The Carb-Sane Asylum

Sixteen post bumps for 2016 ... No. 4 While I'm way beyond behind in my post bumping for the new year, I still plan to finish out a total of sixteen at some point. This one doesn't need much in the way of summary, but quick points: In terms of energy homeostasis, the main role of insulin in the body is as a signaling molecule in the regulation of the circulating levels of energy substrate, the two primary ones being glucose and free fatty acids. This post models this for just the fatty acids using a room temperature/thermostat feedback analogy. In the case of fatty acids, circulating levels are controlled mainly at the release point from the fat tissue.   The role of insulin is to keep total amount of circulating free fatty acids at appropriate levels, and not to regulate the amount of fatty acids stored in the fat cells, and thus overall fat tissue mass. Original post date: 12/13/14 Insulin doesn't regulate fat mass.  This is a bold statement.  M...

There has been a spate of studies and commentaries coming out of late related to plasma saturated fatty acid content, dietary sat fats and carbohydrates.  It gets mightly frustrating to hear the same arguments made over and over, when some basic calculations and critical radiolabel-tracer studies have shown otherwise for over 15-25 years now (and longer, I'm talking major summary papers and supporting studies).  And still .... What Happens to the Carbs Kendrick is a Scottish physician, author of The Great Cholesterol Con , hence my title.  He's also a card carrying member of  and spokesman for THINCS:  THe International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics.    Sadly, his skepticism and paranoia have turned him into quite the con artist ... feet planted firmly in denial. Professors, who shall be nameless, appear unable to admit how basic human physiology works. For example, they may concede a few steps here and there, but they will never...

Part I Metabolic and physiologic effects from consuming a hunter-gatherer (Paleolithic)-type diet in type 2 diabetes U Masharani, P Sherchan, M Schloetter, S Stratford, A Xiao, A Sebastian, M Nolte Kennedy and L Frassetto {Apologies in advance:  No idea if this is truly as scattered as I think it might be, but I'm currently working on a number of projects, including "real job" stuff.  So rather than hold this up for perfecting, I'm hitting the publish button!} The Take-Aways, Such as they are ... In this three week trial, researchers used food questionnaires to assess usual intake prior to the study.   ... on the basis of our intake questionnaire and food recall responses, we expected the parameters of the subjects on the ADA recommended diet to remain unchanged from baseline, but in fact they also improved reducing the differences observed with the two diets. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the baseline reporting was, as has b...

... or at least stop lying about him and promoting bad research reviews. Around a year ago, a "commissioned and internally peer reviewed" Editorial appeared in the British Medical Journal 's off-shoot Open Heart online journal.   The author, James J DiNicolantonio is identified as a Cardiovascular research scientist and PharmD, and he is also an Associate Editor of the journal.     

LC Biomarker Bingo OK ... before I begin on this, let me say this has languished in the draft hopper probably past it's usable publish date :-)  So first, I'll give a belated shout out to Kevin Klatt over at Nutrevolve blog for taking a close look at this study and "getting it out there" in rapid time!   Carbs, SFAs, and Circulating Fatty Acids . Effects of Step-Wise Increases in Dietary Carbohydrate on Circulating Saturated Fatty Acids and Palmitoleic Acid in Adults with Metabolic Syndrome I confess to skimming it b/c the last time he scooped me Kevin wrote so much of what was in my head I wasn't sure how to formulate the parts I still wanted to discuss without sounding repetitious.  For me, this study and its media blitz has hit a nerve and awoken my interest in a topic I had gotten a bit side tracked from.  It's almost a perfect ending to this year of what can only be described as utter insanity in the nutrition world.   So, with that said, ...

What happens when you take 25 overweight-to-obese, type 2 diabetics and: increase their carbohydrate intake by around 100 g/day   increase their absolute carbohydrate intake by 45%  increase their carbohydrate percentage in the diet by over 25% of total calories have them consume over 300 grams of carbohydrate in a day decrease their caloric intake modestly (< 200 cal/day*) cut 50 g/day of fat from their diet reduce absolute fat intake by over 60% reduce fat to only 15% of total calories cut protein by almost 40 g/day cut absolute protein intake by roughly 40% accomplish all of this on a grain-heavy vegan diet What happens?  Do they get fatter?  See their glucose spiking and soaring and fear imminent amputation and blindness?   No.  What happened is this: This after only three weeks.  Oh ... and 70% of the Ma Pi group dieters taking oral diabetes drugs at onset were able to get off their drugs.

