fats per day— enough to make your food delicious but not oily. Butter, sour cream, beef tallow, duck fat, coconut oil, olive oil, and tree nut butters are the best fats. Use spices, including salt. Liberally use acids such as vinegar, lemon juice, and lime juice.
• Adjust the amount of food to fit your appetite, but keep these relative proportions of plant and animal foods. Adjust the proportions of fat, starch, and protein to make your food as delicious as possible.
The new graphic is now 3 pounds plants, 1 pound meat on the top end, while meat minimums have been raised to 0.2 lbs from 0.5 lbs (an increase of 40% of the previous minimum).  

Some Strange Things:

  • Honey, which is 50% fructose (calculated from sugar breakdown and assigning half of sucrose to fructose from here) is up there on the leaf with "non-fructose sweeteners".  Honey is a very recent addition to the PHD for sure!  PHD has always included verbiage on the toxicity of fructose, a la the man himself, Robert Lustig.  Combined with the specific 1 pound recommendation for sweet plants, it seems an odd turn.
  • Butter is the first fat -- pay no attention to its dairy derivation I suppose.   Of all the so-called neolithic foods, dairy remains the one that we can be pretty sure humans rarely if ever consumed post weaning.
  • Including fats in flavorings makes sense for a "balanced diet" (e.g. one where you use a pat of butter as a condiment).  But the high end of 4T refined fats to round out the caloric needs of a diet limited in carb and protein?   That's one-quarter cup of added fats.  Not paleo, and not backed by evolution.
  • I just think it is hilarious that a line is drawn between a peanut and a walnut or almond.  One is a "never eat" legume, the others are "pleasure foods" alongside chocolate and dairy and sweets.  The nutritional profiles of these three foods are quite similar (from here, here and here) and all the so-called evils of legumes are present in nuts and other PHD approved foods.


So meanwhile ....


Paul has made PHD into a full blown business what with luxury health retreats and the like.   Ultimately, there is little science or basic human cultural evidence, to back up much of what is put forth in the books.  There is some solid stuff in there, but the part that makes it PHD?  That is just not there.  The diet  is really just another collection of  rules cobbled together from cherry picked studies and personal preferences.  Of all the paleos, he has least claim to the label given the foods advised.  That would be fine, but for the fact that he weaves "paleolithic" lore into the rationale for the diet, after all, most of paleo isn't authentic (as much as it even could be) anyway.

It is more than unfortunate that a promising "moderate" approach could go so far off the rails in the name of science.

Jimmy Moore and his wife are currently on one of the retreats, and reporting blood glucose readings that are disturbing to them.  There was a time when PHD seemed a great stepping stone out of the carbophobic rabbit hole:  paleo or otherwise.  But the more you look, the more you learn, and the books really paint a much more focused view than his website ever did.  It is silly to even think that the metabolic damage (and it is damage, though maybe not permanent) that has been brought on by Jimmy's diet since 2008 or so, exacerbated by the uber extreme hypercaloric high fat diet can be addressed in even a month of a less high fat diet like PHD.  Like others, PHD is only likely helpful coming from full on SAD-junk diet.  

I'll leave you with this graphic from the 2012 book.
I suppose the Inuit are missing here, but it is clear that nobody reporting data are consuming under 40% carbohydrate.  Contrary to Paul's claims, many traditional cultures from where he claims to glean food cues (e.g. Pacific Islanders),  traditionally consumed more carbohydrate rather than the high fat diet he espouses.  When it comes to self experimentation, it IS these high fat diets that are the self-experiment with no long term track record in free living humans to back up the claims of health ... let alone perfect health.


Comments

Just a couple of random comments from a fan of Paul's and the PHD.

"There can be no doubt that Paul believes his diet is backed by these principles, but if it indeed were, why has the diet changed in the span of around four years?"

Maybe because his understanding of the principles and/or the specifics has changed as a result of further reading and/or research?

"I just think it is hilarious that a line is drawn between a peanut and a walnut or almond."

I believe Paul includes peanuts as much for their link to allergies as for their anti-nutrients wrt being a legume. Me, I hate all nuts, but at least walnuts and almonds are less likely to be a source of aflatoxins!

"Jimmy Moore and his wife are currently on one of the retreats, and reporting blood glucose readings that are disturbing to them."


They have been doing a ketogenic diet for how long and only started eating starch on Sunday?! I'd be surprised if they didn't have readings "disturbing" to them. Or did Paul advise them to ramp up carbs before they appeared?
Gordon said…
I can't find my copy of the Scribner edition(paper) but my recollection is that the problem with peanuts was aflatoxin. That may have been from the first edition, which went on walkabout. Or I could be completely wrong. But I'm pretty sure.

Since we're on the subject of legumes, one thing I noticed changing between the first edition and the second was that the section at the end on how to be a healthy vegetarian was deleted. In the first edition, he recommended properly prepared beans, along with eggs and dairy (and seafood if possible), as part of a healthy vegetarian diet.

He also deleted his advice to vegans, which was probably a good move. (It was to read "The Vegetarian Myth")



Gordon
Gordon said…
Agreed about Jimmy. At this point, anything that happens to him is for entertainment only, it's not useful data. Unless you're in the same plight, in which case we add you to our prayers as well ...

Gordon
K W said…
Avoid toxins, but go ahead and drink your alcohol... what?
Thumbdriver said…
I once went to a Paul Jaminet talk at a Paleo-person's home (promoting one of his books)... It was so bizarre. He went on showing how correlation isn't causation with some fat thing (probably Ancel Keys). And then in what seemed to be an unintentional comedy act, pivoted to how increases of omega-6 consumption correlated strongly with violence in the U.S., and were likely causal because blah blah blah.
carbsane said…
Hi Gordon, I just searched on aflatoxin and the only mention was not related to peanuts. They are pretty much identified as and lumped in with dastardly toxic and "F" grade nutrition legumes in the book.


__________________________________

In the shadow of the apple are foods to avoid: grains except white rice; beans, peanuts, and other calorie-dense legumes;

Jaminet, Paul; Jaminet, Shou-Ching (2012-12-11). Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat (Kindle Locations 228-229). Scribner. Kindle Edition.

F Wheat, corn, and other grains; peanuts

Jaminet, Paul; Jaminet, Shou-Ching (2012-12-11). Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat (Kindle Locations 3419-3420). Scribner. Kindle Edition.

F High-omega-6 seed oils: soybean oil, canola oil, safflower oil, corn oil, peanut butter

Jaminet, Paul; Jaminet, Shou-Ching (2012-12-11). Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat (Kindle Locations 3450-3451). Scribner. Kindle Edition.

Beans and peanuts— the high-calorie seeds of legumes— are just as dangerous as grains when eaten raw and still risky after cooking.

Jaminet, Paul; Jaminet, Shou-Ching (2012-12-11). Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat (Kindle Locations 4001-4002). Scribner. Kindle Edition.

Since human carbohydrate needs can easily be met with safer and more nutritious foods, we believe there is little reward and much risk to eating toxin-rich legumes such as beans and peanuts. The only legumes we eat are peas and green beans.

Jaminet, Paul; Jaminet, Shou-Ching (2012-12-11). Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat (Kindle Locations 4062-4063). Scribner. Kindle Edition.



________________
Kitty said…
The "toxins" in legumes (i.e. phytates) have been shown to have anti-cancer properties and to prevent osteoporosis. People who eat beans have better blood sugar control, less heart disease, lower BMIs and live longer. Blue zones are full of bean-eaters. Jaminet definitely cherry picks his data.
Kitty said…
I thought that mycotoxins were the reason we are supposed to subsist on nothing but buttered coffee and eggs.
Kitty said…
I'm following his tweets, purely for entertainment. He basically disagrees with everything Jaminet says, but continues to post constantly about it.


One of the links was interesting in that the slide he posted explained muscle wasting on a low-carb diet (body making glucose from muscle stores in the absence of carbs), and Jimmy (who has obviously lost what little muscle he had in "nutritional ketosis") scoffed at the idea. You'd think a guy with a sunken chest and enormous gut would be more open.
Ancestral Chemist said…
I think the real problem here is that Jaminet's trying to fix one restrictive, mostly nonsensical diet with another, slightly different restrictive diet. The actual "fix" for Paleo would be the reverse approach--abandon the weird obsessions and just eat normal, healthy food most of the time.

Too bad that too many people are looking for the quick fix and will pay money to fringe theorists... (no offense, but that's what Jaminet is)
carbsane said…
It's a curious business arrangement. Jimmy didn't mention Jaminet by name, but disses safe starches in Keto Clarity and openly mocks the idea of glucose deficiency, scurvy, etc. that Jaminet talks about.

So I don't know what Paul is thinking, only that apparently Jimmy makes the cut in http://relationshipeconomics.com/
carbsane said…
Hi Beth,


I don't think Paul's understanding changed or that additional research has caused a change of heart. At least the paleo template folks will talk about "new" information. Paul pretty much dismissed the person who challenged his breast milk claim (that all mammals have roughly same macro ratios) a while back which I found disappointing. As well, the "nutrient transformation" stuff is still in the book. This idea from Barry Groves never did hold up in humans and calling SCFA "fats" in a metabolic sense is erroneous. By that I mean they don't go to the mitochondria to be broken down by beta oxidation, most are metabolized in the gut or processed in the liver.


Maybe he's sliding down the fat scale a bit?


