Monthly Archives: November 2011

Around the Web; Home for the Holiday Edition

The last three weeks have been busy with traveling:

We’re delighted to be home.

A few events are upcoming. First, I’ll be recording a video interview with Dr. Mercola on Thursday; I don’t know when the video will go up on the web, but in my experience Dr Mercola doesn’t waste time. Second, Shou-Ching and I will give a casual talk, question-and-answer session, and book signing at Green Meadows Farm in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, on Sunday Dec 4. (We blogged about Diana and Andrew Rodgers and Green Meadows Farm on Oct 25; the farmstand is a great place to buy organic food.)

I have some obligations to fulfill this week to my business consulting clients and to the Ancestral Health Society, but once those are past I will catch up on the Q&A thread. My apologies to those who are waiting for answers; thank you for your patience.

[1] Faces therapy:

Via Govardhan Gerhard Ziegler on Facebook.

[2] Welcome to the blogosphere, Dr. Rosedale!: Dr. Ron Rosedale has added a blog to his site, and continues the “safe starches” debate with a long post, “Is the term ‘safe starches’ an oxymoron?” This was in response to my previous installment in the debate, “Safe Starches Symposium: Dr Ron Rosedale.”

Concerning the safety of glucose, I am going to let Ron have the last word, as it seems we are beginning to repeat ourselves and I am eager to move on to other topics. I don’t find Ron’s arguments persuasive, and I recommend reading Dr. Emily Deans who has boiled the issue down to essentials.

One issue Ron brought up, however, does deserve further discussion: the relation between carbohydrate intake, thyroid hormone levels, and longevity. I’ve touched on this before (Carbohydrates and the Thyroid, Aug 24, 2011; High LDL on Paleo Revisited: Low Carb & the Thyroid, Sep 1, 2011), but it is a fascinating topic, and a good way to begin the important topic of longevity. Ron’s discussion and a post by Ambimorph on PaleoHacks will make excellent starting points.

But that is for the future.

Ron and I were not the only ones having a conversation about carbs and obesity. Gary Taubes has posted a 5-part series on food reward, and Stephan Guyenet replied. The sentences that struck me most strongly were offered by Gary, in this comment:

[A]fter I first went very low carb I added back toasted pumpernickel and other low GI breads to my diet. My problem was postural hypotension and the added carbs took care of that immediately. My weight is stable also. But not with starches; with low GI wheat.

To me this illustrates both the health benefits of modest starch consumption, and how difficult it can be to make sense of arguments against starch.

[3] Music to read by:

[4] Interesting posts:

Russ Farris, author of The Potbelly Syndrome, and an excellent writer working along the same lines as us relating chronic diseases to chronic infections, is coming out with a new book, Falling Apart Syndrome. He has created a web site and is making some appendices available for download. Highly recommended.

Jamie Scott mines the literature on grains, and strikes gold. Jamie goes on to treat WGA.

Chris Masterjohn reports that the lard diet commonly used to indict “high-fat diets” is much higher in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats than previously thought. This is good for me; it makes the data fit my obesity theory better.

Melissa McEwen brainstorms about acid reflux. Emily Deans discusses how stress affects your gut.

Aetiology investigates an “Urgent Warning” from Men’s Health magazine: “Sex with Animals Causes Cancer.”

Richard Fernandez discusses the evolution of cutlery in the West.

Dr Briffa believes that the way to protect yourself against a deadly flu is to catch a mild flu.

Via Seth Roberts, the trouble with lab mice. “We’ve had thousands of mouse studies of tuberculosis, yet not one of them has ever been used to pick a new drug regimen that succeeded in clinical trials. ‘This isn’t just true for TB; it’s true for virtually every disease,’ he tells me.”

Beth Mazur employs Martin Berkhan’s “cheat day” strategies for the holidays.

GettingStronger.org offers the “Hypothalamic Hypothesis of Obesity.” Dan’s Plan notes that eating saturated fat helps weight loss and appetite control.

I am pro-salt, and so is evolutionary selection, but the FDA wants it removed from foods. A new Cochrane review finds no clear benefit from reducing salt, and reports that no long-term studies on the effects of salt intake have yet been performed.

Speaking of governments, the European Union has outlawed claims that water relieves dehydration; this reminds Dr Briffa of an anecdote.

Michael A Smith takes high-intensity training outdoors.

Dennis Mangan argues for exercise as the fountain of youth.

Stargazey discusses mitochondrial dysfunction.

Lucas Tafur discusses how gut bacteria affect ketone production, and the relation between gut bacteria and obesity.

John Hawks reports that ApoE4, the ancestral allele of ApoE, raises Alzheimer’s risk in Europeans but not Africans. There must be a European-specific mutation in another gene which interacts badly with ApoE4.

Deacon Patrick, who we’ve mentioned here before, continues to recover from his brain injury.