Previously ... Part I: The Journal Article & The Headlines T here is so much about the recent study from principal low carbohydrate advocate Jeff Volek, that this may well be the subject or impetus for several posts here as we close out 2014 -- it is so much more than just the study, but more what it embodies vis a vis the whole low carb/keto schtick.  Along with Stephen Phinney and ten -- count them, TEN! -- others who claim to meet the PLOS One standards to be designated as authors, we were brought the following study: Effects of Step-Wise Increases in Dietary Carbohydrate on Circulating Saturated Fatty Acids and Palmitoleic Acid in Adults with Metabolic Syndrome In a way this tops off a year of disgraceful behavior on the parts of just about everyone in the IHC who seem hell-bent on deceiving people into adopting their extreme lifestyles. If the science were really so clear, then why can they not address it honestly? There is nothing, N.O.T.H.I.N.G. in ...

Yes folks! Yet another study has hit the presses to tell you everything you thought you knew about nutrition is wrong, wrong and more wrong!!  The Journal Article Effects of Step-Wise Increases in Dietary Carbohydrate on Circulating Saturated Fatty Acids and Palmitoleic Acid in Adults with Metabolic Syndrome Brittanie M. Volk, Laura J. Kunces, Daniel J. Freidenreich, Brian R. Kupchak, Catherine Saenz, Juan C. Artistizabal, Maria Luz Fernandez, Richard S. Bruno, Carl M. Maresh, William J. Kraemer, Stephen D. Phinney, Jeff S. Volek . Count 'em ... a dozen authors.

I wanted to share this study with my blog readers that I had found and shared a bit of on Twitter a little while ago.  This has been prompted by ongoing discussions there and elsewhere on social media regarding blood lipids.  By "cholesterol" I am of course using the general term that in today's terms refers mostly to the low density lipoproteins or LDL. C-Reactive Protein A Simple Test to Help Predict Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke This is not so much a study as a communication.  It is also on the "Cardiology Patient Page" of the journal Circulation , and as such quite readable.  I'd suggest any and all interested do so as I don't really have the time to go in depth into the entire thing.

Hey all ... just a quick note. It's been one of those weeks and all where I've started like a half a dozen blog posts and gotten distracted or needed to do some "cleanup" on them so I've held them in the draft bin. Lots going on in real life in addition to the online side. But as often happens when I'm writing about a topic, a related paper pops up and something catches my eye. Such was the case when I looked into some of Dr. David Ludwig's work on the glycemic index for background on a post, and another study was mentioned along with his work. Studies such as this one from Ludwig --  High Glycemic Index Foods, Overeating, and Obesity  -- and, frankly, common sense to a degree -- paint high glycemic index foods as "bad" because: The rapid absorption of glucose after consumption of high-GI meals induces a sequence of hormonal and metabolic changes that promote excessive food intake in obese subjects. And this makes sense, and i...

I preface this post with words of wisdom from a science journalist. Long before Nina Teicholz burst onto the scene as the latest Atkins-mouthpiece (Chapter 10 of The Big Fat Surprise , I rest my case), from almost the very beginning of my exposure to the low carb internet community, I've been hearing how Ancel Keys was single handedly responsible for the low fat plague that has made us all fat and sick.  While I'm sure I'd heard the name Ancel Keys somewhere along the way during my formal studies, it never really rang a bell ... and I'd venture to guess that most outside this Incestral Health Community had not either.  This is the enduring legacy that appears to trace back to Gary Taubes' demonization of the man in Good Calories, Bad Calories .  It also appears to have origins in the Weston Price Foundation movement with the writings of Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, for example, The Oiling of America  (2000).

My friend Seth over at Science of Nutrition blog (check it out!) wrote the following post:   FAT IN THE DIET AND MORTALITY FROM HEART DISEASE: A PLAGIARISTIC NOTE .  I encourage you to go read it, but it is long, so in case you don't have the time at the moment, let me summarize my take away.  It's quite a bit more complicated than this, but he lays out the case that a diverse group of people has essentially plagiarized Gary Taubes (from GCBC) .   On

Random bump because this is making the rounds again due to being published in the IJES this month:  Unrestricted Paleolithic Diet is Associated with Unfavorable  Changes to Blood Lipids in Healthy Subjects Original Publish Date:  5/14/2013 A student, Eric Trexler , at Ohio State did a study on the paleo "lifestyle" for what appears to be an undergraduate honors thesis towards his degree in Exercise Science.  Here is the link to the full text:   Paleolithic Diet is Associated With Unfavorable Changes to Blood Lipids in Healthy Subjects .  So I thought I'd put up a quick blog with some thoughts, because a tweet is just a tweet and I've seen a few comments reading into my supposed motivations for tweeting this.  So ... let's discuss a bit and include some criticisms I've seen elsewhere on the web. 1.  It's not a peer reviewed article or a graduate thesis.   This is true so it hasn't undergone rigorous scrutiny, that shouldn'...