I clipped a few quotes for Gordon from the latest version. He doesn't mention aflatoxin in the context of peanuts in the book. Mostly just labels all legumes "F" grade sources of nutrition -- a view that is pretty widely countered by the human experience.
Jane Karlsson said…
Paul Jaminet said a few years ago that he would stop eating white rice if evidence against it turned up. Well, it did turn up. It's in this paper, which shows a 'strong linear association' between white rice intake and hyperglycemia in China.
http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/APJCN/21/1/35.pdf

This paper is a killer, because white rice intake was positively correlated with veggie intake. You'd think it would be OK to eat white rice if you eat a lot of veggies, but apparently not.

Paul has a serious problem here. White rice has had most of its manganese removed, and manganese deficiency causes diabetes. Does he know that? Probably not, because the definitive paper was only published last year. Until then it was not known how high fat diets cause diabetes, and now we know they do it by lowering manganese.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23372018

The authors of this paper had previously shown in mice with hereditary iron overload, that the excess iron stops manganese from getting into mitochondria, so the enzyme MnSOD doesn't work. This caused diabetes, which means it's the iron-manganese ratio that matters. MnSOD is very important. The hydrogen peroxide it produces goes to the nucleus and activates an anti-ageing programme. Manganese is probably the micronutrient above all others which prevents age related disease.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18067683

BUT Paul thinks manganese is toxic so you shouldn't supplement it. Any other supplement but not that. His diet is quite high in meat, which has a very high iron-manganese ratio and is associated with diabetes, and in saturated fat which also raises the iron-manganese ratio.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11697763
John Smith said…
Aflatoxin is not naturally present in peanuts, it is a fungus that can develop on the product if processed and handled incorrectly.


Improper handling of any food can result in toxicity, that's why you shouldn't eat rare pork.
charles grashow said…
http://instagram.com/p/uJzf3SzJtM/

150-minute postprandial blood sugar reading after both rice and potato in my meal at the #PerfectHealthRetreat and it remains elevated. Was 101 prior to meal. Don't know 1-hour postprandial level, but I'm guessing over 150. Was it the rice? Seems plausible.
Kitty said…
If so, it's not really the rice that's the problem and Jaminet's claim that it is non-toxic still holds. It's not the rice per se, it's that his diet is too high in iron and too low in manganese (by your reasoning).


I went and looked at his list of recommended supplements. Good heavens.
EF said…
I'll agree that his approach has been slightly tweaked but his fundamentals have remained the same.

Isn't that good?

I'd rather having someone say that my guidelines have changed because I know more about this or that than someone who just dismisses new information. Isn't science about learning, re-evaluating and evolving? In this area, there are too many marketeers cloaked as dietitians that refuse to update their knowledge.

In the beginning of your post you show that his recommendations have "evolved" by showing his levels of recommended macronutrients his slightly varied. Based on that, you then conclusively state "[u]ltimately, there is little science or basic human cultural evidence, to back up much of what is put forth in the books." What's the basis for that statement? Paul's reputation is that his recommendations are routinely based in science and ancestral health. His books have hundreds and hundreds of cites to scientific literature.

Thanks
Chris Wilson said…
wow, this just makes me sad. I realized that PHD was being marketed,
but everything about the so-called AHC now seems so gimmicky and
fake-out. I was down the Paleo rabbit-hole twice in my life. First in
2004 in its purer 'anthropological' form, but the diet (high protein,
high veg, no grains legumes or dairy) was too impractical. Then again
around 2009-2011 when Jaminet, Kresser, Masterjohn and co. seemed to be
on a major roll, and the high-fat mantra was a lot easier to swallow
than the Eaton/Cordain original version. But there were always
inconsistencies: the discordance from any documented ancestral diet, the
contradiction by Kitavans, Blue Zones, cohort trials, and the selective
use of correlation != causation except when it's a message the AHC
wants to hear, etc. Eventually the cognitive dissonance was just too
much, and I had to let go of the world-view. Thus I'm not surprised by
the accumulating evidence that 'authority figures' within the AHC are
having to backpeddle or significantly revise the circa 2010 consensus
version.
I'm really thankful to have left behind both the food
obsession, and the dogma. I think Michael Pollan was more right than
wrong in boiling things down to, "eat real food, mostly plants, and not
too much". There's a lot that's wrong with the world, including our
dysfunctional food system, but the Paleo/AHC/PHD/Low-Carb/Whatever are
not part of the solution. At this point, they're part of the problem.
Screennamerequired said…
It's pretty damn easy to cite scientific literature. I'm amazed at the people who think this somehow justifies his conclusions without even reading the studies and putting them in proper context.

Do you seriously think his high fat diet that excludes legumes and oats is "ancesteral'

Apparently legumes are "Toxic". Maybe his views need to "evolve". Or maybe he needs to concede that his diet recommendations are based on cherry picked studies and his own intuition.
Screennamerequired said…
Apparently brown rice is "toxic".


Somehow I've managed to include it in my slow cooked stews for the last several years without being overloaded with toxins. White refined rice is somewhat similar to refined sugar. Wouldn't someone who is interested in "whole foods" recommend the less refined brown rice?
Screennamerequired said…
That basically sums up the whole paleo mindset. Correlation isn't causation. Unless sugar or 06 oils correlate with ill health.
2lbs of Starch said…
For every "perfect diet" book, Amazon should suggest a bundle with Matt Fitzgerald's Diet Cults. It goes perfectly with almost every title in the Health and Weightloss category.
Jane Karlsson said…
Yes it's interesting, isn't it. Nobody thinks phytic acid is a problem any more, so why do people still think white rice is better than brown rice?
MacSmiley said…
I'd rather having someone say that my guidelines have changed because I know more about this or that than someone who just dismisses new information. Isn't science about learning, re-evaluating and evolving?

Unfortunately, where evidence is concerned, Jaminet strains out the gnat but gulps down the proverbial camel. There is way more evidence which Paul ignores than science which he chooses to heed. Can you say cherry picking and pet theory?
MacSmiley said…
I heard about that paper on white rice and diabetes when it first came out. Isn't it interesting, although the Chinese have been eating massive amounts of white rice for æons, they had no problem with diabetes until they started eating American amounts of meat?
MacSmiley said…
Yup. We can count on Fox News to leave sensationalism in the basement, can't we?
Sanjeev Sharma said…
His overarching framework seems to be this u-curve idea

he doesn't seem to share my perception of his selective application
Sanjeev Sharma said…
> reactive oxygen species and lead to sudden heart

... no mention of blockages / arterial health?

Charles, have you come across / seen any more valid info on Seth? Has Paul seen an autopsy's results? Do we know for sure Roberts did not have some kind of congenital defect like Jim Fixx?



... I somehow doubt "ROS" is on the death certificate
carbsane said…
I wondered as well, until I realized just how "ground floor" he is in the Ancestral Health Society. He is Editor & Chief of their "academic journal" ... nuf said.


When Jimmy started his first safe starch nonsense, Paul ran with it to Mercola "debating" Rosedale. This was when Emily Deans delisted PHD from her blog roll (eh ... she still has MDA on there last I checked).


Of course anyone publicly speculating on the commercial success (dunno how successful) of PHD will be accused of jealousy.
carbsane said…
Agree there! In the first linked post of mine here, I discussed that overarching framework. He uses it for everything he considers toxic and then gives SFA and MUFA a free ride -- e.g. there is no upper limit ever.


With alcohol, he seems to go quite far in detailing how to imbibe and mitigate potential negatives (e.g. don't consume PUFA with it, etc). How about not imbibing? This is his view on fructose. 25g is his limit for toxicity. 1-3 drinks per day = about 15 to 45g alcohol.
carbsane said…
His sister posted prelim on his blog -- he had an enlarged heart and blockages.
carbsane said…
>>> I'll agree that his approach has been slightly tweaked but his fundamentals have remained the same.

Isn't that good?
<<<



It would be if that's what is going on. You have two tracks in the IHC -- (1) those who stick to principals despite evidence (new or long pre-existing) to the contrary or (2) those who tweak based on "new" evidence (regardless of whether it is new to everyone else or just them).


Paul has sealed his fate as a #1 early on. So if his fundamentals are the same, there should be no budging on the diet.
Pretty much this . . .

Tossing in a bunch of divergent ideas and dietary models--that work in their individual contexts--isn't necessarily the hallmark of a bulletproof solution. As a matter of fact, it often requires cherry picking and selective analysis where other aspects of those same solutions, that may actually be useful, are discarded entirely.

So, let us partially emulate pacific islander style food consumption, but make it rather high fat and rid ourselves of those toxic grains.

Let us take some healthy habits from the blue zones, but then suddenly defer into an entirely digressive study of ideal fat and carbohydrate intake as it correlates with longevity in Europe. Because that's when correlations is causation, just because. Oh, and then mash the two together--but make sure the beans and legumes stay out--and we're sure this is going to work. The minor details, we can tweak.
Kitty said…
Okay, you just compared white rice (consumed in copious amounts daily by millions of perfectly healthy Asians) to poison and said that it is actually preferable to give children heroin. Sorry, Jane, but you're out to lunch.


This is the sort of insane hyperbole that leads to eating disorders and stupid diets.
billy the k said…
"Ms Karlsson thinks if your diet requires supplementation it's not a good diet."

Agreed.  [And I've always respected Nathan Pritikin for rejecting
veganism
on just this basis; he advised a pint of milk (skim, of course) & one serving of meat (lean, of course) per day, precisely to
avoid the need to swallow a calcium pill plus a B₁₂ pill).