FoodSnipps likes our diet: “I like … the Jaminets’ “Perfect Health Diet”. It is about the closest thing to a real paleo diet in my opinion. I have lost about 6 pounds and I feel more alert and rested. The addition of specific starches has ended my stall.” Joanne Nelson of Joanne’s Book Reviews liked our book. SCDKat named us her favorite talk at Wise Traditions. Brian Cormack Carr lists us among his Paleo diet heroes. Kamal Patel offers “The Paleo Guru Guide”.

The Primal Woman has a story of MS remission on Paleo.

[5] Cute animal photo:

From the Black Rhino Range Expansion Project via Gawker.

[6] Modern science: Scientists are supposed to be sophisticated thinkers, but overspecialization, lack of perspective, and the need to pursue funding often lead them astray.

The Scientist reports on a recent paper in Cell Metabolism – a high-impact journal – showing the mechanism by which neuronal starvation leads to food cravings. It turns out that autophagy – the process of “self eating” that cells utilize when resources are scarce – in hypothalamic neurons triggers hunger. When they blocked autophagy, mice ate less and were skinnier:

Kaushik and her colleagues then tested whether blocking autophagy in AgRP neurons would inhibit hunger. Mice lacking the autophagy gene atg7 in their hypothalamic neurons ate less food after fasting, and had higher levels of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC), another hypothalamic neuron, and the hormone alpha-melanocyte (alpha-MSH), both of which typically suppress hunger and stimulate physical exercise. As a result, the knockout mice were leaner than their wildtype counterparts.

This is important work. What disturbs me is what the authors see as the next step:

[S]aid co-author Rajat Singh of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine[:] “If therapeutic approaches were designed to control or decrease autophagy selectively in AgRP neurons, then these could potentially prevent obesity and diabetes.”

One cause of neuronal starvation is infection by bacteria that steal energy substrates. Autophagy is part of the innate immune defense, and suppressing it will make any neuronal infection worse. Dr. Singh’s proposed therapy might exacerbate the disease.

A ketogenic diet, on the other hand, will avert neuronal starvation without inhibiting autophagy or immunity. There is no sign, however, that the researchers considered testing a ketogenic diet against autophagy-mediated food cravings.

[7] Interesting comments:

  • Tuck, in response to my New York City talk, finds some links between impaired extracellular matrix integrity and disease.
  • Adam and Mario report that H. pylori infection can raise LDL.
  • George Henderson discusses the toxicity of vitamin A combined with alcohol. Don’t drink and cod liver oil!

[8] Vaccines and “The Greater Good”: Wise Traditions 2011 included a showing of the new documentary, “The Greater Good,” by Leslie Manookian. The Greater Good examines the issue of mandatory childhood vaccination, and makes a case against laws mandating early vaccination and in support of more thorough study of the risks and benefits of vaccination.

The movie has won many prizes at film festivals, and Shou-Ching and I watched it together last night. It is excellent.

Vaccines certainly deliver benefits. However, any immunogenic intervention is going to carry risks as well. Also, the benefits may not be as large as most believe. Historically, the great decline in infectious disease rates occurred before vaccines were in wide use.

If vaccination is mandatory, then we have no way of assessing the risks from vaccination. If vaccination is optional, we will have two populations of children – the vaccinated and unvaccinated – and will have the opportunity to carefully assess health outcomes.

Early studies doing just this do not clearly indicate that the benefits of most vaccines outweigh possible harms. A large German study recently found that vaccinated children have fewer of the illnesses that they were vaccinated against, but more of other illnesses, than unvaccinated children. (Source: Schmitz R et al. Vaccination status and health in children and adolescents: findings of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS). Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2011 Feb;108(7):99-104. http://pmid.us/21412506.)

Here is the trailer:

[9] Shou-Ching’s Photo-Art:

[10] Video of the week: Alexander Tsiaras of Yale Medical School takes us “From Conception to Birth”:

Around the Web; Wise Traditions & CrossFit NYC Pre-Talk Edition

I’ll be speaking on Saturday Nov 12 at the Wise Traditions Conference in Dallas, doing the “Wellness Track” from 9:00 am until 12:15 am. The conference will be full of great speakers, so please consider attending:

Wise Traditions Conference ~ Dallas, TX ~ November 11-14 2010

I’ll also be speaking on Saturday Nov 19 at CrossFit NYC, at 25 W. 26th Street, 3rd floor (between Broadway and 6th Avenue). There will be a charge of $15 for a seminar plus question-and-answer session that will run from noon until about 2:30 pm. The talk will be in the 4th floor annex. Some information is also available through the Eating Paleo in NYC Meetup group.

In Dallas I’ll speak in two 90-minute sessions, the first on diet and nutrition and the second on healing and preventing disease. The second talk will include material that hasn’t yet appeared in our book or blog.