direct image link Greetings! So with time for a little breather, I'm getting caught up on my reading. I've got three books I plan to review and it's a conundrum which to do first, they are all so bad. Seriously, it's not the style or the writing. It's the content that passes for science these days that is just so mind-numbingly abysmal. The three books are David Perlmutter's  Grain Brain , Jonathan Bailor's  The Calorie Myth  and Chris Kresser's  Your Personal Paleo Code .  I'll save Bailor's for another day, but his poor man's version of  GCBC  somewhat factors into today's post.  I'll also save the reviews of the others for a later date.  For now, let me share my little round about the internet that inspired the post title here ;-)   

Around a month or so ago Sally Fallon Morell, President o the Weston A. Price Foundation, reviewed Robb Wolf's book and gave it a "Thumbs Down" .  What's up with her?  Wasn't the response to her President's Message  from this past June enough to put her in her place?   I had parts of a post together at that time, but since the full letter wasn't publicly available at the time, and who knows what else was going on, I never published it.  I was going to augment that and include with this, but perhaps another time ... it got too long and convoluted.  Some day ... I make no promises though.  In any case, my link here is now to the full letter for anyone interested, but to sum up she wanted to clear up some myths about WAPF: It's not high protein, most do best on 10-15% protein and WAPF diet is small amounts of fatty animal protein, including organ meats, with each meal ... emphasis on fat, while high lean protein depletes Vitamin A. It's not l...

In the Center Ring: Jimmy Moore was on the Christian Broadcast Network's 700 Club yesterday.  I was going to leave this just for the social media stuff, but the appearance was quite disturbing in a few ways so I thought I'd share a few thoughts on that.  

Before Dr. William Davis' name became synonymous with the elusive* Wheat Belly , he was well known for his subscription Track Your Plaque website.   This website currently charges $90 (all prices rounded) for the first year with yearly renewals at $72, for the basic membership ... more for shorter "contracts".  That's just the membership fee, that basically affords you discounts on various TYP products such as your Basic Membership Kit for $70 (reg. $110) or a Supplement Kit for $175 (reg. $215) or the testing kit for a cool $530 (reg. $570).   In the marketplace you can purchase all manner of testing supplies, etc.   Now Davis is a huge backer of Jimmy Moore's Cholesterol Clarity book.  He contributed to it as an expert, provided an Editorial Review for Amazon.com and, as if that weren't enough, offered up a glowing 5 Star review on same, entitled  Cholesterol bashing at its finest .  In it he writes: Widely-held beliefs, many of them propag...

The original opening to this post can be read by scrolling to the end or using your browser search function to find ##### . The intent of a single post is that for as long as this content is relevant, I will add new information to this post and "bump" it to the top of the feed.  If it grows to be unmanageable, I'll have sections with search strings for easy navigation.  For now, each update will get popped to the top of the feed reader.  New "entries" will be at the top, and will be separated from prior content with "▼▼ Content added XX/XX/XX ▼▼".    Different topics within each update will be separated by ***** and a horizontal line ... like this: ***** ▼▼ Content added 9/19/13 ▼▼  Interpreting Cholesterol Panels?

Off the bat notice:  This will not be one of my usual referenced posts.  It's off the top of my head but based on research and the statements of others made in the past.  So if I get something wrong please let me know, if you want links and references, please ask and as soon as time permits I will get to them.  I am very busy with other matters besides this blog at the moment so please be patient.  Thanks!   I think it is fair to say that Dr. Dayspring is "the particle number guy".  For good reason.  Of the various lipoprotein biomarker predictors these days, apoB and LDL-P seem to be the leaders of the pack.  But what of LDL-C?   For all the caution expressed by those clinging to TWICHOO about not throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, these same people seem more than willing to throw out the bathtub, fixtures and attached plumbing!

I received a comment recently on the Blood Sugar 140 series that prompted this post.  Actually, it prompted a post on the best predictor for T2 which will be forthcoming, but in fleshing out some background for that, I realized it was worth a post on its own. Below are links to previous post series I'm referring to: Blood Sugar 140: Where did the 140 mg/dL threshold come from? Blood Sugar 140: Context is Everything I - Diabetic vs. Non Blood Sugar 140: Context is Everything II: The OGTT Blood Sugar 140: Diabetic Neuropathy, Is it All About Hyperglycemia? "Cliff Notes" Blood Sugar 140:   There is a commonly repeated "fact" out there that blood glucose levels over 140 mg/dL lead to nerve damage (and organ damage) generally attributed to the process of glycation.  Also implied in this is that such damage is cumulative such that any excursion over 140 is inflicting a little damage along the way.  This traces back to the following page on Jenny Ruhl's ...