But my question was rather about what your advice would be with 
regard to Mn supplementation for someone who was not 
eating a diet that supplied adequate amounts of everything needed.  Such as someone who was currently eating a hi-fat low-carb diet—
[~50-100g/day carbs].  What amount of Mn supplementation do you think is advisable for such a person to avoid the insulin problems associated with hi-fat low-carb diets?  5mg/day?  10mg/day? 15??  [this isn't a trick question Jane—you've seen a lot of studies on this topic and I'd like to hear your thoughts on what you think an adequate daily intake would look like.]
Kitty said…
Oh, my. Moore's wife is having her medical history (i.e. a litany of weird ailments caused by years on a wacky diet) gone over in detail by... Paul Jaminet. I guess that since Jimmy had to "educate" his wife's doctor about her lipid panels that he has decided to take her to a diet-book author to get some useful medical advice. What is wrong with these people? They are in awful health, especially considering their ages, yet they persist.


Jimmy also said that his wife has been hungry on the (ad libitum!) Perfect Health Diet. Those two have either really screwed up their bodies or his wife is the brain-washed robot I suspect she is and is walking around quacking "Carbs make me hungry!" like a parrot.
K W said…
Oh wow, she also continues to associate with the acupuncturist "cough quack cough" Chris Kresser too.



Yeah anti-flu vax, anti-vitamin K shots for babies, anti-gmo Chris Kresser, the "Healthy skeptic" - LOL.


All of that x-fit must help Dr. Deans mentally hurdle that level of cognitive dissonance.
charles grashow said…
Now the only question is what will he do if he continues to get readings like this? Abandon NK??
Lighthouse Keeper said…
If Seth could speak with us now he would probably put his early demise down to the high pollution levels in Beijing where he taught at the university for a large part of each year and not the Mooresque slabs of butter he consumed on a daily basis. He was highly concerned about these Beijing airborne toxins and reckoned they were causing serious harm to his health.
Air pollution as a causal factor in cardiovascular disease is now under serious scientific scrutiny.
All those of you who are apt to succumb to the absurd food fearmongering of the low carb and paleo movement better get your gas masks on if you live in a metropolis and toxin avoidance is the name of the game.
Rosie May said…
He really has nowhere to go now, soon will come Checkmate.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
He's doing a Don Matesz on the sly and I'm amazed he's getting away with it, how many are giving him a free pass.



Maybe Don never built the same level of commercial / "social" dependencies and network before reverting ...
charles grashow said…
http://instagram.com/p/uO6pP2TJtO/
50-minute postprandial blood sugar reading after Thursday night meal at #PerfectHealthRetreat. That lower blood sugar reading I got after lunch earlier today seems to be an anomaly. Seems the starch is still producing a negative blood sugar response.
Hello_I_Love_You said…
That's a normal BG response. If you eat 75 grams of startch, 50 minutes after you'd expect that level of BG or even higher. Eating zero carbs, the knucklehead has been brainwashed into thinking it should be under 100 at all times. What probably happened is the tub of goo hasn't even adjusted yet physiologically to higher starch levels. Plus his cortisol is shot so he can't control his BG starch or no starch anyway. And it's not just cortisol but a whole slew of hormones. Just look at him: he looks like Jaws from Double 07 and looks to be suffering from elephantiasis. Look at his prior blog posts and he has high BGs on his VLC diet also. Don't let him fool you. The BG levels you seen when he's not ingesting any carbs at all is evidence that the guy has wrecked his hormones. No surprise he's attributing that to eating safe starches.
Yes, and--like him or hate him--Don was more upfront with how he completely disavowed Paleo. One could argue that he sought to become a pariah for whatever reason. Of course, to the Paleo cult, he's a spineless beta male, but whatever. Kresser, on the other hand, is far more subtle, by the leagues, as he manoeuvres within the community without galvanising any given faction's cherished beliefs. He takes a few risks here and there, but these gentle ripples of defiance are well within the spectrum of diplomacy.
Jane Karlsson said…
You misunderstood me Kitty. This is what the politicians might say, not what I think. And the politicians will say whatever Big Pharma tells them. Big Pharma is in trouble. They have no new blockbusters, the old ones are coming off patent, they are drowning in lawsuits, and now they have to face the awful fact that genetics and biotechnology are never going to 'cure half our diseases and prevent the other half' as Tony Blair believed. I know some of the scientists who told him that, and I wouldn't be them right now for anything.
Screennamerequired said…
Very well worded. It sums up most fad diet protocols.
Jane Karlsson said…
Honestly Billy, I don't know. I really have no idea at all. There is only one way of getting enough Mn that I feel confident about, and that's to eat a lot of whole grains and legumes, and no refined carbs. I'm sorry I can't be of more help.
Jane Karlsson said…
Yes it is indeed interesting. I looked up the numbers once and they seemed to say the Chinese now eat 20 times as much meat as they used to. Can that figure really be right?
charles grashow said…
https://twitter.com/livinlowcarbman

EVERYTHING that Paul says with regard to TC, HDL, LDL-P, LDL-C goes against JM and his ketogenic diet. What will he do?
LWC said…
What about drinking hibiscus tea?
I'd say that a great deal of credit goes to you right here for highlighting a serious case of revisionism in this crowd. Perhaps this is why Cate Shanahan was in disbelief when Chris Kresser cited the actual paper on the Okinawan diet (no way, one of our fellow bloggers--among others--in the holy circle jerk said otherwise).
David Pete said…
Blueberries
Darryl said…
Adding small amounts of starch to a keto diet may be the worst of all worlds:


I can see the point with childhood epilepsy or perhaps metastatic cancer, but these guys are tickling the dragon with every meal.
Greta Carbo said…
This is heavy stuff Sanjeev, very heavy. Heavy, heavy! Mr. Carrier is really cool, I am watching some of his videos now, but I think this competing hypotheses stuff is way way over my head! It's going to take several days just to figure out where I am confused. Bayesian analysis... now really!?
John Smith said…
Paleo approach to health care:


1. Imaginary ailments - consult total stranger who has internet blog
2. Actual ailments - deny they exist; when denial is no longer possible, argue that they are markers of good health
Everything? Really? I thought there was largely agreement, only that Paul didn't have a favourable view of unchecked very high total cholesterol.
Snarks said…
So, what *is* a good strategy for recovering from long term low carb/paleo? Moving to paleo was easy for me. Adding grains and starches back to my diet after several years is proving to be unpleasant - migraines, digestive issues, etc. I imagine at least some of it is blood sugar related a la Jimmy.



Not trolling, genuinely looking for ways to get back to at least zone-esque macro ratios, and it seems like folks here may have been down this same path.
StellaBarbone said…
Fruit, starchy vegetables like white and sweet potatos, winter squash, root vegetables. Legumes such as split peas, black-eyed peas, lentils, garbanzo beans and lima beans are more tolerable than other types of beans. If you would like to add the other types of beans, then use Beano with them. White rice and the more exotic whole grains like quinoa and amaranth will also be the easiest to tolerate.
Snarks said…
So, at what point should someone start monitoring BG? I've been very seriously considering purchasing a meter. Never was VLC for prolonged periods, but rarely hit 100g carbs for several years, and frequently was closer to 50 - 75. Sometimes after a meal with a couple cups of rice or a large white or sweet potato I feel like my head is going to pop.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
once I decided to stick it out it took around a week to get over new symptoms.

My symptoms differed from yours: sleepiness was the predominant one, and a welcome one- these days I get insomnia after 2 day on low carb.

Milk took 6 months; getting used to one level of skim milk powder for a week or more then adding one more spoon per day

Every time I tried to go faster my results became ... ahem ... "suboptimal"
Snarks said…
Thanks. Yeah, I've only been at this for a week or so. Milk isn't an option - I became lactose intolerant when I was younger - but that's almost certainly good advice.
Kitty said…
His face looks 10-15 years older than he is, but that body rightfully belongs on an octogenarian.
charles grashow said…
Have you tried goat milk?
charles grashow said…
My question is why should it take 6 months to get a full coroner's report?
Kitty said…
You win the internet.
Kitty said…
I would go full-on Kempner rice diet. Seriously. But that's just me - I'd want it over with quickly.
Kitty said…
In my foray into VLC I complained on a forum about terrible malaise, fatigue and inability to sleep*. Of course, I got the usual recommendations for supplementing a million things, but I also got lots of people telling me that I only felt tired because I thought I should sleep and that I didn't really need much sleep because I was fat-adapted. In other words, my inability to sleep was a good thing! I had just been brainwashed by the evil mainstream into thinking that a human should get more than 20 minutes of sleep a night, because THEY don't know about ketogenic superpowers!


*I had more serious complications, like scary heart palpitations, but I was smart enough to eat some carbs at that point rather than consult a chiropractor or acupuncturist about what to do about it.
Screennamerequired said…
I suppose all those hunter gatherer societies which he claims to base his diet need to take action to double their LDL. Maybe they were suffering a grass fed butter deficiency.
Based on the papers by Himsworth, one would need to hit around 200 grams of carbohydrate for ideal insulin sensitivity and then wait *at least* a couple of weeks--if not a little more--before testing blood glucose.

In those papers, it took quite a while for the glucose to normalise, and the lipids took even longer.
Bris Vegas said…
Goat milk contains lactose.
Screennamerequired said…
I do remember that video actually. A paper was cited of the traditional Okinawan diet back in the 70's. The diet that probably played a role in their longevity. Her response? It was something like, "well I don't believe that, because I went to Japan in 2012 and that's not what they were eating at the restaurants and homes I visited".