The CrossFit NYC talk will discuss evolutionary evidence for the optimal diet, factors that can impair health or sabotage fitness, and lifestyle and dietary steps to overcome those factors, with a special focus on a few bottlenecks to fitness that may commonly be overlooked by Paleo or CrossFit adherents.

I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in Dallas and New York!

Alas, due to a backlog of work, I probably won’t blog until I’m back from Dallas.

[1] Music to read by: Shirley Temple has animals in her stomach:

[2] Interesting posts this week:

Gorillas are dying from a common human respiratory virus, and an insect invasion is terrorizing Manhattan. Don’t worry, it’s the Upper West Side, CrossFit NYC is safe!

Stephan Guyenet refutes the insulin-is-to-fat-storage-as-a-car’s-gas-pedal-is-to-acceleration hypothesis of obesity by noting that genetic manipulations of various genes in the liver only generate high circulating insulin (4 to 10 times higher than normal) and yet these high insulin levels do not lead to an increased level of fat storage.

Wired magazine reports some explorations in food reward:

  • Music can change the taste of wine.
  • People prefer beer laced with balsamic vinegar (as long they don’t know it’s been added)
  • People prefer paté made from dog food.

So if you’re trying to make your food bland to lose weight, you might try playing music you dislike at dinner, keeping vinegar out of your beer, and removing dog food from your paté recipe.

A study finds that saturated fat increases BMI more than fat mass, which I take to mean that dairy fats promote muscle gain.

Kelly Starrett offers his most important MWOD ever.

Robb Wolf and Mr X discuss testosterone.

Seth Roberts reports “a stunning discovery”: it’s better to take vitamin D in the morning.

Ned Kock reveals the “mysterious factor X” in the China Study.

Don Matesz asks if antibiotics may cause obesity and cancer.

Touching on a topic raised here not long ago (Local Farming and The Fight for Quality Food, Oct 25, 2011), Melissa McEwen quotes Joel Salatin explaining why he raises an unnatural breed of chicken that can barely walk and sickens by age 10 weeks.

Also related to that post, Dr. Michael Greger offers some numbers on the health risks from unhealthy livestock.

Twenty thousand deaths a year from prescription drug overdose. Still waiting for the first case of Perfect Health Diet overdose.

The newest fashion: edible dresses. And the material is PHD compatible!

Happy blogiversary, Richard Nikoley!

Via Dr BG, “The Gut-Brain Connection: An Inside Look at Depression.”

Seth Roberts says that sunlight works “via nerve, not blood.”

Mrs. United States 2011 is Paleo and does CrossFit.

[3] Cute animal photo: The cute animals get all the love:

By Govardhan Gerhard Ziegler via Matthew Dalby on Facebook. Bonus red panda video, also from Matthew:

[4] Medical breakthrough! A California doctor has learned how to turn brown eyes blue:

Which calls for more music:

[5] Joshua Newman has your nerd humor:

Two chemists walk into a bar.

The first says, “I’d like to order some H20.”

The second says, “I’d like to order some H20, too.”

The second man dies.

[6] Comment of the week: Scotlyn on calorie restriction for longevity:

Regarding caloric restriction, I once had a short correspondence with Dr Speakman, a well-known caloric restriction researcher at Aberdeen university and one of the authors of this and this.

I was asking if there was any way to measure the overall well-being of calorically restricted rats, as one of the main considerations when extending lifespan is whether it is possible to extend the quality of life as well, or if the result instead would only be a “thin” extension of existence “like too little butter scraped on too much bread” (Bilbo in Lord of the Rings).

I also asked if there were lessons to be drawn from the Ancel Keys starvation studies, which showed that caloric restriction in humans led to constant hunger, cold, lack of energy or libido, and total fixation on food and other mental and physical health derangements.

This was his fascinating (and faultlessly generous to an unsolicited query) reply:

The Keys study is very revealing but differs from modern CR protocols in three ways. First the extent of restriction was much greater. Second they were also malnourished in some vitamin components. However, their experiences are all exaggerations of the experience of many modern people who do CR. The third difference is they were under involuntary restriction and have very different motivations to modern CR proponents who believe they will benefit directly from what they are doing. This cost benefit difference is very important to one’s psychological reaction to the treatment. I have no doubt many CR adherents are able to suppress much of the negative effects of deprivation. Lab mice are also not volunteers and I suspect if we could measure it they would be miserable.

Does this mean you would be miserable on CR? From your message I guess the answer is yes. Does this mean all CR people are miserable? Absolutely not.

It isn’t a life I would choose for a few extra months in the nursing home but for some people it clearly is. Its all down to personal choices I guess…

His last point is in reference to his own finding that lab rats who commence caloric restriction in adulthood gain only small increments in lifespan.

[7] Moving up the career ladder: Spanish neurologist invents “neurogastronomy” and becomes a New York City chef:

[8] Shou-Ching’s Photo Art:

[9] Video of the week: Two 20-foot tallwide, 1500 year old Giant Sequoias fall. German tourists capture the last moments on video: