The Carb-Sane Asylum

April 2018 Update: Here in the year 2018, it's fair to say that #Paleo is pretty much over. Nothing tells us this more succinctly than a quick trip over to Mark's Daily Apple, a website I rarely frequent these days. I'd heard rumors that Mark had "gone keto" ... given the seemingly meteoric rise of #Keto of late, is anyone really surprised?  This is the same man who developed the "more addictive than crack " P90X recovery drink and other things,  Ever the businessman (can't fault him for that), Mark seems to have transitioned from using his blog to sell paleo/primal-related books (did he ever find a proper ghostwriter for his wife's book?) to selling over-priced avocado oil products.   The whole "primal" thing is about as downplayed as possible for someone whose signature product is The Primal Blueprint, can be.    Poor Grok.  Now it's Keto Reset time!  Can these marketeers PLEASE make up their minds?   Wh...

S ummary: BUMPED January 26, 2018 This post was written around three and a half years ago, and through some bizarre twist of dietary fate, somehow ketogenic diets are still trending on Google for everything from weight loss to hang nails.  So I thought I'd bump this post which was my attempt at dispelling some myths regarding ketosis and the role of dietary protein in the mix.   In the end, and some of these points are not made specifically in this post but I'll make them here: Carbohydrate restriction is the greatest determinant of ketogenesis  Protein (various amino acids) can feed into the Krebs Cycle and attenuate the reduction in oxaloacetate that favors ketogenesis from fatty acids. Ketogenesis represents a conversion of fat energy to ketone energy but it is not evidence of the ultimate usage of that energy.   Like glucose, ketones will be burned for energy before fatty acids, so ketogenesis is not an indicator of actual fatty aci...

In light of the recent brash of coconut oil articles following the Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association , I thought I'd bump this post.  Of course all the coconut oil advocates are up in arms over this.  Mind you, coconut oil is the most nutritionally bereft oil out there ... "empty calories".  This post discusses a study in the Sixties on two Atoll island populations that live in virtually the same environment, etc. but with nearly opposite diets in terms of total fat content, where the majority of fat comes not from coconut oil, but the more nutrient dense coconut meat and embryos. One Line Summary :   The increased fat content in the Tokelauan diet correlates in increased adiposity in this population as compared to nearby Pukapuka.   While the cited study abstract says the following: Vascular disease is uncommon in both populations and there is no evidence of the high saturated fat i...

It appears that Tom Naughton is making the podcast rounds promoting his new nutrition book for kids.  PLEASE, leave the kids out of it!  That goes for the zealots of all extreme camps including vegans and paleo and WAPF and whatever other diet cult imaginable.   Do not indoctrinate children into your eating disordered behaviors. There are rare instances where ketogenic diets are therapeutic in children, and most of them -- epilepsy -- stay on the diet for the shortest time possible where therapeutic efficacy is achieved, and then wean from the diet. You absolutely cannot make a case for children traditionally being raised on any sort of low carbohydrate diet, not even Zone/Ludwig/Hymanesque 40% levels.  In virtually every culture, the children of both genders consume a diet similar to their mother's ... the gardeners and gatherers.  Children of Tom's generation were raised on mixed diets that included processed foods.  Obesity existed but was not com...

This post brought to you by Duck Dodgers' arrogance.  If there ever were an example of what is wrong with science in the Incestral Health Community, it is the phenomenon that is "Duck Dodgers" and his comments here.     A seemingly non-controversial post -- on how the US Dietary Guidelines were never any radical departure from the way humans around the globe have eaten for thousands of years -- went viral, at least in part because of Duck's return.   What rubs me personally the wrong way about this person (or persons, though I've been told it is only one person who posts with that ID in comments here so I operate on that assumption) is his response to any challenge to "How Food Enrichment Made Us Fat, Diabetic, and Chronically Diseased" otherwise known as the "Iron Food Enrichment Hypothesis" .  Despite doubling down on the whole fortification thing at the off-the-grid web rental only around a month ago, this guy comes on here and plays...