Mr Perfect health diet also likes to cite some obscure magazine article about how their diet was "greasy" to justify his recommendations.


This was some obscure magazine article from 1996. It surely overrides all the previous observations of the Okinawan diet.


Another hilariously put together argument by the low carb/high fat tribe is that Okinawan is the "land of pork". And how they ate double or even triple the amount of pork that the Japanese ate.

From what I have read they were known for their consumption of pigs during their celebratory holidays. Nothing I have read suggests they all lived through the 1920's on pork chops for breakfast and dinner as some would have you try to believe.


From all the diet surveys that I have read from Japan in that era, Okinawan was indeed the land of the pork. They had double almost triple the consumption of pig meat and fat. What they failed to mention was that Japan averaged about 20 grams of daily pork whilst the Okwinawans averaged around 60 grams of pork daily. Hardly a "high saturated fat diet".
Jane Karlsson said…
I just looked it up. The problem with tea is high levels of aluminium, and hibiscus has less than black or green. But the one with the highest Mn-Al ratio is mate. Mate has enormous amounts of Mn.

'...The obtained results indicated that hibiscus and mate contained lower levels of aluminum (272 ± 19 μg/g and 369 ± 22 μg/g, respectively) as referred to black tea (759 ± 31 μg/g) or green tea (919 ± 29 μg/g) and suggested that mate drinking could be a good dietary source of essential micronutrient manganese (total content 2223 ± 110 μg/g, 48.1% leached to the infusion). It was also found that the infusion of hibiscus could supply greater amounts of iron (111 ± 5 μg/g total, 40.5% leached) and copper (5.9 ± 0.3 μg/g total, 93.4% leached) as compared to other infusions.'
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/796/art%253A10.1385%252FBTER%253A78%253A1-3%253A271.pdf?auth66=1413623826_408203dd5e71c814cc7c3ece84a306c5&ext=.pdf
Screennamerequired said…
Because Conventional Wisdom!. Conventional wisdom is ridiculous and must be opposed, even it if does have some merit.
Jane Karlsson said…
Yes, blueberries. And pineapple.
Jane Karlsson said…
No reply to me Kitty? Perhaps you have remembered that the 'perfectly
healthy Asians' you speak of are not nearly as healthy as the Asians studied by
McCarrison 100 years ago, who did not eat white rice but whole wheat.
StellaBarbone said…
This is a belief that pervades alternative medicine.
Bris Vegas said…
I'm afraid that there are not a lot of healthy Asians these days. Their white rice diets only worked when they had a low calorie intake and plenty of physical activity. Now they have all the diseases of Westerners.
Didn't we already go through this when Evelyn did her post on the Thais?

Their dietary habits--and health--changed substantially around the time of economic prominence, circa-80s and early 90s.

What's your argument anyway? That a high starch diet is harmful without being compensated for with heavy activity and hypocaloric intake?
Bris Vegas said…
Medicine has little scientific basis and psychiatry is probably the least scientific branch of medicine. 'Nough said.
Bris Vegas said…
Western countries have very strict controls on aflatoxin levels in peanuts.
Bris Vegas said…
Just like reality TV where close friends pretend to hate each other to increase ratings?
Jane Karlsson said…
I eat a lot of dairy, so I suppose I'm a lactovegetarian. 30 years ago I read about McCarrison's work, and adopted the diet of the people he studied, who were probably the healthiest people in the world at that time. They ate whole grains, sprouted legumes, fruit/veg and dairy products. No eggs, but that seems to have been because they didn't like what chickens did to their crops. Meat every 10 days on average. Very little fish.

Here's an account of McCarrison's work. It was published in 1938, and remains IMO the best book on nutrition ever written.
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0203cat/020301wrench/02030100frame.html
Jane Karlsson said…
Well Mn is actually excreted in the bile. Very little in the urine. But you're right, its ease of excretion makes dietary Mn non toxic. Inhaling it is a different matter.
Jane Karlsson said…
Sounds to me like you have a problem with your gut bacteria.
Yes, I am familiar with McCarrison's work and you have referenced it in the past. The question was prompted by something you had said recently about calcium requirements being overstated/stressed in standard nutrition guidelines. Perhaps I had misunderstood.

Thanks.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
>at what point should someone start monitoring BG?

maybe, MAYBE after your HbA1c shows up as significantly worse than normal; As I understand it (this is NOT my specialty) some studies have found even outright diabetics don't get large benefits from monitoring BG.



I don't know if the Bernstein methods which some diabetics swear by have been skeptically analyzed


as far as information goes, more is not necessarily better.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
I had forgotten about Himsworth ... added to the 2do stack. The stack that may shrink one day
Jane Karlsson said…
Sorry. I forget some people do actually pay attention to what I say.
Yeah, good stuff. Billy shared some excellent Himmsworth material regarding carbohydrate requirement for insulin sensitivity.
So, about that related question . . . What's your daily average intake and preferred food types when it comes to dairy?
Jane Karlsson said…
Breakfast is two very thick slices of wholemeal bread loaded with butter and honey, and a glass of whole milk. No lunch or snacks. Supper is bread and cheese; short cooked veggies with sprouted lentils and yoghurt; and oats with fruit and nuts and whole milk.

Dairy and whole grains make a good combination because dairy is very low in copper, and the saturated fat can inhibit copper absorption. Whole grains have good amounts of copper, and also phytic acid, which improves copper absorption.
Gordon said…
From the neck down, he looks exactly like my Grandmother did when she was in her 80s and 90s ...

Gordon
LWC said…
Can you still eat cheese? I became lactose intolerant post menopause, but I can still eat most cheeses if I'm judicious in amount consumed. Goat's milk and sheep's milk are supposed to have less lactose than cow's milk, thus cheeses from those milks have less lactose.


If you're determined to have cow's milk, there is Lactaid (which I have never tried) or pills (which I have tried but which did not work for me).
StellaBarbone said…
Could it be something else that's bothering you? Intermittent fasting, supplements, vitamins? Missing meals, sleep or caffeine are three big headache triggers. Vitamins and supplements are always advertised as 100% positive, but that's just hype. They are often nauseating and can cause other reactions too. They're almost completely unregulated. Is adding "toxic" carbs back to your diet causing you anxiety? Anxiety isn't always rational. I've been retired for over a year and I still have anxiety on Sunday nights.

Introduce reasonable amounts of fiber rich starchy vegetables and you won't see particularly bad blood sugar spikes. You should recover the storage of pre-formed insulin pretty quickly. The human body is quite adaptable to varying diets.
StellaBarbone said…
I had a tyoe I patient who had been Dr. B's patient for several years. At first it worked well, but eventually he just had so much trouble maintaining his weight. He had had some mysterious symptoms that had been improved on the diet and whose cause I quite accidently uncovered in a blind squirrel moment. After he went off the diet he looked much better, felt much better, gained weight and was able to get a job, etc. I had other, disciplined type I's who did equally well, though. That constant monitoring is a drag.
Wuchtamsel said…
Holy shit, it gets worse.
Snarks said…
Huh - my first comment went missing.


Yes, my guts are low in bacteria. Two different tests have said as much. Tummy trouble was one of the main reasons for having gone paleo in the first place, and it worked for a few years. For a few more years I was able to eat fewer and fewer foods. I'm hoping that adding carbs back to my diet will help some in that respect. Fermented foods and home made yoyurt, etc, have not.
Snarks said…
I'm a few weeks shy of 42. I've been lactose intolerant since my early-mid 20s. I'm not really trying to add milk back to my diet, cow's, sheep's, goat's, etc. I can eat cheese, in limited quantities, but if I eat it, it's as a "condiment" and not as a major additive.
Snarks said…
I should point out that that should read "I've only been at this a week or so *this time around*" - I have been down this road 3 or 4 times already, and haven never succeeded. I have not had any migraines this time around, but generally that's what causes the experiments to end. I can deal with an unhappy tummy, I cannot deal with headaches with a visual aura while I'm driving.
Snarks said…
I do take supplements - a multivitamin, 10-20k iu vitamin d a day, desiccated liver tabs, and sometimes magnesium. I have been taking these for a long time, though the vit d was ramped up over the period of about a year since I was constantly low in it. At 20k iu a day I've reached sufficiency.

I should mention that I'm possibly celiac. No tga test ever came back positive, but the first time I was tested was several years after going grain free. A genetic cascade test suggested that I have the genes for it. I haven't had a biopsy done, but I have no interest in having one.

I have no anxiety surrounding carbs at all. I've never been dogmatic about diet in the slightest. I went paleo to try to resolve a large number of real issues I have or had. At this point, I have a whole host of other issues that I want to see if I can resolve, to a degree, by adding more starch to my diet.

I'm not a hypochondriac, either, fwiw. I don't try to fix imaginary issues - I have plenty of real ones verifiable via bloodwork, to spend any time trying to fight make believe things. Just figured I'd mention that - I'm 100% completely anti-woo.

All of this said, I haven't seen any responses along the lines of "oh, yeah, that's normal, I had to add rice back a quarter cup at a time" or whatever. Maybe the best strategy, and the irony of this isn't lost on me, is to follow the PHD for a few weeks/months and then ramp up from there.

