The Carb-Sane Asylum

The first ever awards to be handed out here at the Asylum.  We'll honor here the most insane goings on in the low carb world in 2011.  These honors are bestowed with lighthearted humor, even if some were earned for actions of a more serious nature.  So, without further delay, in no particular order, I present The 2011 InSanies

Should I post the real version of this?  Let's imagine that Jane Smith has a bit of a weight problem growing up, gets married, has a couple of kids and some acknowledged issues with "emotional eating".   Jane has tried everything and nothing else seemed to work.   Around a decade ago, at 180 lbs, she discovers Weight-B-Gone, just enough different that she decides she might as well give it a try.  Over the next year following the WBG program, Jane loses 45 lbs.  Jane loves the WBG!  Woo hoo!   Jane keeps the weight off for six months but then some life issues arise.  She stops going to the gym regularly and does the diet plan half-assed on and off for several years.  Four years later she finds herself weighing in at 210 lbs. 

Tsimblist brought this presentation Dr. Nathaniel Dominy to my attention recently.  Something commonly raised in favor of a high (animal) fat diet in paleolithic humans is the notion that this was required and/or precipitated the increase in human brain size.  He seems to be saying this is not so much the case as is often cited.  (Around the 9 minute mark).  This is a huge point!!  Dominy does not come across as some vegan shill, that's for sure.  He pretty much comes out and says that meat eating is a no-brainer -- we're not herbivores -- but favors a higher percentage of plant foods likely comprising our ancestral diet.  Worth a watch/listen.

Believe it or not, this post has been in my draft bin getting retooled and almost published several times over since last March!  But I've always never quite gotten it to publish ready, or whatever sparked the rant died down a bit so it got shelved for another day.  But recently the topic of eating disorders was inadvertently brought to the fore by Jimmy Moore in his Jessica Biel spiel.  So dust off this one I did ...  and still, it sort of languished until something happened the past couple of days over at PaleoHacks.  Someone asked about purging -- as in bulimia -- contemplating inducing vomiting to rid themselves of the holiday indulgences.  There were several, I thought, constructive responses and no nastiness ensued that I was aware of.  Perhaps the initial question was a joke or whatever, but in rather short order the question disappeared entirely!  Not closed, but vaporized.  Which left a bad taste in my mouth.  Not because of any...

I came across this one a while back and found it fascinating. The Physiologic Effects of Caloric Restriction Are Reflected in the in Vivo Adipocyte-Enriched Proteome of Overweight/Obese Subjects In this study, 8 overweight/obese individuals (4M/4F, 30-60 y.o.a., BMI ≥ 27, otherwise healthy) were treated with a very low calorie diet (500 cal/day shakes + unlimited veggies) for 5 weeks followed by a weight stabilizing diet for 3 weeks.  Abdominal subcutaneous fat biopsies were taken before and after the 8 week intervention.   There's a lot more here than what I'll address in this post.  I hope to return to this at some future date, but in keeping with this series, I want to focus on the fat storage portions of the study.  I have quite a bit in the pike regarding fatty acid transport and storage in various cell types.  While fatty acids can be transported into (and out of) cells by passive means, it became apparent to me a while ago that the relatively rapid cl...

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you who celebrates the birth of Our Savior a very Merry Christmas!  May you stay safe, warm and healthy at this joyous time.    While many bloggers will probably be scarce until after the New Year, yours truly will likely be blogging up a storm as my day job is on hiatus for a month.  Hope to "see" you around, but if not, that's OK too ... I'll see you in 2011.  This afternoon I'm cooking up traditional Christmas Eve fare of my husband's ethnic tradition.  Perhaps I'll have some pics to post over in the Culinary Concoctions blog.   Thanks for reading and contributing here, it means a lot to me.

Well folks, as 2011 draws to a close, it seems the reason for the Asylum's very existence has all but evaporated into thin air.  What?  You didn't know?  Yes indeed!  Apparently my work here is done as nobody really believes that carbs cause insulin cause fat accumulation stuff anymore.  But I'm hopelessly mired in debunk mode so, of course, I just happen to glance at the insulin levels in studies when I read them, and so it was when I revisited the  Dansinger diet study recently.   And so, just in case there's even a single person out there who still believes that their low carb diet is working by lowering their insulin levels, I thought I'd start this first ever compilation post here. OK, I'll knock off the sarcasm now.  Yes, I know most of my readers will find this post repetitive of what I've already presented ample evidence for here.  But since part of the purpose of this blog in the first place was for me to organize information ...