Several months ago, I began writing a post entitled Paleo Schneckenfeude, inspired by the concept of schadenfreude and the misfortunes brought on one faction of the paleo community by other factions, and vice versa.  I never published it up, because the "sell by" date had definitely passed before I had the time.  But I will use the title here, with the addition of the term Payleo™ to the IHC lexicon, courtesy of the latest high profile Guy to jump ship. Schadenfreude  [shädən froidə]   from the German:  schaden  (damage) and  freude  (joy).   Enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others Yes, it is fair to say that there is no love lost between me and most in the paleo wing of the IHC, and I am experiencing a tinge of guilty enjoyment in watching the coconut fed chickens coming home to roost yet again. Schneckenfeude  ... The Evolution of Schnecken?

If you've been around the internet the past couple weeks or so, you're aware that it is apparently Summit Season!  Lots of videos (really audios) that you get to listen to free as a marketing pitch.  Nothing inherently wrong with this, but many of the recent ones have really gotten to the point of ridiculousness.  I mean Jack Kruse was supposed to do a talk for a weight loss summit ... along side Jaminet, Bowden and the Alphabet Soup Couple (the Caltons)?  Ben Greenfield?  Mr. Keto-bonking triathlete is everywhere these days -- fat loss, thyroid, diabetes?  This man sells superencoder bracelets and magic water drops !  What the ......    So yesterday, the " 2014 Reversing Diabetes Summit " began hosted by "Dr." Mowll, and ... get this ... Jimmy Moore.  Forget Jimmy's lack of any credentials or credibility to be hosting such an event, let's look at Dr. Mowll : He graduated from Brandywine High School, the University of Delaware, ...

In observance of the impending imprisonment of "Secrets the Government and Real Doctors Don't Want You to Know" author, late-night infomercial guru and scammer Kevin Trudeau ...  I thought a bump on this post was apropos.   The FTC has been clamping down recently on false claims of miracle cures.  While Trudeau is ultimately being sent up the river more for legal financial issues, I hope this is the beginning of one of those pair of dimes shifts the supplement shills are always talking about.   

True confession:  I ate beef in a stew last night and I'm in that dangerous age range for doing so according to the latest study that came out.  Finally, a study the paleo community can finally agree on about and rally around!  Paleo for the win!  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can get a dose of sanity here . But before mass media hysteria gifted the paleo community with the great unifier -- another meat is bad study -- it was all up in arms over another media circus:   Paleo on the Dr. Oz show !! That was truly an odd spectacle.  There you had Paleoista, Nell Stephenson, who in her own practice and through her blogging is about as puritanical "paleo" as one could imagine, and Chris Kresser, someone who was at best loosely associated with paleo, but almost from the get-go seemed to be "beyond paleo".

Whoa boy! Did you hear? US News & World Report listed the Paleo Diet dead last in their " Best Diets of 2014 " round up ... AGAIN! I warn you, dear readers, that I'm in a mood, and my snark and sarc levels are quite high as I write this.

In the interests of having all of the clinical trials studying the "paleo diet" on the record, I decided to exhume and publish this post up on a small 2008 study by Osterdahl et. al. Effects of a short-term intervention with a paleolithic diet in healthy volunteers This study was small (14 subjects, 5 male, 9 female) and short (3 weeks).   Full dietary records were available for 6 subjects (1 male, 5 female), here is the dietary intake. There were some minor changes in weight (2.9 kg , 6.4 lbs) and lower BP of statistical significance.  Lipids and all other parameters except PAI-1 were not statistically significant.

Random Bump! Original publish date:  4/21/12 In writing up a post on metabolic rate and weight loss, I couldn't help but come across a ton of stuff I had in my draft bin and hard drive vis a vis exercise, lean body mass and metabolic rate.  This got me thinking about the usefulness of ELMM = Eat Less Move More as a strategy to flip the CICO balance along with other things we can do.  

Have you just stumbled upon an old book, blog post, interview, etc. from your favorite guru only to have someone exclaim how old that is and how your guru's opinions have changed?  It might be time for a new guru. Quick background here.  First, no I haven't dropped the Paleo ApprovED issue, but there are some things related and lots of stuff unrelated going on that have eaten up time and energy to blog on the subject.  It is a sensitive issue and needs more "care" than your run of the mill blogging.  It is also rather stressful and defeats one of the purposes of this blog as an outlet for my sarcastic side -- for which a post such as this is perfectamundo!    So that said, as I was looking for a post on Robb Wolf's blog ( this one ) my search also popped up the following post: Insulin: Anorexic?