Thanks very much for all the input :-)
Snarks said…
I truly think I might end up in the hospital if I tried that. I have nothing at all against rice - it's delicious, and it's obviously the major staple many places - but too much of it makes me feel like I have massive pressure inside my head (sort of like I have to pop my ears, but I don't), makes my ears ring, and can trigger migraines.
billy the k said…
Yeah—the other major factor required for half-decent glucose tolerance is your "glucose-using" enzyme— hexokinase—which is aninducible enzyme, meaning that it requires a regular supply of exogenous glucose in order to be fully
up-and-running. Low-carb intakes result in a functional atrophy of the glucose-using enzyme inside the cell—an evolutionary adaptive response to spare the protein catabolism which would otherwise occur to produce the glucose still required by the brain and other obligate glucose-using tissues. George Cahill explained that it'll take some time for anyone leaving a low-carb diet to get things back in shape in order to be able to handle the greater carb intake:

"A second process occurs [to spare nitrogen], namely a functional atrophy of the glucose-using enzyme in the cell so even if insulin should rise [i.e, as it will with the now greater carb intake], a diminished glucose uptake persists until the enzyme hexokinase has been resynthesized. These phenomena explain the diabetic-type glucose tolerance in any individual deprived of dietary carbohydrate."
[George Cahill. Physiology of Insulin in Man. Banting Memorial Lecture. Diabetes. Dec. 1971. Vol.20; No. 12 [p.796]
Snarks said…
"as far as information goes, for health more is not necessarily better"

So true. Especially when so much of the information out there is conflicting. NK cures diabetes! 100% starch diet cures diabetes! Going totally rawsome cures diabetes! Fruity 811 cures diabetes. Fructose, grains, sugar, meat, oils, toxins, etc.

But obviously even quantifiable data points like BG and rising temp can be problematic if you never get a "good" reading, or if they become focal points for paranoia.



I'm not that way. I'm just worried that I might actually be close to harming myself, and would rather not. OTOH, I'd rather not jab my finger if I don't have to.


Is there any real value in the 6 hour bg tests? I've read that even they can be highly misleading unless they outright show diabetes.
Snarks said…
Huh. The sleep part of that is curious since most paleos insist that 8 hours is a *minimum* and most would shoot for more like 10, in total darkness, circadian rithym, etc, etc.

I'm trying to figure out if any of these people are raising children or have real jobs since on a week night I'm lucky to get 5 or 6. I keep waiting for Paul to post about the new rules about sleeping less now that he has a baby.
Snarks said…
Oh, and I do IF. I do it because it seems to make my tummy much happier, not because I think there's magic in it. I don't care how Grok ate, so I'm not trying to mimic something make believe. It's one of the things I'm planning on fiddling with immediately - smaller more frequent meals instead of 2 huge ones. TBH I don't like soveling that much food in at once anyhow.
Snarks said…
Ok, so it sounds like it's probably normal for long term LC to cause BG issues. I wonder if the major difference between people is the incidence of symptoms. Like I mentioned in another post, when I initially went paleo, I had no carb flu, etc, when I went paleo. Other than gassing more easily and smelling like cat piss after a couple hours of jiu jitsu I didn't notice many negative effects at all, and many positive ones. It may be that there's some link between how easy it is to remove carbs versus how difficult it is to reintroduce them.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
no idea, but these and other articles have made me cautious about blood sugar.



https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Acarbsanity.blogspot.com+blood+glucose+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=daRCVPzVLcSC8QfJiYCADw


The Andrew Kim articles I've read didn't trigger my skepticality but as I'm limiting my internet time I haven't delved deeply on his site.



Good talking with you and good luck - my big project was put on hold for a few days but starts again tomorrow & I'll probably only lurk again for a while.
Snarks said…
I'm hardly an expert, but from my POV, the main thing we see with all places getting less healthy in a "western" way is less movement and more food, especially garbage food. And I mean twinkies and bugles, not white rice.
Snarks said…
The fact that bulletproof coffee even requires debunking speaks volumes about the depths we've sunken to, both in diet and in intellect.
billy the k said…
 Evidence shows that reintroducing carbs after a period of low-carb intake will take certainly take a bit of time before your glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity can be expected to normalize.  Low-carb intakes do result in a metabolic profile similar to fasting, viz, increased gluconeogenesis and peripheral insulin resistance.  The oxidation of FFA's produced from lipolysis leads to the suppression of glucose utilization and oxidation via the Randle cycle [the glucose/fatty acid cycle], and normalizing things after reintroducing carbs will not be immediate.

Randle, for instance, put 5 normal healthy young men on a low-carb intake (<50g/d, with fat & protein unrestricted) for only five days; as compared to their pre-intervention values, they showed elevated fasting BG levels, elevated post-glucose load peak BG rises, elevated FFA's, and even elevated fasting insulin levels. On day 6, the men returned to their previous "normal diet" ( >200g/d carbs)— but things internally weren't rapidly returned to normal:

"In our experiments five days of carbohydrate deprivation led to abnormalities of plasma glucose, NEFA, and insulin during a glucose-tolerance test which persisted for at least two weeks after a return to a normal diet...After resumption of the normal diet the plasma concentrations slowly returned towards normal, but definite abnormalities were still found after fourteen days, and some may have persisted for thirty-five days."
 [P.J. Randle & C.N. Hales. Effects of Low-Carbohydrate Diet and Diabetes Mellitus on Plasma Concentrations of Glucose, Non-Esterified Fatty Acid, and Insulin During Oral Glucose-Tolerance Tests. The Lancet.Apr.13, (1963) p.790-94]
Gwen1961 said…
Snarks,

Are you taking anything for the stomach issues such as probiotics?

There
is a long story about how my husband and I "cured" our son's stomach
issues which I won't bore you with. However, the one thing that we
swear by is a particular probiotic. We needed to find a probiotic
WITHOUT bifidus - easier said than done. We found Nature's Way
Primadophilus Reuteri. We use the 5 billion CFU and adjusted the dose
for our son so that now takes 3 pills at breakfast. (Too much
probiotics will cause stomach upset.) I also make a 24 hour fermented
yogurt for him using Dannon Natural whole milk yogurt as it does not
contain bifidus.

I can give you more details of why we've
eliminated the bifidus if you're interested, but I really wanted to
share this idea with you to see if it's of any help.
Gwen1961 said…
Snarks,

Please see my comment to you below.
StellaBarbone said…
And such a waste of both good coffee and tasty butter.
StellaBarbone said…
I had almost a year of excruciating joint pain which crept up on me after I got talked into vitamin D supplements. For much of that time, I also had a weird, unseasonal flair of eczema. Both problems resolved after I stopped the vitamin D. What about stopping the supplements for six weeks to see if they are contributing to the problem?

I told a friend about my experience with vitamin D and she shared it with her arthritic mother who is also feeling substantially better within weeks of discontinuing the D. If you look on-line, though, vitamin D is frequently recommended as a treatment although a recently concluded study showed no efficacy.
billy the k said…
Unfiltered & uncooked creamed honey on buttered toast—sensationally yummy.
Thanks for the link, Charles.
Lighthouse Keeper said…
Don's Powered by Plants book is a good read Kade, just finished it.
Lighthouse Keeper said…
There is the common ground of quackupuncture but I'll take Matesz over Kresser any day.
Bris Vegas said…
Long term LC basically wipes out your gut microbiota. You need to restore it by taking a probiotic capsule, eating plenty of fruit and taking soluble fibre such as Benefiber or Metameucil. .t will probably take at least 6-12 moths for the microbiota to significantly recover.
Snarks said…
I was fermenting my own veggies for a while with mixed results. I love pickles and sauerkraut. Some times it was fine, others things went badly, quickly. I could never figure out what the difference was.


I was making my own yogurt for a while. I used gi prostart, which IIRC doesn't have bifidus. It's from an scd friendly company for scd folks, and IIRC scd says no bifidus. I can't remember why though. In any case, I had the same results. Sometimes it was great, others it was not. Same batches with both the veggies and the yogurt. I've been meaning to try making yogurt again, though.
Bris Vegas said…
The only problem is that humans evolved from frugivores not grain and dairy eating omnivores.
Bris Vegas said…
"Didn't we already go through this when Evelyn did her post on the Thais?"

Evelyn is a part time blogger - not a nutrition researcher.

Obesity is a natural consequence of affluence. It has little to do with "Western" influences. It is a matter of more calories in and fewer calories out.



Obesity was relatively common amongst wealthy Thais long before there was any noticeable Western influence on diet. In the ethnic Chinese community being fat was considered a sign of prosperity.



"What's your argument anyway? That a high starch diet is harmful without being compensated for with heavy activity and hypocaloric intake."


Ancel Keys came to exactly that conclusion in the 1950s. He discovered the Cretans were healthy because they suffered chronic food shortages and had a physically demanding lifestyle. In other Mediterranan countries people who ate similar diets but had abundant food and less physical activity (eg Capri) were much less healthy.


Virtually every legitimate nutrition researcher in the world thinks that refined grains and naked starches are very unhealthy.
Bris Vegas said…
Only the British use the term "Asians" to descibe people from the Indian subscontinent. Everyone else considers "Asians" to be East Asians - Chinese, Thai, Japanese etc.
Gwen1961 said…
Snarks,

We did find the SCD to be helpful to an extent. It did not fully eliminate the bad symptoms (bloating, diarrhea, malabsorption) but it stopped the decline he was on. His pediatrician recommended a pediatric GI doctor. My husband is the one who has done the research and after what he had been reading he said we were not going to have our son go through the tests for ulcerative colitis, Crohn's, celiac, etc. The GI doctor had heard of the SCD and some of her colleagues used it but she, apparently, wasn't interested and so we decided to figure out what to do on our own.

With further research we determined that his small intestines were passing undigested food to the large intestines. The large intestines could not process it and that caused the inflammation and malabsorption. We decided to try probiotics without bifidus. We eliminated bifidus because it is already present in the small intestines and hinders the growth of the other flora there. It's more complicated than that but this is the distilled version. :)

One note of possible interest to you: bifidus is a sub-family of lactose bacteria so if you're lactose intolerant you'll probably want to eliminate (or at least not increase) bifidus.


We've created a dropbox account to share this info with you. The first page is just general notes and the second page has two links to papers that may be helpful.



My apologies for any lack of clarity in my writing. Morning is much better than evening for thinking and writing for me, but I wanted you to have this as we have been so happy with the results.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xpuphohbd1dyus/Scientific%20Proof%20for%20the%20Risks%20Associated%20with%20Bifidus.doc?dl=0
Bris Vegas said…
Eating most fermented foods is basically a waste of time. The bacteria are not the right species to colonise the gut. Only commercial probiotic capsules work.
Bris Vegas said…
IMHO this is just another totally outdated and absolutely crappy "ancestral" health book. Back in 1938 a "healthy' person was someone who didn't have polio, syphilis or TB and still had most of their own teeth. [A staggering 1 in 4 American men failed their draft medicals in 1940.]

McCarrison like many of his contempraries suffered from Shangri-La Syndrome.Tthey believed (in the absence of any solid evidence) that the Himalayan region was inhabited by people with exceptional health and longevity. The harsh reality was dicovered post WW2. Dr John Clark spent a year living ith the Hunza and found they had poor health are far shortter lifespans than generally believed.

http://biblelife.org/Hunza%20-%20Lost%20Kingdom%20of%20the%20Himalayas.pdf

The world's top health researchers such as David Jenkins now all recommend very low fat diets high in fruit and vegtables with little or no dairy, eggs or meat.
Next: You're going to tell us that the Earth isn't flat and the sky appears blue during day time.

What does this have to do with Evelyn's status as a blogger or researcher? The post she did on the Thais was actually a very simple post with most of the facts grounded in . . . wait for it . . . the actual study. Yes, research that showed otherwise about what was very unhealthy and what wasn't, and it wasn't their use of jasmine rice. Try again.

Next: Ancel Keys was never nearly as reductive and every legitimate researcher has found that refined starches almost always correlate with additives and fats that turn them into hyper-palatable, caloric surplus food items, some of them being far worse than the 'naked starch'. But o teh white rice!

"Yes, people were just eating plain dry loafs of white bread with noting else, all day long, and getting sick." - Said no researcher, ever.
. . . maybe I'm going blind, but I don't see the huge difference. He was on Bill Maher's show a few months back, didn't look that different. What are we looking at here? One photo with him sitting down, rather hunched, and without a coat. While the other one's with him standing while wearing a coat. This is all it takes?
INB4 but he's a vegan, guize!

Like I could give a damn . . . He could be Chupacabra and that still wouldn't change the fact that he's provided a much more grounded view of the evidence than certain other fringe nutters. Of course, he has his bias, but he doesn't have to resort to extreme levels of mental gymnastics and apologies in order to support that bias.
Jane Karlsson said…
Yes they did, but does it matter? The argument against grains was that humans don't have the gene for phytase, unlike rodents. But actually, rodents don't have it either, their gut bacteria do. And so do ours. People are even suggesting that the gene for lactase persistence might not be necessary if you have the right gut bacteria.
Jane Karlsson said…
Kade, McCarrison was very much against machine polished rice. Home pounded rice was OK, because there was some bran/germ remaining. When the machines were introduced there were epidemics of micronutrient deficiency disease. McCarrison found that beriberi was 10 times higher among people who ate machine polished rice compared to home pounded rice.

He also mentions an outbreak of beriberi among military personell which was terminated in short order by replacing some of the white rice with atta (whole wheat flour). Machine polished white rice is not much better than white flour from roller mills, which were introduced at about the same time and also removed all of the bran and germ.

What do you mean by 'caloric surplus'? If people can't stop themselves from eating too many calories, there must be some abnormality in their satiety system. And indeed, there is. Stephan Guyenet's group has found inflammation in the hypothalamus of obese people and high fat fed rodents. Inflammation means damage, and in diabetes damage means iron overload. Well apparently obese people also have iron overload.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21189275

Obviously, the 'hyperpalatable, caloric surplus food items' you mention have had most of their manganese removed. The white flour has extra iron added. In the US, even white rice has extra iron. If you tried to design foods that would cause a diabesity epidemic, you couldn't do better.
What I mean by caloric surplus?

Ask the person above who I was addressing on this whole issue. He's the one who brought up the statement regarding the Cretes doing better than their counterparts due to food scarcity and low caloric intake.*

Again:

"Yes, people were just eating massive quantities of plain dry white bread with noting else, all day long, and getting sick," said no researcher, ever.

I have nothing against whole grains, but to the whole discussion taking place above, the claim that Thais, or Chinese, or whowever else, suffered ill health solely due to white rice, is taking things a bit too far. There are a dozen other factors that are at play.

And you might want to observe another factor within the lines in his post. Refined starch/grains aren't an issue so long as one is active and exercising. Although, according to him, grains are bad anyway, but I think you're familiar with that argument as you've taken that one up with him.
Jane Karlsson said…
Yes I see. Thanks.
Jane Karlsson said…
Oh. Well, in the south of India they eat white rice. In the north, they eat wheat. Just like in the south and north of China.
Snarks said…
That is extremely interesting information. The *main* reason I've been trying to add carbs back to my diet is that for the past 2ish years, I've been battling very strange pain and mobility issues that migrate around my body. I'm hoping that maybe giving my muscles/tissues more glucose might make them happier. I've certainly tried other silly things, like multiple AIP elimination diets and feldenkrais (though I actually liked this, effective or not - I like movement).

I basically went from someone who was highly active (jiu jitsu, hiit cardio, strength training) to someone who can do a light exercise and yoga. Even walking the dogs can have unexpected results. I've had a bazillion tests done, multiple cortisone injections, nerve blocks, and an epidural. I'm looking at another epidural very soon for "pseudo-sciatica" and unexplained neuropathy, which basically means that whatever they're treating, they can't find on an MRI - "well, you have mild to moderate osteoarthritis in most joints - maybe that's it". This doesn't surprise me, since it took 2 years and 3 MRIs for them to figure out I has a major SLAP tear in my left shoulder. I digress, though.

If all I have to do is skip the vit D for a while, Id' be over the moon. I've certainly stopped for periods of a week or so when travelling, etc, but like you say, CW is that it is supposed to help, and usually travelling really screws me up. I have been taking vit D for *years* with various dosage strategies, like mega-dosing once a week (70-100k iu) or half that a couple times a week, and on and on.

How long did it take you and others to see results? It won't bother me at all to not have to worry about taking it, or paying for it. Honestly, I can't think of a single thing that taking vitamin D has fixed, other than insufficient levels in my blood. It's more like "Well at least I have that under control. Now at least I shouldn't get rickets." My Dr. is kind of woo-ish (and paleo friendly). Where I live, though, it's hard to find anyone who isn't a fan of the woo. At least he hasn't suggested crystal healing...
Snarks said…
Thank you very much - that's very generous. I'll read through that. I've had numerous stomach tests that have all been inconclusive, and basically getting scoped and biopsied is my next option. I'm avoiding that one since it's expensive and intrusive, and apparently treatment would be the same either way, unless I have something truly horrible, which, frankly, I sort of doubt.



I did a round of rifaximin - my Doc wanted to have me on it for 3 weeks, but insurance would only cover 2 weeks, so we split the diff and did 3 weeks at a lower dosage (there's no way I could afford that on my own, IIRC). Results were somewhat positive, but short lived.


Tummy stuff is very hard to get information on, since the amount of woo, even in solid information, is off the charts. Many times I've been reading along in a very sane sounding document, only to take a strange turn off into woo woo land where what I'd reading could have been written by Hulda Clarke. It's always very nice to get real world feedback. Thanks again.
Snarks said…
Even yogurt made from those same capsules/probiotic blends?
Indeed . . . This would be the infamous 'Randle Effect'. For most looking at a smooth transition, it'd probably be easiest to gradually shift, as Sanjeev referenced to his own anecdote, and then stabilise.
billy the k said…
"Why aren't the bullshit alarms ringing?"

Indeed: I recall wondering: hell,—why stop at merely "perfect? Why refrain from the usual temptation to—as the phrase goes:kick it up a notch—by adding the other hyperbolic modifiers that have always been popular in the history of our American quackosphere,viz., promising not merely perfect health but health guaranteed to be perfect, radiant & joyous!
weilasmith said…
"I'm afraid that there are not a lot of healthy Asians these days. Their white rice diets only worked when they had a low calorie intake and plenty of physical activity. Now they have all the diseases of Westerners."



this is the best comment on rice and asians in these comments so far. this is coming from a westerner who lived in a chinese household for 7 years and speaks mandarin.
weilasmith said…
"Not only did they have the diseases of westerners but they also adopted the dietary habits." actually, there are quite a few chinese i know who did not adopt western dietary habits. what happened to them is that they got desk jobs and had more money to spend on traditional chinese food.
weilasmith said…
kris knows what he talk, you no.
I didn't know Kirs had an affinity for keeping pet trolls. Not surprising.
weilasmith said…
"One of the links was interesting in that the slide he posted explained muscle wasting on a low-carb diet (body making glucose from muscle stores in the absence of carbs), "
what is gluconeogenesis? do you need amino acids for it? can you get them by consuming adequate protein?
Oh, look, folks. It's the Anecdote Avenger.