11/29:  Another minor update.  There has been a ton of feedback both here and on Facebook and I'm personally quite touched that the overwhelming response has been positive.  These subjects are never easy to broach.  I will be posting an update as I have had many questions as to why I removed the picture that I did and inserted my sarcastic graphic in its place.  That too is a serious and extremely tenuous/touchy issue to address, but it really needs to be as it goes to the heart of this issue.   In any case, just so everyone is aware, yesterday the MDA post was updated as follows: This response is disheartening to say the least.  I think that most would agree that most if not all comments were respectful.  One of the last comments that was allowed was from one guy berating another for saying that she looked better before.  I don't see that as being any less appropriate than comments congratulating her for her after appear...

Part II of my CarbSane is so cruel and vitriolic in her criticisms of Mark Sisson bumpfest today.   Crying Wolf II , Bump I This one is especially  ironic given point 9-of-12 of Mark's email to Grashow blamed lack of dietary discipline and sloth for my weight.   Here he says that doesn't work anyway!  {shakes head} Be sure to notice how I misquoted, misrepresented and ridiculed Mark Sisson, took pot shots at his appearance and denigrated him on a personal level.  Oh wait.  That didn't happen.  This post was originally viewed by around 400 people and didn't even crack the Top10 list at the time.

Since I totally forgot to do a post bump last week, I'll have a two-fer for you today of examples of the few posts I've done concerning Mark Sisson here at the Asylum.  I did so few, and tried so hard to build my readership by trashing him that I even had to update the labels on this post to include the man's name.  Yet I thought I'd use these bumps to shed some light on Mark Sisson's career as a disappearing artist of sorts -- making criticisms disappear.  This is an opportunity to address Point 8-of-12 of Mark's email to Charles Grashow as pertains me.   8.         I find it more than ironic that a person who would continuously try to take me down, criticize my business, question my ethics and motives and generally use my site and my products as fodder to build her own traffic would then beg me to disassociate with and publicly denounce others to whom she does the exact same thing. On that principle alone I wouldn’t ...

Crying Wolf In a 12 point email* to Charles Grashow, dated April 1, 2013, Mark Sisson wrote: Why discuss this now? Oh ... it probably should have been dealt with months ago, but somehow I expected this would have settled down by now and this wouldn't need to be aired.  You see, Robb Wolf got mad at me for asking what the paleo diet that the Reno First Responders were counseled to consume actually entails. Or near as I can figure that's what first got under his skin. Either that or the fact that he couldn't then, and still can't now, take a solid position on carbohydrates in the paleo diet. Either way, he felt the need to lie on his website, in this comment :

NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather news story link

Robb Wolf has another post up complaining  about paleo bashing.  This time it is about this article in Scientific American:   How to Really Eat Like a Hunter-Gatherer: Why the Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked .  Such articles are written because: People, particularly folks in the academic scene, seem to really have their britches bunched over biochemists, MD’s and others using this evolutionary biology concept to look at nutrition and health. Yeah that's it.  The article begins with: image link Meet Grok . According to his online profile, he is a tall, lean, ripped and agile 30-year-old. By every measure, Grok is in superb health: low blood pressure; no inflammation; ideal levels of insulin, glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides. He and his family eat really healthy, too. They gather wild seeds, grasses, and nuts; seasonal vegetables; roots and berries. They hunt and fish their own meat. Between foraging, building sturdy shelters from na...

S. Boyd Eaton, who along with Melvin Konner is generally considered one of the "Founding Fathers of Paleo", published   Paleolithic Nutrition:  A Consideration of its Nature and Current Implications   ( request doc share  if link is broken)    in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1985.  In 1997, this duo (with SB Eaton III) published  Paleolithic nutrition revisited: A twelve-year retrospective on its nature and implications   ( request doc share  if link is broken) in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.   As time progressed, these authors would collaborate with various others, including two with which most in the paleo community are well familiar:  Loren Cordain and Staffan Lindeberg.  These four were among the authors of the 2002 article in Preventative Medicine entitled Evolutionary Health Promotion , and a followup in the same journal authored by Eaton, Cordain and Lindeberg entitled Evolutionary Health ...