Let me guess, the Chinese take out around the corner is a good stand-in for 'traditional Chinese food' and the phrase De Novo Lipogenesis is nothing in light of the almighty 'the Chinese I know'.
Yes. Identical trends and problems. On this one, generally speaking, one can lump up the entire central, northern and southern regions of the Asian continent.
Darryl said…
The Cornell-Oxford-China study found healthy BMIs and cardiometabolic markers, even among office workers eating more calories than average Americans, so long as animal product consumption was low. The culprits in the Westernization of Chinese lifestyles and disease patterns appears to be more animal products, more fats, and more sugars, with less physical activity playing a supporting role.
Hahahaha! Good stuff, man!

Yes, to the balance scale metaphor of the mind's eye!

Also, to be fair to the "no added oil, not even olive" crew, ala Esselsyn. He's actually gotten people better the whole way and it applies well to those who are already in cardiometabolic trouble. His zealotry on the mantra probably gets misplaced because--and I might be wrong about this--he's found it very difficult to get people to really control their fat intake, so he tells those who have endothelial dysfunction to avoid it outright until recovery. Next to what I'm about to bring up, it's actually some of the most sane advice one can give to those who are dealing with serious atherosclerosis to the point of regular angina.

So, the story of the real nuttery. Well, with the vegan crew, the real nuttery is this stuff that emerges from the raw camp that shares so much more with the Arnold Ehret society and all this mumbo-jumbo that's fast becoming a slippery slope towards breatharianism. Just a few days back, I saw this response on a vegan friend's thread where the commenter was literally going on about how we're only suited to consuming very limited amounts of 'juicy fruit' and anything more than a few hundred calories of the stuff would impede our longevity and hyperstilumate the immune system. He added that he's had personal experience of this since having more than 500 calories of juicy fruit will make him unwell.

Yeah . . . Now these guys could join forces with the Kerrgold Keto Krew and pursue an all out war on human metabolism.
billy the k said…
That commenter to your vegan friend:

"...we're only suited to consuming X..." or: "Let's eat only what we were meant to eat"
—as based on what?—what our ancestors ate?

A few items obtainable neither in our jungle past nor out on the savanna:

Salmon, canola oil, flax oil               [sorry, Mr Cordain]
Olive oil, pasta, parmesan cheese   [sorry, Mr Keys]
Mexican Cokes &  Häagen-Dazs     [sorry, Mr Peat]
Bacon & eggs                                  [sorry, Mr Atkins]
Beans  &  rice                                  [sorry, Mr Barnard & McDougall]

Trying to eat only what we were allegedly suited for or meant to eat?  Good luck with that!  

Expect to hear plenty of: "Hey honey—what the hell's for supper???!!
charles grashow said…
http://instagram.com/p/uV89UszJqk/
Greta Carbo said…
Right off the rack, why waste money on a tailor? And that tie!
weilasmith said…
mean for no reason.
weilasmith said…
"Let me guess, the Chinese take out around the corner is a good stand-in for 'traditional Chinese food' " that statement makes no sense. could you please tell me again your point? they not pals, they family.
weilasmith said…
ni jiu shi yige baichi. hen kelian google translate meibanfa bang ni fan yi wode hua! quick! get a chinese pal to help you translate this!! you are talking out of you butt. if i bore you, just ignore me.
Bris Vegas said…
Exactly. What has Jimmy done to deserve so much contempt? He may be misguided in his dietary choices but that is his problem not ours.
Bris Vegas said…
The yoghurt bacteria get killed by stomach acids. Capsules survive the stomach and release into the small intestine. They also contain 50-100 as many bacteria as a tub of yoghurt.
Bris Vegas said…
Antibiotics will only give temporary relief. You need to cultivate a healthy microbiota by combining probiotics and prebiotics.
Greta Carbo said…
I hesitate to comment as this is all probably old hat to you all, but did you also supplement with Vitamin A and Vitamin K2 at the same time? There is supposed to be lessened or no toxicity with either A or D3 when taken together. And D3 and K2 are involved in calcium metabolism, D3 in the absorption, K2 in the distribution, and some of the problems with calcium might be due to the lack of one or the other of these two vitamins.
Greta Carbo said…
I am not mean and I am sorry you think so. It's all in good fun, the serious stuff is in his influencing some gullible people into an extreme diet, not his attire. Besides, the tie is not that bad!
Greta Carbo said…
Jimmy's dietary choices and his version of the science behind those choices are constantly put before his followers in a very public way. The science if not the philosophy is questionable to say the least. If it is none of our business then the CarbSane blog might do well to rewrite its banner and cease on all this science stuff.
Bris Vegas said…
There are 168 hours in a week. If sleep becomes a high priority you WILL find time for it. Most people waste at least 4-6 hours a day due to a lack of organisation and spending time watch TV etc.
Kitty said…
It would be fine if he were only hurting himself, but he's harming a lot of credulous people who see him as some kind of expert. He's getting paid handsomely for doling out harmful dietary and medical advice. He's fair game.
Snarks said…
Yeah. I do sleep more on the weekends, if pain doesn't wake me up.


Weekdays, there's not any wiggle room at all. I'm up at 5:30 most days, am at work until at least 6:00 PM. Have to make dinners and lunches and help with home work and house work when I get home. I'm lucky to get everything done with by 10:00 or 10:30 PM, and then try to get an hour of studying in if possible. Sometimes there's no time for even that, like the days I don't get home until 9:00 PM, or when there's after hours emergency work, or scheduled maintenance, etc. There is *zero* TV or silly fooling around for me during the week. Yes, lots of people I work with play grabass all night, drinking, and ignoring reality, so I know that some folks *do* waste a lot of time. Me, I have have responsibilities goals. I can't ask my wife to deal with more of the work since she already has 2 jobs and is going to school full time.



Yes, obviously if I knew for certain that I'd die if I couldn't get another hour of sleep each day, I'd be able to skip my AM joint mobility/yoga, or whatever. Until that day, though, I have responsibilities and things I need to get done.
Bris Vegas said…
Jimmy Moore is a D grade celebrity with a minuscule following. The harm he does is trivial compared with the pervasive influence of the food industry funded Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetics Association) and it's support of junk food.
Kitty said…
Yeah, everyone I know consults the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics website before choosing what to eat for dinner. I know I do.


Again, people who make money by spreading harmful misinformation to credulous people are fair game.
"you read a study- i have 7 years of a living in a chinese society in transition. " - Lol x 1

Your anecdote definitely beats studies. Sure.

"sorry- you ignorant. you troll- i help you come out from under the bridge. i not jackychan, trollman." - Lol x 2

Interesting.

"i am doggie waving hi named weilasmith. with sunglasses. and cap to side with swag. you got lame pentagram fake thingy with wings. poser cool, man. not authentic. very hard rock- aka: old :(" - Lol x 3

Words can't describe how much that one made my day . . . You're okay, skid mark. Never change.
Bris Vegas said…
The ANS spread misinformation on behalf of it's corporate sponsors and promotes junk food as healthy. dietary choices.

The ANS is largely responsible for deciding the content of American school lunches, the training of dietitians and the official dietary guidelines It's influence is orders of magnitude greater than Jimmy Moore.
Bris Vegas said…
The SCD is unscientific and arbitrarily places
foods into "legal" and "illegal" categories with out any clinical
evidence or scientific rationale .

The ONLY scientific paper published on SCD doesn't show any benefits.

The ONLY evidence based dietary treatment for irritable bowel is the low FODMAPS diet developed by the gastroenterology department at Monash University.
http://www.med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/fodmap/

Bifidobacteriaare actually the most beneficial class of gut bacteria. They should be encouraged by eating fruits and vegetables containing fermentable carbohydrates.

Bioflms are completely normal and are found on every body surface (skin, teeth, gut).

SIBO is an imaginary disease that is not recognised by mainstream gastroenterology. People with irritable bowel disease usually have LOWER levels of bacteria in the small intestine.This is because their food spends much less time in the small intestine.

Lactose intolerance is not an issue because dairy
"foods" are intrinsically unhealthy and should be avoided.
StellaBarbone said…
My "good" joints felt mostly better in 10 days and my problem foot and ankle were substantially better in 3 weeks and has been slowly improving (this week has been great). I only had joint pain, but it was fierce. I had pain in hands, wrists, elbows, patellas and both ankles. I have a genetic form of early osteoarthritis which is normally more of a cosmetic issue affecting fingers and toes and other causes of joint pain were ruled out by a rheumatologist.

I also had a non-seasonal flair of eczema. Or rather, the winter eczema never cleared up this spring, but I started Weight Watchers in January and the lower level of fat in my diet may have contributed. However, I got to the maintenance phase of WW and increased my olive oil around the time I stopped the D, so I'm not sure which is the contributor.

I had low normal vitamin D levels because I am a careful blond living in southern California. My father has taken a bisphosphonate for osteoporosis, but has never had a fracture (my mom is a jock) and that influenced my decision. I really did not need to supplement, but I decided that I should follow the doctor's advice and not treat myself even though I only used to prescribe D for nursing home patients. Doctors get sucked into woo too, way more than they should.
Screennamerequired said…
Can you link me the ANS diet recommendations?
Jane Karlsson said…
Snarks needs a poo transplant. It can do in hours what would otherwise take months.
Jane Karlsson said…
Very interesting. A friend of mine and her mother both died within a year of starting on high dose vitamin D. It may not have killed them, but it certainly didn't help. My friend was a science journalist, and had read all the hype from scientists who should have known better. The doses were insane.
Jane Karlsson said…
If they can't find it on MRI, it might mean you are having non specific problems with connective tissue turnover. Your gut disorder could be preventing adequate absorption of micronutrients needed for breakdown and resynthesis of connective tissue. The most important are not calcium and vitamin D, but copper and manganese. No doctor will tell you this. Copper activates the enzyme lysyl oxidase, which crosslinks and stabilises the extracellular matrix, and manganese activates glycosyltransferases, which make the glycoproteins and proteoglycans of the matrix.
Jane Karlsson said…
Bris Vegas
You are misinformed. Clark studied the Hunza long after their health had started to deteriorate. If you had read the book you would know this happened about 100 years ago, and was due to episodes of starvation following a doubling of the population. At their healthiest there were only 6,000 of them. Today there are 44,000.
Jane Karlsson said…
Weilasmith, this is nonsense. The Chinese are eating at least 10 times more meat than they used to, and some figures I've seen suggest 20 times. If you don't know that diabetes in China is associated with iron overload, and that the iron comes from meat, you need to do some reading and not spend so much time on Wooo's blog. She thinks iron can only be good.
Snarks said…
Mean or not, that is objectively a horrible outfit.
Snarks said…
I agree that the food choices of the SCD are odd. There is an unfortunate lack of progression within the SCD community. There are also a number of hope pedallers and woo-tastic goofballs that have glommed on to the community. Pretty much like *any* alt-med group.

Eating fruit and avoiding fodmaps can be difficult, and some of the info surrounding fodmaps is questionable. Like oxalate lists, *many* fodmaps lists disagree, and lots of foods (coconut?) have been listed and then de-listed. Which fruits do you recommend?



I'm not sure wtf to think about sibo. My Dr is big into it, and the gastro I saw also suggested it, but I have seen numerous "debunkings" of it online. In either case, when chasing it, I saw no improvement, for the most part, so I stopped worrying about it.
charles grashow said…
http://www.eatright.org/Public/content.aspx?id=6442475086
charles grashow said…
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2014/10/blood-sugar-tool-fingertips/
"The goal here is not to control blood sugar with medication or insulin but to identify problem foods that provoke blood sugar and insulin, thereby impairing weight-loss efforts. To do this we check blood sugar immediately prior to a meal and then 30 to 60 minutes after the start of the meal. Aim for no change in blood sugar when you take these two readings. If the after-meal value jumps up to, say, 138 mg/dl, look at that meal and identify the carbohydrate source that was too much for you, and then either slash your portion size or eliminate that food. (In the meantime, go for a walk, ride a stationary bike for 20 minutes, or engage in some other light activity to drop your blood sugar back to its starting level.)"
Kitty said…
Sounds like you need to leave the Asylum and go hang out on Tom Naughton's blog. Lots of love for Jimmy and claims that everyone is fat because they are following government recommendations. You'd fit right in.



I'm pretty sure that the dumbest of Americans (and that's pretty dumb) aren't under the misapprehension that Cheetos and Dr. Pepper are healthy foods, so the ANS seems pretty impotent, but there are plenty of morons with heart disease putting butter in their coffee thanks to Jimmy Moore. It's like you think he should have more blood on his hands to merit a mention on a blog devoted to the diet wars.
Jane, he obviously knows what he's going on about.

Remember, unlike measly studies *and* experiences of others, he's actually lived in Taiwan . . . for seven years . . . and he can speak Mandarin.

Moreover, he's got style and swagger! He's Weil-a-Smith! Or is the last part pronounced 'Shmit'? I do hope I'm not getting this wrong. Can't have that!
Oh, that won't be necessary. You're doing all the self-refuting that is needed. ; )
Lighthouse Keeper said…
If only breatharianism worked. Magician James Randi has a humerous youtube video on this subject entitled "Powered by sunlight".
If I had a doom laden atherosclerosis diagnosis and told that all the stents and statins in the world would do little to help .... I'd be round at Caldwell Esselstyn's office faster than you can say Jack Robinson.
carbsane said…
I beg to differ. The tie is awful!!
carbsane said…
Contempt? C'mon!!
carbsane said…
This "you should be going after the ADA" etc. has gotten old. Jimmy Moore is spreading potentially dangerous misinformation. There are many people who suffer negative consequences from low carb diets and the proponents simply laugh and scoff and claim it can't be blamed on the diet. At least with other diets, there are cultures one can look to regarding long term effects and health consequences.
carbsane said…
So you can choose to expose them. I'd rather focus on helping those who are vulnerable to internet hucksters like Jimmy. OK?
StellaBarbone said…
Did you say you were taking a magnesium supplement too? I'm sure it's a fancier version than little old lady Milk of Magnesia, but it will have the same effect.
carbsane said…
It seems as if Seth's death has caused Paul to reconsider some things. Jimmy is a highly unreliable reporter of events on Twitter (and now Instagram) as his caption for the dogs eating carbs would demonstrate), but Paul seems to be addressing the notion of too much fat and/or SFA raising LDL. Step in the right direction but would require rewriting a chunk of the book.
A and D do compete. Although one has to wonder why they're putting more of something to the point that they have the need to put more of another something in order to deal with that initial something.

Now K2 with Calcium and D3 makes for a good combination, but dosage would have to be realistic and would also depend quite a bit on the individual.
Chris Wilson said…
Agreed. I've never met any of these folks, but I still like Paul Jaminet. He seems honest and sincere, and I'm sure will continue to revise his recommendations (which is a good thing). But I'm disappointed that much of my learnt from reading PHD, Kresser, etc. a couple years back is turning out to be wrong in some really important respects, including evidence of severe selection bias on behalf of these guys. Too many planks in the platform are full of holes! For me personally, it was time to jump ship and go back to a simpler form of sanity ;) And quite trying to micromanage my diet towards some abstract 'perfection' that clearly doesn't exist...
Hello_I_Love_You said…
Davis is bonkers here also. This is the guy who claims he became T2 diabetic but cured himself of the disease by exercising and eating LC. The knucklehead's knowledge is limited to ApoE4 which he doesn't understand correctly. Every hyperresponder on a LC diet is ApoE4, which is not true. 138 after 1/2 hour or even 1 hour is perfectly fine as long as your 2h PP is normal. The LC myth starts to unhinge once you show that high BG followed by a normal insulin response is keeping BG low. There is absolutely nothing wrong with those levels of PP BG; if there were, everyone will have to be on a VLC diet. And then everyone will suffer from thyroid and immune related problems.
Hello_I_Love_You said…
It's not just the tie, the shirt and his jacket! He looks like a bouncer at an Olive Garden. Happens when you never learn how to dress properly. Not that you have to but, you give away that a loud tie that clashes with your shirt and jacket betray your knucklehead sensibilities. Richard Kiel, "Jaws" from 007, lives.
Hello_I_Love_You said…
Actually, I believe the harm he does is considerable. It's not just a miniscule following. When you combine the powerful appeal of low-carbing via personal experience and the seeming health effects it engeders, you have a big and deceptive dietary movement that could do more harm than good. Those are not temporary health effects he's inducing; those are permanent and potentially dangerous health dysfunction. He's being silent even though he himself suffers from them.
Gwen1961 said…
Thank you for dismissing all the work my husband and I did. The hours spent reading scholary, scientific papers into the wee hours of the morning; the amount of time spent reading of the experiences of many others; the fear and anxiety we lived with as we tried each new "experiment" on our son who seemed to be disappearing before our eyes.

The ONE THING that my husband discovered is what WORKED.

Maybe you can share your REAL LIFE experience in dealing with your own gut/intestinal issues. I'm curious to know what worked for you. Thanks in advance.
Gwen1961 said…
My recommendation is to experiment on yourself. Clearly ANYONE can read what the "experts" recommend, what the "evidence" shows and then tell you why it won't work. I'm hoping "Bris Vegas" will share his/her own experience and share what worked exactly for his/her gut and intestinal issues.
Snarks said…
I agree, and that's what I've been doing for quite a while. I'm torn on the probiotics in fermented foods discussions. There seem to be a lot more opinions surrounding the subject than actual data points.

I'm skeptical that fermented foods and probiotic foods and drinks are valueless, but I do admit that I wonder if things like sauerkraut are a poor choice for adding bacteria to a depleted gut. I haven't got the *slightest* idea what grew in the batches of the stuff I grew. It was tasty, but clearly it didn't fix me.

It is nice to have input from folks outside of the paleo/scd/gaps/whatever echo chambers. I really do truly appreciate the info you've provided.
Snarks said…
I take mag citrate at low doses based on a Dr recommendation. I'm not sure it does anything useful. I've also take in in large quantities for a lithotrypsy. I'm assuming that's the effect you're talking about.
Snarks said…
Yeah, I'm clearly going to have to be more moderate in my approach. I got the inevitable monster migraine with aura yesterday. If 5 days can cause that much wackiness, I imagine hundreds of times that long would only make things worse. Maybe a small potato or a small portion of rice or squash or whatever with meals and a piece of fruit in between? IDK.
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